# Excessive dependency chaining?

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [June 5, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133 "2013-06-05T16:49:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 14\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/morgan_blackthorne/32/100_2.png) [@Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Morgan_Blackthorne)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/1 "2013-06-05T16:49:32Z")

</div>

I’m only using a handful of cookbooks directly, but my berkshelf list is  
large. Pulling in Apache2 and Nginx adds in a lot of dependencies, one of  
which is perl, and one of the Java cookbooks ends up pulling in Gnome and  
X-windows. One of the chef cookbooks (chef-client?) pulls in Windows. These  
are all headless Linux instances without X installed (and I’d like to keep  
it that way, heh).

When the run list is compiled and the cookbooks are sent to the client,  
they end up transferring a lot of cookbooks that never end up actually  
getting used. And if I touch any of the higher level cookbooks (like the  
one for my org that configures some things via LWRPs and overrides some  
cookbook resources), berkshelf then has to parse the list of all those  
dependencies as well just to upload my local cookbook. I even tried using a  
group to filter things down but dependencies are resolved even when using  
groups. Berks also seems to re-upload every cookbook even if the version  
number hasn’t changed, which is odd to me. (Fixing that would minimize at  
least some of the annoyance factor of how long “berks upload” takes.)

Is this just a situation where “deal with it” is the most practical advice,  
or is there a way to break some of these dependencies that I know aren’t  
going to be reached in my use case (like the gnome and windows  
cookbooks…)?

## –

~_~ StormeRider ~_~

“Every world needs its heroes […] They inspire us to be better than we  
are. And they protect from the darkness that’s just around the corner.”

(from Smallville Season 6x1: “Zod”)

On why I hate the phrase “that’s so lame”… [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ranjib](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/ranjib/32/1040_2.png) [@Ranjib](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Ranjib)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 5:03pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/2 "2013-06-05T17:03:09Z")

</div>

there are no clear solution right now. this issue have been discussed  
previously , specifically in context of platform specific cookbooks.  
Currently chef does not have support for conditional cookbook dependency.  
So even if a parent cookbook conditionally uses a dependent cookbook , it  
has to declare this in its metadata. iirc it was suggested in certain cases  
the cookbook author can skip enlisting those conditional cookbooks as  
dependency in metadata and it was also assumed that the user will have an  
understanding of this, and will assign those conditional cookbooks  
explicitly in the node's run list when they need them. but i dont think we  
can generalized these approach for all cookbooks.

On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Morgan Blackthorne [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)wrote:

> I'm only using a handful of cookbooks directly, but my berkshelf list is  
> large. Pulling in Apache2 and Nginx adds in a lot of dependencies, one of  
> which is perl, and one of the Java cookbooks ends up pulling in Gnome and  
> X-windows. One of the chef cookbooks (chef-client?) pulls in Windows. These  
> are all headless Linux instances without X installed (and I'd like to keep  
> it that way, heh).
> 
> When the run list is compiled and the cookbooks are sent to the client,  
> they end up transferring a lot of cookbooks that never end up actually  
> getting used. And if I touch any of the higher level cookbooks (like the  
> one for my org that configures some things via LWRPs and overrides some  
> cookbook resources), berkshelf then has to parse the list of all those  
> dependencies as well just to upload my local cookbook. I even tried using a  
> group to filter things down but dependencies are resolved even when using  
> groups. Berks also seems to re-upload every cookbook even if the version  
> number hasn't changed, which is odd to me. (Fixing that would minimize at  
> least some of the annoyance factor of how long "berks upload" takes.)
> 
> Is this just a situation where "deal with it" is the most practical  
> advice, or is there a way to break some of these dependencies that I know  
> aren't going to be reached in my use case (like the gnome and windows  
> cookbooks...)?
> 
> ## --
> 
> ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> 
> "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> 
> (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> 
> On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/morgan_blackthorne/32/100_2.png) [@Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Morgan_Blackthorne)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/3 "2013-06-05T17:11:02Z")

</div>

I'm assuming that the cookbook metadata can't be overridden like resources  
can?

On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:

> there are no clear solution right now. this issue have been discussed  
> previously , specifically in context of platform specific cookbooks.  
> Currently chef does not have support for conditional cookbook dependency.  
> So even if a parent cookbook conditionally uses a dependent cookbook , it  
> has to declare this in its metadata. iirc it was suggested in certain cases  
> the cookbook author can skip enlisting those conditional cookbooks as  
> dependency in metadata and it was also assumed that the user will have an  
> understanding of this, and will assign those conditional cookbooks  
> explicitly in the node's run list when they need them. but i dont think we  
> can generalized these approach for all cookbooks.
> 
> On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Morgan Blackthorne \<[stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)\<javascript:\_e({}, 'cvml', 'stormerider@gmail.com');\>
> 
> > wrote:
> 
> > I'm only using a handful of cookbooks directly, but my berkshelf list is  
> > large. Pulling in Apache2 and Nginx adds in a lot of dependencies, one of  
> > which is perl, and one of the Java cookbooks ends up pulling in Gnome and  
> > X-windows. One of the chef cookbooks (chef-client?) pulls in Windows. These  
> > are all headless Linux instances without X installed (and I'd like to keep  
> > it that way, heh).
> > 
> > When the run list is compiled and the cookbooks are sent to the client,  
> > they end up transferring a lot of cookbooks that never end up actually  
> > getting used. And if I touch any of the higher level cookbooks (like the  
> > one for my org that configures some things via LWRPs and overrides some  
> > cookbook resources), berkshelf then has to parse the list of all those  
> > dependencies as well just to upload my local cookbook. I even tried using a  
> > group to filter things down but dependencies are resolved even when using  
> > groups. Berks also seems to re-upload every cookbook even if the version  
> > number hasn't changed, which is odd to me. (Fixing that would minimize at  
> > least some of the annoyance factor of how long "berks upload" takes.)
> > 
> > Is this just a situation where "deal with it" is the most practical  
> > advice, or is there a way to break some of these dependencies that I know  
> > aren't going to be reached in my use case (like the gnome and windows  
> > cookbooks...)?
> > 
> > ## --
> > 
> > ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> > 
> > "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> > are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> > 
> > (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> > 
> > On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

## --

~_~ StormeRider ~_~

"Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."

(from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")

On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ranjib](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/ranjib/32/1040_2.png) [@Ranjib](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Ranjib)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/4 "2013-06-05T17:14:41Z")

</div>

no. but its ruby so there must be a way to hack it (which will involve  
tampering core chef's classes/modules) to do what you want

On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 10:11 AM, Morgan Blackthorne  
[stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)wrote:

> I'm assuming that the cookbook metadata can't be overridden like resources  
> can?
> 
> On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> 
> > there are no clear solution right now. this issue have been discussed  
> > previously , specifically in context of platform specific cookbooks.  
> > Currently chef does not have support for conditional cookbook dependency.  
> > So even if a parent cookbook conditionally uses a dependent cookbook , it  
> > has to declare this in its metadata. iirc it was suggested in certain cases  
> > the cookbook author can skip enlisting those conditional cookbooks as  
> > dependency in metadata and it was also assumed that the user will have an  
> > understanding of this, and will assign those conditional cookbooks  
> > explicitly in the node's run list when they need them. but i dont think we  
> > can generalized these approach for all cookbooks.
> > 
> > On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Morgan Blackthorne \<[stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)
> > 
> > > wrote:
> > 
> > > I'm only using a handful of cookbooks directly, but my berkshelf list is  
> > > large. Pulling in Apache2 and Nginx adds in a lot of dependencies, one of  
> > > which is perl, and one of the Java cookbooks ends up pulling in Gnome and  
> > > X-windows. One of the chef cookbooks (chef-client?) pulls in Windows. These  
> > > are all headless Linux instances without X installed (and I'd like to keep  
> > > it that way, heh).
> > > 
> > > When the run list is compiled and the cookbooks are sent to the client,  
> > > they end up transferring a lot of cookbooks that never end up actually  
> > > getting used. And if I touch any of the higher level cookbooks (like the  
> > > one for my org that configures some things via LWRPs and overrides some  
> > > cookbook resources), berkshelf then has to parse the list of all those  
> > > dependencies as well just to upload my local cookbook. I even tried using a  
> > > group to filter things down but dependencies are resolved even when using  
> > > groups. Berks also seems to re-upload every cookbook even if the version  
> > > number hasn't changed, which is odd to me. (Fixing that would minimize at  
> > > least some of the annoyance factor of how long "berks upload" takes.)
> > > 
> > > Is this just a situation where "deal with it" is the most practical  
> > > advice, or is there a way to break some of these dependencies that I know  
> > > aren't going to be reached in my use case (like the gnome and windows  
> > > cookbooks...)?
> > > 
> > > ## --
> > > 
> > > ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> > > 
> > > "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> > > are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> > > 
> > > (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> > > 
> > > On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)
> 
> ## --
> 
> ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> 
> "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> 
> (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> 
> On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/morgan_blackthorne/32/100_2.png) [@Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Morgan_Blackthorne)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/5 "2013-06-05T17:26:15Z")

</div>

Hacking internals isn't what I want. 🙂

Any ideas on the Berkshelf reuploading without a version change? Is there a  
config setting to alter that behavior, perhaps?

On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:

> no. but its ruby so there must be a way to hack it (which will involve  
> tampering core chef's classes/modules) to do what you want
> 
> On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 10:11 AM, Morgan Blackthorne \<[stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)\<javascript:\_e({}, 'cvml', 'stormerider@gmail.com');\>
> 
> > wrote:
> 
> > I'm assuming that the cookbook metadata can't be overridden like  
> > resources can?
> > 
> > On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> > 
> > > there are no clear solution right now. this issue have been discussed  
> > > previously , specifically in context of platform specific cookbooks.  
> > > Currently chef does not have support for conditional cookbook dependency.  
> > > So even if a parent cookbook conditionally uses a dependent cookbook , it  
> > > has to declare this in its metadata. iirc it was suggested in certain cases  
> > > the cookbook author can skip enlisting those conditional cookbooks as  
> > > dependency in metadata and it was also assumed that the user will have an  
> > > understanding of this, and will assign those conditional cookbooks  
> > > explicitly in the node's run list when they need them. but i dont think we  
> > > can generalized these approach for all cookbooks.
> > > 
> > > On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Morgan Blackthorne \<  
> > > [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > I'm only using a handful of cookbooks directly, but my berkshelf list  
> > > > is large. Pulling in Apache2 and Nginx adds in a lot of dependencies, one  
> > > > of which is perl, and one of the Java cookbooks ends up pulling in Gnome  
> > > > and X-windows. One of the chef cookbooks (chef-client?) pulls in  
> > > > Windows. These are all headless Linux instances without X installed (and  
> > > > I'd like to keep it that way, heh).
> > > > 
> > > > When the run list is compiled and the cookbooks are sent to the client,  
> > > > they end up transferring a lot of cookbooks that never end up actually  
> > > > getting used. And if I touch any of the higher level cookbooks (like the  
> > > > one for my org that configures some things via LWRPs and overrides some  
> > > > cookbook resources), berkshelf then has to parse the list of all those  
> > > > dependencies as well just to upload my local cookbook. I even tried using a  
> > > > group to filter things down but dependencies are resolved even when using  
> > > > groups. Berks also seems to re-upload every cookbook even if the version  
> > > > number hasn't changed, which is odd to me. (Fixing that would minimize at  
> > > > least some of the annoyance factor of how long "berks upload" takes.)
> > > > 
> > > > Is this just a situation where "deal with it" is the most practical  
> > > > advice, or is there a way to break some of these dependencies that I know  
> > > > aren't going to be reached in my use case (like the gnome and windows  
> > > > cookbooks...)?
> > > > 
> > > > ## --
> > > > 
> > > > ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> > > > 
> > > > "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than  
> > > > we are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> > > > 
> > > > (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> > > > 
> > > > On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)
> > 
> > ## --
> > 
> > ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> > 
> > "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> > are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> > 
> > (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> > 
> > On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

## --

~_~ StormeRider ~_~

"Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."

(from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")

On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ranjib](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/ranjib/32/1040_2.png) [@Ranjib](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Ranjib)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 5:42pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/6 "2013-06-05T17:42:43Z")

</div>

Berkself has a nofreeze option iirc it does not bump the version....are u  
using knife-spork?  
On Jun 5, 2013 10:26 AM, "Morgan Blackthorne" [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com) wrote:

> Hacking internals isn't what I want. 🙂
> 
> Any ideas on the Berkshelf reuploading without a version change? Is there  
> a config setting to alter that behavior, perhaps?
> 
> On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> 
> > no. but its ruby so there must be a way to hack it (which will involve  
> > tampering core chef's classes/modules) to do what you want
> > 
> > On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 10:11 AM, Morgan Blackthorne \<  
> > [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > 
> > > I'm assuming that the cookbook metadata can't be overridden like  
> > > resources can?
> > > 
> > > On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> > > 
> > > > there are no clear solution right now. this issue have been discussed  
> > > > previously , specifically in context of platform specific cookbooks.  
> > > > Currently chef does not have support for conditional cookbook dependency.  
> > > > So even if a parent cookbook conditionally uses a dependent cookbook , it  
> > > > has to declare this in its metadata. iirc it was suggested in certain cases  
> > > > the cookbook author can skip enlisting those conditional cookbooks as  
> > > > dependency in metadata and it was also assumed that the user will have an  
> > > > understanding of this, and will assign those conditional cookbooks  
> > > > explicitly in the node's run list when they need them. but i dont think we  
> > > > can generalized these approach for all cookbooks.
> > > > 
> > > > On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Morgan Blackthorne \<  
> > > > [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > I'm only using a handful of cookbooks directly, but my berkshelf list  
> > > > > is large. Pulling in Apache2 and Nginx adds in a lot of dependencies, one  
> > > > > of which is perl, and one of the Java cookbooks ends up pulling in Gnome  
> > > > > and X-windows. One of the chef cookbooks (chef-client?) pulls in  
> > > > > Windows. These are all headless Linux instances without X installed (and  
> > > > > I'd like to keep it that way, heh).
> > > > > 
> > > > > When the run list is compiled and the cookbooks are sent to the  
> > > > > client, they end up transferring a lot of cookbooks that never end up  
> > > > > actually getting used. And if I touch any of the higher level cookbooks  
> > > > > (like the one for my org that configures some things via LWRPs and  
> > > > > overrides some cookbook resources), berkshelf then has to parse the list of  
> > > > > all those dependencies as well just to upload my local cookbook. I even  
> > > > > tried using a group to filter things down but dependencies are resolved  
> > > > > even when using groups. Berks also seems to re-upload every cookbook even  
> > > > > if the version number hasn't changed, which is odd to me. (Fixing that  
> > > > > would minimize at least some of the annoyance factor of how long "berks  
> > > > > upload" takes.)
> > > > > 
> > > > > Is this just a situation where "deal with it" is the most practical  
> > > > > advice, or is there a way to break some of these dependencies that I know  
> > > > > aren't going to be reached in my use case (like the gnome and windows  
> > > > > cookbooks...)?
> > > > > 
> > > > > ## --
> > > > > 
> > > > > ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> > > > > 
> > > > > "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than  
> > > > > we are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> > > > > 
> > > > > (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> > > > > 
> > > > > On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)
> > > 
> > > ## --
> > > 
> > > ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> > > 
> > > "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> > > are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> > > 
> > > (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> > > 
> > > On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)
> 
> ## --
> 
> ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> 
> "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> 
> (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> 
> On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/morgan_blackthorne/32/100_2.png) [@Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Morgan_Blackthorne)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 6:30pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/7 "2013-06-05T18:30:54Z")

</div>

I have it installed but I bump my personal cookbook manually... Haven't  
gotten sport into my workflow yet.

To clarify, I think what I want (at least for cookbooks in the "site  
:opscode" group) is for them to only be reuploaded to the Chef server if  
the Chef server does not have that version already uploaded, instead of  
having "berks upload" push all ~40 cookbooks each time when only 1 has  
changed. Pushing all the opscode cookbooks each run is just wasted cycles.

On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:

> Berkself has a nofreeze option iirc it does not bump the version....are u  
> using knife-spork?  
> On Jun 5, 2013 10:26 AM, "Morgan Blackthorne" [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)  
> wrote:
> 
> Hacking internals isn't what I want. 🙂
> 
> Any ideas on the Berkshelf reuploading without a version change? Is there  
> a config setting to alter that behavior, perhaps?
> 
> On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> 
> no. but its ruby so there must be a way to hack it (which will involve  
> tampering core chef's classes/modules) to do what you want
> 
> On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 10:11 AM, Morgan Blackthorne \<[stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)
> 
> > wrote:
> 
> I'm assuming that the cookbook metadata can't be overridden like resources  
> can?
> 
> On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> 
> there are no clear solution right now. this issue have been discussed  
> previously , specifically in context of platform specific cookbooks.  
> Currently chef does not have support for conditional cookbook dependency.  
> So even if a parent cookbook conditionally uses a dependent cookbook , it  
> has to declare this in its metadata. iirc it was suggested in certain cases  
> the cookbook author can skip enlisting those conditional cookbooks as  
> dependency in metadata and it was also assumed that the user will have an  
> understanding of this, and will assign those conditional cookbooks  
> explicitly in the node's run list when they need them. but i dont think we  
> can generalized these approach for all cookbooks.
> 
> On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Morgan Blackthorne [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)wrote:
> 
> I'm only using a handful of cookbooks directly, but my berkshelf list is  
> large. Pulling in Apache2 and Nginx adds in a lot of dependencies, one of  
> which is perl, and one of the Java cookbooks ends up pulling in Gnome and  
> X-windows. One of the chef cookbooks (chef-client?) pulls in Windows. These  
> are all headless Linux instances without X installed (and I'd like to keep  
> it that way, heh).
> 
> When the run list is compiled and the cookbooks are sent to the client,  
> they end up transferring a lot of cookbooks that never end up actually  
> getting used. And if I touch any of the higher level cookbooks (like the  
> one for my org that configures some things via LWRPs and overrides some  
> cookbook resources), berkshelf then has to parse the list of all those  
> dependencies as well just to upload my local cookbook. I even tried using a  
> group to filter things down but dependencies are resolved even when using  
> groups. Berks also seems to re-upload every cookbook even if the version  
> number hasn't changed, which is odd to me. (Fixing that would minimize at  
> least some of the annoyance factor of how long "berks upload" takes.)
> 
> Is this just a situation where "deal with it" is the most practical  
> advice, or is there a way to break some of these dependencies that I know  
> aren't going to be reached in my use case (like the gnome and windows  
> cookbooks...)?
> 
> ## --
> 
> ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> 
> "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> 
> (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> 
> On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)
> 
> ## --
> 
> ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> 
> "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> 
> (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> 
> On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

## --

~_~ StormeRider ~_~

"Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."

(from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")

On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ranjib](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/ranjib/32/1040_2.png) [@Ranjib](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Ranjib)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/8 "2013-06-05T18:36:05Z")

</div>

i dont know if you can do that.  
the problem is chef server does not mandate version freeze for cookbooks.  
You can upload the different content with same version, so for an external  
tool like berkshelf its impossible to understand if the cookbook has  
changed (since version is not the absolute indicator) , unless it does a  
full download checksum based comparison (this is how chef-client works). So  
its risky for a tool like berkshelf to do this, but definitely its a good  
option to have (in that case you might also like to specify only a subset  
of cookbooks for which you want to do this).

On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 11:30 AM, Morgan Blackthorne  
[stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)wrote:

> I have it installed but I bump my personal cookbook manually... Haven't  
> gotten sport into my workflow yet.
> 
> To clarify, I think what I want (at least for cookbooks in the "site  
> :opscode" group) is for them to only be reuploaded to the Chef server if  
> the Chef server does not have that version already uploaded, instead of  
> having "berks upload" push all ~40 cookbooks each time when only 1 has  
> changed. Pushing all the opscode cookbooks each run is just wasted cycles.
> 
> On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> 
> > Berkself has a nofreeze option iirc it does not bump the version....are u  
> > using knife-spork?  
> > On Jun 5, 2013 10:26 AM, "Morgan Blackthorne" [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)  
> > wrote:
> > 
> > Hacking internals isn't what I want. 🙂
> > 
> > Any ideas on the Berkshelf reuploading without a version change? Is there  
> > a config setting to alter that behavior, perhaps?
> > 
> > On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> > 
> > no. but its ruby so there must be a way to hack it (which will involve  
> > tampering core chef's classes/modules) to do what you want
> > 
> > On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 10:11 AM, Morgan Blackthorne \<  
> > [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > 
> > I'm assuming that the cookbook metadata can't be overridden like  
> > resources can?
> > 
> > On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> > 
> > there are no clear solution right now. this issue have been discussed  
> > previously , specifically in context of platform specific cookbooks.  
> > Currently chef does not have support for conditional cookbook dependency.  
> > So even if a parent cookbook conditionally uses a dependent cookbook , it  
> > has to declare this in its metadata. iirc it was suggested in certain cases  
> > the cookbook author can skip enlisting those conditional cookbooks as  
> > dependency in metadata and it was also assumed that the user will have an  
> > understanding of this, and will assign those conditional cookbooks  
> > explicitly in the node's run list when they need them. but i dont think we  
> > can generalized these approach for all cookbooks.
> > 
> > On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Morgan Blackthorne \<[stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)
> > 
> > > wrote:
> > 
> > I'm only using a handful of cookbooks directly, but my berkshelf list is  
> > large. Pulling in Apache2 and Nginx adds in a lot of dependencies, one of  
> > which is perl, and one of the Java cookbooks ends up pulling in Gnome and  
> > X-windows. One of the chef cookbooks (chef-client?) pulls in Windows. These  
> > are all headless Linux instances without X installed (and I'd like to keep  
> > it that way, heh).
> > 
> > When the run list is compiled and the cookbooks are sent to the client,  
> > they end up transferring a lot of cookbooks that never end up actually  
> > getting used. And if I touch any of the higher level cookbooks (like the  
> > one for my org that configures some things via LWRPs and overrides some  
> > cookbook resources), berkshelf then has to parse the list of all those  
> > dependencies as well just to upload my local cookbook. I even tried using a  
> > group to filter things down but dependencies are resolved even when using  
> > groups. Berks also seems to re-upload every cookbook even if the version  
> > number hasn't changed, which is odd to me. (Fixing that would minimize at  
> > least some of the annoyance factor of how long "berks upload" takes.)
> > 
> > Is this just a situation where "deal with it" is the most practical  
> > advice, or is there a way to break some of these dependencies that I know  
> > aren't going to be reached in my use case (like the gnome and windows  
> > cookbooks...)?
> > 
> > ## --
> > 
> > ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> > 
> > "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> > are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> > 
> > (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> > 
> > On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)
> > 
> > ## --
> > 
> > ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> > 
> > "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> > are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> > 
> > (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> > 
> > On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)
> 
> ## --
> 
> ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> 
> "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> 
> (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> 
> On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/morgan_blackthorne/32/100_2.png) [@Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Morgan_Blackthorne)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/9 "2013-06-05T18:48:26Z")

</div>

Nod. I might try playing with the code at some point once I get my MacBook  
repaired (I am so glad that I made myself sit down and configure it in  
BackupPC right about now...).

On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:

> i dont know if you can do that.  
> the problem is chef server does not mandate version freeze for cookbooks.  
> You can upload the different content with same version, so for an external  
> tool like berkshelf its impossible to understand if the cookbook has  
> changed (since version is not the absolute indicator) , unless it does a  
> full download checksum based comparison (this is how chef-client works). So  
> its risky for a tool like berkshelf to do this, but definitely its a good  
> option to have (in that case you might also like to specify only a subset  
> of cookbooks for which you want to do this).
> 
> On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 11:30 AM, Morgan Blackthorne \<[stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)
> 
> > wrote:
> 
> I have it installed but I bump my personal cookbook manually... Haven't  
> gotten sport into my workflow yet.
> 
> To clarify, I think what I want (at least for cookbooks in the "site  
> :opscode" group) is for them to only be reuploaded to the Chef server if  
> the Chef server does not have that version already uploaded, instead of  
> having "berks upload" push all ~40 cookbooks each time when only 1 has  
> changed. Pushing all the opscode cookbooks each run is just wasted cycles.
> 
> On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> 
> Berkself has a nofreeze option iirc it does not bump the version....are u  
> using knife-spork?  
> On Jun 5, 2013 10:26 AM, "Morgan Blackthorne" [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)  
> wrote:
> 
> Hacking internals isn't what I want. 🙂
> 
> Any ideas on the Berkshelf reuploading without a version change? Is there  
> a config setting to alter that behavior, perhaps?
> 
> On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> 
> no. but its ruby so there must be a way to hack it (which will involve  
> tampering core chef's classes/modules) to do what you want
> 
> On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 10:11 AM, Morgan Blackthorne \<[stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)
> 
> > wrote:
> 
> I'm assuming that the cookbook metadata can't be overridden like resources  
> can?
> 
> On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> 
> there are no clear solution right now. this issue have been discussed  
> previously , specifically in context of platform specific cookbooks.  
> Currently chef does not have support for conditional cookbook dependency.  
> So even if a parent cookbook conditionally uses a dependent cookbook , it  
> has to declare this in its metadata. iirc it was suggested in certain cases  
> the cookbook author can skip enlisting those conditional cookbooks as  
> dependency in metadata and it was also assumed that the user will have an  
> understanding of this, and will assign those conditional cookbooks  
> explicitly in the node's run list when they need them. but i dont think we  
> can generalized these approach for all cookbooks.
> 
> On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Morgan Blackthorne [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)wrote:
> 
> I'm only using a handful of cookbooks directly, but my berkshelf list is  
> large. Pulling in Apache2 and Nginx adds in a lot of dependencies, one of  
> which is perl, and one of the Java cookbooks ends up pulling in Gnome and  
> X-windows. One of the chef cookbooks (chef-client?) pulls in Windows. These  
> are all headless Linux instances without X installed (and I'd like to keep  
> it that way, heh).
> 
> When the run list is compiled and the cookbooks are sent to the client,  
> they end up transferring a lot of cookbooks that never end up actually  
> getting used. And if I touch any of the higher level cookbooks (like the  
> one for my org that configures some things via LWRPs and overrides some  
> cookbook resources), berkshelf then has to parse the list of all those  
> dependencies as well just to upload my local cookbook. I even tried using a  
> group to filter things down but dependencies are resolved even when using  
> groups. Berks also seems to re-upload every cookbook even if the version  
> number hasn't changed, which is odd to me. (Fixing that would minimize at  
> least some of the annoyance factor of how long "berks upload" takes.)
> 
> Is this just a situation where "deal with it" is the most practical  
> advice, or is there a way to break some of these dependencies that I know  
> aren't going to be reached in my use case (like the gnome and windows  
> cookbooks...)?
> 
> ## --
> 
> ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> 
> "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> 
> (from Smallville Sea

## --

~_~ StormeRider ~_~

"Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."

(from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")

On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![reset](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/reset/32/490_2.png) [@reset](https://discourse.chef.io/u/reset)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 6:49pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/10 "2013-06-05T18:49:15Z")

</div>

What version of Berkshelf are you using?

In the 1.4.x series the default behavior is to freeze a cookbook on upload and to skip over frozen dependencies on subsequent uploads.

Jamie Winsor  
@resetexistence

On Jun 5, 2013, at 11:36 AM, Ranjib Dey [dey.ranjib@gmail.com](mailto:dey.ranjib@gmail.com) wrote:

> i dont know if you can do that.  
> the problem is chef server does not mandate version freeze for cookbooks. You can upload the different content with same version, so for an external tool like berkshelf its impossible to understand if the cookbook has changed (since version is not the absolute indicator) , unless it does a full download checksum based comparison (this is how chef-client works). So its risky for a tool like berkshelf to do this, but definitely its a good option to have (in that case you might also like to specify only a subset of cookbooks for which you want to do this).
> 
> On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 11:30 AM, Morgan Blackthorne [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com) wrote:
> 
> > I have it installed but I bump my personal cookbook manually... Haven't gotten sport into my workflow yet.
> > 
> > To clarify, I think what I want (at least for cookbooks in the "site :opscode" group) is for them to only be reuploaded to the Chef server if the Chef server does not have that version already uploaded, instead of having "berks upload" push all ~40 cookbooks each time when only 1 has changed. Pushing all the opscode cookbooks each run is just wasted cycles.
> > 
> > On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:
> > 
> > > Berkself has a nofreeze option iirc it does not bump the version....are u using knife-spork?
> > > 
> > > On Jun 5, 2013 10:26 AM, "Morgan Blackthorne" [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com) wrote:  
> > > Hacking internals isn't what I want. 🙂
> > > 
> > > Any ideas on the Berkshelf reuploading without a version change? Is there a config setting to alter that behavior, perhaps?
> > > 
> > > On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:  
> > > no. but its ruby so there must be a way to hack it (which will involve tampering core chef's classes/modules) to do what you want
> > > 
> > > On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 10:11 AM, Morgan Blackthorne [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com) wrote:  
> > > I'm assuming that the cookbook metadata can't be overridden like resources can?
> > > 
> > > On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Ranjib Dey wrote:  
> > > there are no clear solution right now. this issue have been discussed previously , specifically in context of platform specific cookbooks. Currently chef does not have support for conditional cookbook dependency. So even if a parent cookbook conditionally uses a dependent cookbook , it has to declare this in its metadata. iirc it was suggested in certain cases the cookbook author can skip enlisting those conditional cookbooks as dependency in metadata and it was also assumed that the user will have an understanding of this, and will assign those conditional cookbooks explicitly in the node's run list when they need them. but i dont think we can generalized these approach for all cookbooks.
> > > 
> > > On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Morgan Blackthorne [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com) wrote:  
> > > I'm only using a handful of cookbooks directly, but my berkshelf list is large. Pulling in Apache2 and Nginx adds in a lot of dependencies, one of which is perl, and one of the Java cookbooks ends up pulling in Gnome and X-windows. One of the chef cookbooks (chef-client?) pulls in Windows. These are all headless Linux instances without X installed (and I'd like to keep it that way, heh).
> > > 
> > > When the run list is compiled and the cookbooks are sent to the client, they end up transferring a lot of cookbooks that never end up actually getting used. And if I touch any of the higher level cookbooks (like the one for my org that configures some things via LWRPs and overrides some cookbook resources), berkshelf then has to parse the list of all those dependencies as well just to upload my local cookbook. I even tried using a group to filter things down but dependencies are resolved even when using groups. Berks also seems to re-upload every cookbook even if the version number hasn't changed, which is odd to me. (Fixing that would minimize at least some of the annoyance factor of how long "berks upload" takes.)
> > > 
> > > Is this just a situation where "deal with it" is the most practical advice, or is there a way to break some of these dependencies that I know aren't going to be reached in my use case (like the gnome and windows cookbooks...)?
> > > 
> > > ## --
> > > 
> > > ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> > > 
> > > "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> > > 
> > > (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> > > 
> > > On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)
> > > 
> > > ## --
> > > 
> > > ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> > > 
> > > "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> > > 
> > > (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> > > 
> > > On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)
> > 
> > ## --
> > 
> > ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> > 
> > "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> > 
> > (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> > 
> > On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BradKnowles](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/bradknowles/32/99_2.png) [@BradKnowles](https://discourse.chef.io/u/BradKnowles)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 6:55pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/11 "2013-06-05T18:55:31Z")

</div>

On Jun 5, 2013, at 12:36 PM, Ranjib Dey [dey.ranjib@gmail.com](mailto:dey.ranjib@gmail.com) wrote:

> the problem is chef server does not mandate version freeze for cookbooks. You can upload the different content with same version, so for an external tool like berkshelf its impossible to understand if the cookbook has changed (since version is not the absolute indicator) , unless it does a full download checksum based comparison (this is how chef-client works). So its risky for a tool like berkshelf to do this, but definitely its a good option to have (in that case you might also like to specify only a subset of cookbooks for which you want to do this).

OTOH, Berkshelf could be configured to automatically update the version number on every change and freeze the version after uploading. Since the version would have been incremented and frozen by Berkshelf itself, it should be safe to assume that the cookbook is unchanged if the version number hasn't changed.

Yes, I know people could un-freeze and then manually upload a different version with the same version number, but if they want to shoot themselves in the foot like that, then we should be prepared to let them do so.

--  
Brad Knowles [brad@shub-internet.org](mailto:brad@shub-internet.org)  
LinkedIn Profile: [http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu](http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/morgan_blackthorne/32/100_2.png) [@Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Morgan_Blackthorne)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/12 "2013-06-05T19:15:58Z")

</div>

Using 2.x.

On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Brad Knowles wrote:

> On Jun 5, 2013, at 12:36 PM, Ranjib Dey \<[dey.ranjib@gmail.com](mailto:dey.ranjib@gmail.com)\<javascript:;\>\>  
> wrote:
> 
> > the problem is chef server does not mandate version freeze for  
> > cookbooks. You can upload the different content with same version, so for  
> > an external tool like berkshelf its impossible to understand if the  
> > cookbook has changed (since version is not the absolute indicator) , unless  
> > it does a full download checksum based comparison (this is how chef-client  
> > works). So its risky for a tool like berkshelf to do this, but definitely  
> > its a good option to have (in that case you might also like to specify only  
> > a subset of cookbooks for which you want to do this).
> 
> OTOH, Berkshelf could be configured to automatically update the version  
> number on every change and freeze the version after uploading. Since the  
> version would have been incremented and frozen by Berkshelf itself, it  
> should be safe to assume that the cookbook is unchanged if the version  
> number hasn't changed.
> 
> Yes, I know people could un-freeze and then manually upload a different  
> version with the same version number, but if they want to shoot themselves  
> in the foot like that, then we should be prepared to let them do so.
> 
> --  
> Brad Knowles \<[brad@shub-internet.org](mailto:brad@shub-internet.org) \<javascript:;\>\>  
> LinkedIn Profile: [http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu](http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu)

## --

~_~ StormeRider ~_~

"Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."

(from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")

On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/morgan_blackthorne/32/100_2.png) [@Morgan\_Blackthorne](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Morgan_Blackthorne)\
**Post date:** [June 10, 2013, 9:31am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/13 "2013-06-10T09:31:42Z")

</div>

I haven't been able to figure out how to get freezing to actually work. Is  
there any documentation on it anywhere? I haven't been able to find any,  
just some of the tickets and commits, but I'm not exactly a Ruby guru 🙂

--  
~_~ StormeRider ~_~

"Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."

(from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")

On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 12:15 PM, Morgan Blackthorne  
[stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)wrote:

> Using 2.x.
> 
> On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Brad Knowles wrote:
> 
> > On Jun 5, 2013, at 12:36 PM, Ranjib Dey [dey.ranjib@gmail.com](mailto:dey.ranjib@gmail.com) wrote:
> > 
> > > the problem is chef server does not mandate version freeze for  
> > > cookbooks. You can upload the different content with same version, so for  
> > > an external tool like berkshelf its impossible to understand if the  
> > > cookbook has changed (since version is not the absolute indicator) , unless  
> > > it does a full download checksum based comparison (this is how chef-client  
> > > works). So its risky for a tool like berkshelf to do this, but definitely  
> > > its a good option to have (in that case you might also like to specify only  
> > > a subset of cookbooks for which you want to do this).
> > 
> > OTOH, Berkshelf could be configured to automatically update the version  
> > number on every change and freeze the version after uploading. Since the  
> > version would have been incremented and frozen by Berkshelf itself, it  
> > should be safe to assume that the cookbook is unchanged if the version  
> > number hasn't changed.
> > 
> > Yes, I know people could un-freeze and then manually upload a different  
> > version with the same version number, but if they want to shoot themselves  
> > in the foot like that, then we should be prepared to let them do so.
> > 
> > --  
> > Brad Knowles [brad@shub-internet.org](mailto:brad@shub-internet.org)  
> > LinkedIn Profile: [http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu](http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu)
> 
> ## --
> 
> ~_~ StormeRider ~_~
> 
> "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we  
> are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."
> 
> (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")
> 
> On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... [http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS](http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BradKnowles](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/bradknowles/32/99_2.png) [@BradKnowles](https://discourse.chef.io/u/BradKnowles)\
**Post date:** [June 10, 2013, 2:07pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/excessive-dependency-chaining/4133/14 "2013-06-10T14:07:00Z")

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On Jun 10, 2013, at 3:31 AM, Morgan Blackthorne [stormerider@gmail.com](mailto:stormerider@gmail.com) wrote:

> I haven't been able to figure out how to get freezing to actually work. Is there any documentation on it anywhere? I haven't been able to find any, just some of the tickets and commits, but I'm not exactly a Ruby guru 🙂

I've always just used "knife cookbook upload example\_cookbook --freeze" and that did it for me.

Does that not work for you?

--  
Brad Knowles [brad@shub-internet.org](mailto:brad@shub-internet.org)  
LinkedIn Profile: [http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu](http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu)