Incoming Updates to Windows 64-bit Build Availability

Chef Infra (archive)
1

Greetings!

As we posted recently there are now 64 bit Chef Windows Builds available. Currently they are only available from the current channel of the repository but that is changing soon.

The first part of this change is an update to Omnitruck which will expose the 64 bit packages from the stable channel, as they are currently available from the current channel. Right now if you query:

https://www.chef.io/chef/metadata?p=windows&pv=2012r2&m=x86_64&prerelease=true

You will receive the metadata for a 64 bit build of Chef, but if you query:

https://www.chef.io/chef/metadata?p=windows&pv=2012r2&m=x86_64

You will receive the metadata for a 32 bit build of Chef. Once the Omnitruck changes are released, omitting &prerelease=true or including it will both exhibit the same behavior. They will correctly return 32 bit packages if you specify &m=i386 and 64 bit packages if you specify &m=x86_64.

We do not anticipate this change causing issues for customers but as always please let us know if you encounter errors.

Swiftly following this update to Omnitruck will be updates to the install.sh and install.ps1 scripts to have them correctly download the package corresponding to the architecture of the machine. Then downloads.chef.io will be updated to include seperate download links for the 32 bit and 64 bit packages of Chef on Windows. Knife-windows was updated earlier today to include this behavior.

Cheers!
-Tyler

2

Posting an update to this - the Omnitruck change has been reverted and the stable channel is only returning 32 bit builds. This is because of an issue a user encountered trying to install a 64 bit build of Chef 11.

I will update this again when we determine how we are going to proceed with these changes!

Cheers,
-Tyler

3

Another update on this!

We have a pending Omnitruck change that will deploy on Monday. This change will ensure that users who access the /metadata or /download endpoint only receive a 32-bit build, regardless of what architecture they request. This behavior will continue until chef releases version 12.9.

Starting with version 12.9, Omnitruck will start to request the architecture parameter. Requesting any version older than 12.9 will continue the existing behavior (only returning 32-bit builds) and requesting version 12.9 or greater will use the new behavior (respect the architecture parameter and return either a 32-bit or 64-bit build).

Chef 12.9 will be released in April.

Cheers!
-Tyler