# Notifications / subscribe: different cookbook

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/notifications-subscribe-different-cookbook/3527>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [January 24, 2013, 11:22pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/notifications-subscribe-different-cookbook/3527 "2013-01-24T23:22:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Andrey\_Brindeyev](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/andrey_brindeyev/32/93_2.png) [@Andrey\_Brindeyev](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Andrey_Brindeyev)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 11:22pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/notifications-subscribe-different-cookbook/3527/1 "2013-01-24T23:22:40Z")

</div>

Hi!

Is it possible to refer a template from different cookbook?

I’m trying to implement a general pam\_limits cookbook for managing  
/etc/security/limits.conf file.

This was idea how it can be used in other cookbooks:

node.set[‘pam\_limits’][‘domains’][tomcat7user][’-’][‘nprocs’] = 2048

service “tomcat7” do  
service\_name "tomcat7"  
action :start  
subscribes :create, resources(:template =\>  
node[‘pam\_limits’][‘config’]), :immediately  
end

When I tried to run it, I got expected error:

Cannot find a resource matching template[/etc/security/limits.conf] (did  
you define it first?)

How can I do that in Chef?

Andrey.

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**Author:** ![AJ\_Christensen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/aj_christensen/32/525_2.png) [@AJ\_Christensen](https://discourse.chef.io/u/AJ_Christensen)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 11:38pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/notifications-subscribe-different-cookbook/3527/2 "2013-01-24T23:38:50Z")

</div>

The resource for the template needs to be created before the service  
is instantiated, using that syntax for subscribes.

If you use the newer syntax, this restriction does not apply e.g.;

subscribes :create, "template[#{node['pam\_limits']['config']}]",  
:immediately # I think this will work

It looks like you're missing the 'include\_recipe' that creates the  
node['pam\_limits']['config'] template, anyway..

Cheers,

AJ

On 25 January 2013 12:22, Andrey Brindeyev [abrindeyev@griddynamics.com](mailto:abrindeyev@griddynamics.com) wrote:

> Hi!
> 
> Is it possible to refer a template from different cookbook?
> 
> I'm trying to implement a general pam\_limits cookbook for managing  
> /etc/security/limits.conf file.
> 
> This was idea how it can be used in other cookbooks:
> 
> node.set['pam\_limits']['domains'][tomcat7user]['-']['nprocs'] = 2048
> 
> service "tomcat7" do  
> service\_name "tomcat7"  
> action :start  
> subscribes :create, resources(:template =\>  
> node['pam\_limits']['config']), :immediately  
> end
> 
> When I tried to run it, I got expected error:
> 
> Cannot find a resource matching template[/etc/security/limits.conf] (did you  
> define it first?)
> 
> How can I do that in Chef?
> 
> Andrey.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bryan\_McLellan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/bryan_mclellan/32/81_2.png) [@Bryan\_McLellan](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Bryan_McLellan)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 11:40pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/notifications-subscribe-different-cookbook/3527/3 "2013-01-24T23:40:04Z")

</div>

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 6:22 PM, Andrey Brindeyev  
[abrindeyev@griddynamics.com](mailto:abrindeyev@griddynamics.com) wrote:

> service "tomcat7" do  
> service\_name "tomcat7"  
> action :start  
> subscribes :create, resources(:template =\>  
> node['pam\_limits']['config']), :immediately  
> end
> 
> When I tried to run it, I got expected error:
> 
> Cannot find a resource matching template[/etc/security/limits.conf] (did you  
> define it first?)

I presume node['pam\_limits']['config'] is set to  
"/etc/security/limits.conf", do you have a template  
"/etc/security/limits.conf" in another recipe that runs before-hand?

You'll want to use the newer notification syntax, because it supports  
looking up resources that haven't been created yet in the run.

[http://docs.opscode.com/chef/resources.html#notifies-syntax](http://docs.opscode.com/chef/resources.html#notifies-syntax)

That said, I've never used a node attribute like that in a  
notification, there could be a 'gotcha' there.

Bryan

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Andrey\_Brindeyev](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/andrey_brindeyev/32/93_2.png) [@Andrey\_Brindeyev](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Andrey_Brindeyev)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 12:22am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/notifications-subscribe-different-cookbook/3527/4 "2013-01-25T00:22:35Z")

</div>

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 3:38 PM, AJ Christensen [aj@junglist.gen.nz](mailto:aj@junglist.gen.nz) wrote:

> The resource for the template needs to be created before the service  
> is instantiated, using that syntax for subscribes.
> 
> If you use the newer syntax, this restriction does not apply e.g.;
> 
> subscribes :create, "template[#{node['pam\_limits']['config']}]",  
> :immediately # I think this will work
> 
> It looks like you're missing the 'include\_recipe' that creates the  
> node['pam\_limits']['config'] template, anyway..

Indeed, thanks so much! include\_recipe was missing.

Now question about order of execution. How can I guarantee that  
/etc/security/limits.conf will be rendered before many services which are  
"consuming" it?

Let's say that I have Oracle DB and Tomcat installed on that host and both  
of them are needed to fix /etc/security/limits.conf for various options.

If I setup :immediately in subscribe that it's too early. But if I specify  
:delay than my action (:restart) will be processed as last step during  
chef-client run.

I actually doesn't need to do anything after limits.conf update, I just  
need to ensure that no dependent service in various recipes will be run  
before limits.conf have updated data.

Andrey.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![realityforge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/realityforge/32/395_2.png) [@realityforge](https://discourse.chef.io/u/realityforge)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 5:43am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/notifications-subscribe-different-cookbook/3527/5 "2013-01-25T05:43:01Z")

</div>

Hi,

On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Andrey Brindeyev \<  
[abrindeyev@griddynamics.com](mailto:abrindeyev@griddynamics.com)\> wrote:

> Now question about order of execution. How can I guarantee that  
> /etc/security/limits.conf will be rendered before many services which are  
> "consuming" it?
> 
> Let's say that I have Oracle DB and Tomcat installed on that host and both  
> of them are needed to fix /etc/security/limits.conf for various options.
> 
> If I setup :immediately in subscribe that it's too early. But if I specify  
> :delay than my action (:restart) will be processed as last step during  
> chef-client run.
> 
> I actually doesn't need to do anything after limits.conf update, I just  
> need to ensure that no dependent service in various recipes will be run  
> before limits.conf have updated data.

Unfortunately Chef does not have a good answer for this. We have several  
strategies to deal with this.

In a dream world you would be able to tag a notification with a key and  
then later sync all notifications with that key. Something like

['a','b','c'].each do |f|  
file "/opt/jenkins/workspace/jobs/#{f}.xml" do  
content "...."  
notifies :restart, "service[jenkins]", :delayed, :sync\_on =\>  
"jenkins.sync"  
end  
end

# Ensure all notifications with "jenkins.sync" are invoked

sync\_notifications "jenkins.sync"

# By this stage jenkins has restarted

jenkins\_cli "do something here"

However, until such a capability is added to chef you have to do some crazy  
things. For the above scenario, we created a LWRP that used the "  
notifying\_action" pattern to ensure that the notifications are resolved at  
the end of the LWRP. See [1] for an example.

Other than that there is no easy way I know of.

[1]

> <https://github.com/realityforge/chef-jenkins/blob/master/providers/config_set.rb>

--  
Cheers,

Peter Donald