Overriding parts of recipes?

Chef Infra (archive)
1

I need to override the tomcat6 recipe to disable a single line:

http://github.com/opscode/cookbooks/blob/master/tomcat6/recipes/default.rb#L192

How should I go about this? I tried this and failed:

  1. I have my custom cookbooks in the cookbook_path after the opscode version
  2. I created a ‘tomcat6’ cookbook in my custom cookbooks, which only
    override this single template entry in the default recipe

However, this doesn’t work, because it doesn’t seem to process the
main opscode version before mine. Is it possible to “merge” them to
have all the logic from the original with only my override, THEN run
it?

My only option now seems to be to clone the entire opscode original
cookbook into my custom cookbooks and disable that one line, which
seems less than optimal.

Thanks,
– Chad

P.S. When googling I found this, but it doesn’t answer my problem:
http://support.scalarium.com/faqs/custom-instance-setup/how-to-override-templates-in-custom-chef-recipes

2

You could create a site-tomcat6 cookbook in which the recipe there
include_recipe(:tomcat) to include it.

I personally would not want to have an implicit merge for cookbooks.

-Hosh

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 4:55 AM, Chad Woolley thewoolleyman@gmail.com wrote:

I need to override the tomcat6 recipe to disable a single line:

http://github.com/opscode/cookbooks/blob/master/tomcat6/recipes/default.rb#L192

How should I go about this? I tried this and failed:

  1. I have my custom cookbooks in the cookbook_path after the opscode version
  2. I created a 'tomcat6' cookbook in my custom cookbooks, which only
    override this single template entry in the default recipe

However, this doesn't work, because it doesn't seem to process the
main opscode version before mine. Is it possible to "merge" them to
have all the logic from the original with only my override, THEN run
it?

My only option now seems to be to clone the entire opscode original
cookbook into my custom cookbooks and disable that one line, which
seems less than optimal.

Thanks,
-- Chad

P.S. When googling I found this, but it doesn't answer my problem:
http://support.scalarium.com/faqs/custom-instance-setup/how-to-override-templates-in-custom-chef-recipes

3

Ohai!
We now have support for vendoring cookbooks integrated into knife.
This lets you maintain your changes to a cookbook as a small patch,
handled by your SCM (git only for now AFAIK) while still fetching
changes from the upstream. Have a look at knife cookbook site vendor

HTH,
Dan DeLeo

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 11:20 AM, Ho-Sheng Hsiao
hosheng.hsiao@gmail.com wrote:

You could create a site-tomcat6 cookbook in which the recipe there
include_recipe(:tomcat) to include it.

I personally would not want to have an implicit merge for cookbooks.

-Hosh

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 4:55 AM, Chad Woolley thewoolleyman@gmail.com wrote:

I need to override the tomcat6 recipe to disable a single line:

http://github.com/opscode/cookbooks/blob/master/tomcat6/recipes/default.rb#L192

How should I go about this? I tried this and failed:

  1. I have my custom cookbooks in the cookbook_path after the opscode version
  2. I created a 'tomcat6' cookbook in my custom cookbooks, which only
    override this single template entry in the default recipe

However, this doesn't work, because it doesn't seem to process the
main opscode version before mine. Is it possible to "merge" them to
have all the logic from the original with only my override, THEN run
it?

My only option now seems to be to clone the entire opscode original
cookbook into my custom cookbooks and disable that one line, which
seems less than optimal.

Thanks,
-- Chad

P.S. When googling I found this, but it doesn't answer my problem:
http://support.scalarium.com/faqs/custom-instance-setup/how-to-override-templates-in-custom-chef-recipes

4

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 11:43 AM, Daniel DeLeo dan@kallistec.com wrote:

Ohai!
We now have support for vendoring cookbooks integrated into knife.
This lets you maintain your changes to a cookbook as a small patch,
handled by your SCM (git only for now AFAIK) while still fetching
changes from the upstream. Have a look at knife cookbook site vendor

That sounds useful. It looks like you can only use this approach if
you use chef server, not just chef solo. Right?

5

On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 6:40 PM, Chad Woolley thewoolleyman@gmail.com wrote:

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 11:43 AM, Daniel DeLeo dan@kallistec.com wrote:

Ohai!
We now have support for vendoring cookbooks integrated into knife.
This lets you maintain your changes to a cookbook as a small patch,
handled by your SCM (git only for now AFAIK) while still fetching
changes from the upstream. Have a look at knife cookbook site vendor

That sounds useful. It looks like you can only use this approach if
you use chef server, not just chef solo. Right?

After consideration, I don't want to use Chef Server. It seems like
unnecessary complexity for my use case, which is just creating
open-source AMI or VM images. All I want a very simple,
self-contained script and process which results in a built machine
which is also self-contained and updatable. To update it in the
future (which may only happen rarely if it is easy to rebuild), users
can just update the local cookbook repo via git, and run a single
command to converge. Just a script or two and the cookbook repo
required. No servers involved. Everything downloadable/automatable
via GitHub direct file links. The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly
Work.

I believe chef-solo is perfect for this use case, and chef server is overkill.

However, I also want to support the chef community by contributing my
patches and enhancements to the official Opscode cookbooks.

So, it's a bit discouraging that chef-server is a prerequisite for the
officially recommended solution for managing patches and contributing
upstream via knife cookbook site vendor

I'm managing it on my own for now with git, topic branches for
patches, and an integration branch for use in my project to merge in
all patches which are not yet applied upstream. This is a rather
onerous to do manually, whereas the various knife cookbook commands
sound pretty handy. So, this makes it harder for chef solo users to
manage, contribute, and update patches.

In theory, it seems like the same flow and commands/api could apply to
git as well as a chef server: you are just pushing patches to an
upstream git remote instead of a chef server. Is this an
over-simplification? Are there other some unknown compelling reasons
why I really want to be using Chef Server, or would it be good in your
opinion to add more support for chef-solo as a first class citizen, at
least in regards to knife and cookbook management/contributions?

Thanks,
-- Chad