What does the "supports" directive in a cookbook's metadata really do?

Chef Infra (archive)
1

Does the “supports” directive in a cookbooks metadata.rb file do anything, or is it just a piece of documentation.

I assumed it would restrict the execution of cookbook recipes to only run on nodes with the support’ed platform, but that does not seem o be case.

–
Stephen Corbesero, Performance Engineer

2

It does nothing aside from show up in the new webui.

--Noah

On Jan 10, 2014, at 9:49 AM, Stephen Corbesero Stephen.Corbesero@synchronoss.com wrote:

Does the “supports” directive in a cookbooks metadata.rb file do anything, or is it just a piece of documentation.

I assumed it would restrict the execution of cookbook recipes to only run on nodes with the support’ed platform, but that does not seem o be case.

--
Stephen Corbesero, Performance Engineer

3

It also shows on the community site
On Jan 10, 2014 1:08 PM, "Noah Kantrowitz" noah@coderanger.net wrote:

It does nothing aside from show up in the new webui.

--Noah

On Jan 10, 2014, at 9:49 AM, Stephen Corbesero <
Stephen.Corbesero@synchronoss.com> wrote:

Does the “supports” directive in a cookbooks metadata.rb file do
anything, or is it just a piece of documentation.

I assumed it would restrict the execution of cookbook recipes to only
run on nodes with the support’ed platform, but that does not seem o be case.

--
Stephen Corbesero, Performance Engineer

4

As mentioned, it does nothing except provide hints for user
interfaces. This ticket proposes enforcing it in some fashion, and is
slated for Chef 12.

https://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-3871

On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 10:49 AM, Stephen Corbesero
Stephen.Corbesero@synchronoss.com wrote:

Does the “supports” directive in a cookbooks metadata.rb file do anything,
or is it just a piece of documentation.

I assumed it would restrict the execution of cookbook recipes to only run
on nodes with the support’ed platform, but that does not seem o be case.

--
Joshua Timberman, Chef.