chef_environment¶

Warning

This functionality was available with Chef Provisioning and was packaged in the ChefDK.

Chef Provisioning was officially end-of-life on August 31, 2019 and is no longer included with ChefDK. The Chef Provisioning source code and drivers have been moved into the chef-boneyard organization. If you are a current user of Chef Provisioning, please contact your Chef Customer Success Manager or Account Representative to review your options.

An environment is a way to map an organization’s real-life workflow to what can be configured and managed when using Chef Infra. This mapping is accomplished by setting attributes and pinning cookbooks at the environment level. With environments, you can change cookbook configurations depending on the system’s designation. For example, by designating different staging and production environments, you can then define the correct URL of a database server for each environment. Environments also allow organizations to move new cookbook releases from staging to production with confidence by stepping releases through testing environments before entering production.

Use the chef_environment resource to manage environments.

Syntax¶

The syntax for using the chef_environment resource in a recipe is as follows:

chef_environment 'name' do
  attribute 'value' # see properties section below
  ...
  action :action # see actions section below
end

where

chef_environment tells Chef Infra Client to use the Chef::Provider::ChefEnvironment provider during a Chef Infra Client run
name is the name of the resource block; when the name property is not specified as part of a recipe, name is also the name of the environment
attribute is zero (or more) of the properties that are available for this resource
action identifies which steps Chef Infra Client will take to bring the node into the desired state

Actions¶

This resource has the following actions:

:create: Default. Use to create an environment.
:delete: Use to delete an environment.
:nothing: This resource block does not act unless notified by another resource to take action. Once notified, this resource block either runs immediately or is queued up to run at the end of a Chef Infra Client run.

Properties¶

This resource has the following properties:

chef_server

The URL for the Chef server.

complete

Use to specify if this resource defines an environment completely. When true, any property not specified by this resource will be reset to default property values.

cookbook_versions

The cookbook versions used with the environment. Default value: {}.

default_attributes

A default attribute is automatically reset at the start of every Chef Infra Client run and has the lowest attribute precedence. Use default attributes as often as possible in cookbooks.

Default value: {}.

description

The description of the environment. This value populates the description field for the environment on the Chef server.

ignore_failure

Ruby Type: true, false | Default Value: false

Continue running a recipe if a resource fails for any reason.

name

The name of the environment.

notifies

Ruby Type: Symbol, ‘Chef::Resource[String]’

A resource may notify another resource to take action when its state changes. Specify a 'resource[name]', the :action that resource should take, and then the :timer for that action. A resource may notify more than one resource; use a notifies statement for each resource to be notified.

A timer specifies the point during a Chef Infra Client run at which a notification is run. The following timers are available:

:before: Specifies that the action on a notified resource should be run before processing the resource block in which the notification is located.
:delayed: Default. Specifies that a notification should be queued up, and then executed at the end of a Chef Infra Client run.
:immediate, :immediately: Specifies that a notification should be run immediately, per resource notified.

The syntax for notifies is:

notifies :action, 'resource[name]', :timer

override_attributes

An override attribute is automatically reset at the start of every Chef Infra Client run and has a higher attribute precedence than default, force_default, and normal attributes. An override attribute is most often specified in a recipe, but can be specified in an attribute file, for a role, and/or for an environment. A cookbook should be authored so that it uses override attributes only when required.

Default value: {}.

raw_json

The environment as JSON data. For example:

{
  "name":"backend",
  "description":"",
  "cookbook_versions":{},
  "json_class":"Chef::Environment",
  "chef_type":"environment",
  "default_attributes":{},
  "override_attributes":{}
}

retries

Ruby Type: Integer | Default Value: 0

The number of attempts to catch exceptions and retry the resource.

retry_delay

Ruby Type: Integer | Default Value: 2

The retry delay (in seconds).

subscribes

Ruby Type: Symbol, ‘Chef::Resource[String]’

A resource may listen to another resource, and then take action if the state of the resource being listened to changes. Specify a 'resource[name]', the :action to be taken, and then the :timer for that action.

Note that subscribes does not apply the specified action to the resource that it listens to - for example:

file '/etc/nginx/ssl/example.crt' do
  mode '0600'
  owner 'root'
end

service 'nginx' do
  subscribes :reload, 'file[/etc/nginx/ssl/example.crt]', :immediately
end

In this case the subscribes property reloads the nginx service whenever its certificate file, located under /etc/nginx/ssl/example.crt, is updated. subscribes does not make any changes to the certificate file itself, it merely listens for a change to the file, and executes the :reload action for its resource (in this example nginx) when a change is detected.

A timer specifies the point during a Chef Infra Client run at which a notification is run. The following timers are available:

:before: Specifies that the action on a notified resource should be run before processing the resource block in which the notification is located.
:delayed: Default. Specifies that a notification should be queued up, and then executed at the end of a Chef Infra Client run.
:immediate, :immediately: Specifies that a notification should be run immediately, per resource notified.

The syntax for subscribes is:

subscribes :action, 'resource[name]', :timer