pan code_generator

pan is an example cookbook generator

Supported Platforms

Tested And Validated On

• Mac OSX 10.10 with ChefDK 0.3.6
• Windows 7 with ChefDK 0.3.6

Usage

While in the directory you wish to create your cookbook:

chef generate cookbook my_cookbook_name -g ~/path/to/pan

or you want to be super fancy, add pan to your knife.rb(*1) or config.rb for usage without the -g argument.

chefdk.generator_cookbook = '~/chef/pan'

chef generate cookbook my_cookbook_1
Compiling Cookbooks...
Recipe: pan::cookbook
...

*1 - Bug In Knife with Automagic Custom Generator

Knife doesn't play nicely with the knife.rb configuration...

~/.chef/knife.rb

chef_server_url 'https://chef.example.com/organizations/example'
cache_type 'BasicFile'
cache_options(path: "#{ENV['HOME']}/.chef/checksums")
chefdk.generator_cookbook = '~/chef/pan'

MyComputerName:Desktop echohack$ chef generate cookbook my_cookbook_2
Compiling Cookbooks...
Recipe: pan::cookbook
* directory[/Users/echohack/Desktop/my_cookbook_2/attributes] action create
- create new directory /Users/echohack/Desktop/my_cookbook_2/attributes
* directory[/Users/echohack/Desktop/my_cookbook_2/recipes] action create
- create new directory /Users/echohack/Desktop/my_cookbook_2/recipes
...

MyComputerName:Desktop echohack$ knife environment list
ERROR: You have an error in your config file /Users/echohack/.chef/knife.rb
NoMethodError: undefined method `generator_cookbook=' for nil:NilClass
/Users/echohack/.chef/knife.rb:13:in `from_string'

# /Users/echohack/.chef/knife.rb
13: chefdk.generator_cookbook = '~/chef/pan'

Moving this to config.rb seems to fix it:

~/.chef/config.rb

chefdk.generator_cookbook = '~/chef/pan'

MyComputerName:Desktop echohack$ chef generate cookbook my_cookbook_3
Compiling Cookbooks...
Recipe: pan::cookbook
...

MyComputerName:Desktop echohack$ knife environment list
_default
my-env

Examples

• create a cookbook named my_cookbook_name in the same subdirectory where pan resides.

(Mac & Windows): chef generate cookbook my_cookbook_name -g ./pan

• create a cookbook named my_cookbook_name in the root of your primary drive with pan residing in your home directory

(Mac): chef generate cookbook /mycookbook -g ~/pan

(Windows): chef generate cookbook C:\mycookbook -g %USERPROFILE%\pan

New Constructs

Things you might not be familiar with that this generator creates:

In metadata.md

1. IO.read(File.join(File.dirname(FILE), 'README.md'))

• A hack to force Chef Manage to display the contents of the README.md. (Perhaps this will be fixed in Chef 12?)

2. Text isn't aligned

• This blows up rubocop, and I'd rather have it more standardized. Just say no to vertical whitespace. ;)

In default_attributes.rb

1. default['<%= @attribute_context %>']['file_cache_path']

• I like to do this so that I can create a "workspace" for the cookbook to drop any files in so I avoid cookbook download collisions. If your cookbook doesn't download anything, than you can trash this.
• It also provides a good example of how to do an attribute.

In .kitchen.yml

1. chef_zero provisioner

• It's probably stronger to provision with chef_zero than chef_solo since it behaves more like the server does. (That is to say, if you use chef server, then test with chef zero. If you're using solo, then test with solo.)

2. Windows 2012 R2 with WinRM transport

• Ideally this is how you would set up the transport for WinRM with Kitchen, if you're using Salim Afiune's patch for Test Kitchen.

In cookbook.rb

• I think it's better to create the items in the cookbook by using data driven patterns, so if you add something new it's fairly simple. The patterns speak for themselves. Perhaps there's a better way still.

• Using the :create_if_missing action is stronger here because you can use it to stub out already existing cookbooks without blowing up existing work.