Environment variable is a key way to make Chef recipe run on any particular node successfully. There are multiple ways of doing it, either manually setting them up or by using a Shell script. Setting them via recipe is what we need to perform here.
To do this, we need to have a cookbook here we would use test_cookbook and a run list which contains test_cookbook.
Setting Environment Variable Using Chef Recipe
Step1 − Update the default recipe of cookbook with an environment variable.
vipin@laptop:~/chef-repo $ subl cookbooks/test_cookbook/recipes/default.rb ENV['MESSAGE'] = 'Testing environment variable update with chef !' execute 'print value of environment variable $MESSAGE' do command 'echo $MESSAGE > /tmp/message' end
Step2 − Upload the updated cookbook to the server.
vipin@laptop:~/chef-repo $ knife cookbook upload test_cookbook Uploading my_cookbook [0.1.0]
Step3 − Running the Chef client to create a temp file.
user@server:~$ sudo chef-client ...TRUNCATED OUTPUT... [2013-01-25T15:01:57+00:00] INFO: Processing execute[print value of environment variable $MESSAGE] action run (my_cookbook::default line 11) [2013-01-25T15:01:57+00:00] INFO: execute[print value of environment variable $MESSAGE] ran successfully ...TRUNCATED OUTPUT...
Validating Variable
user@server:~$ cat /tmp/message Hello from Chef
Working Method
Ruby exposes the current environment variable via ENV –a hash to read and modify the environment variable.
Execute Resource
We can use execute resource to do the same inside the Chef default recipe of cookbook.
mma@laptop:~/chef-repo $ subl cookbooks/test_cookbook/recipes/default.rb execute 'print value of environment variable $MESSAGE' do command 'echo $MESSAGE > /tmp/message' environment 'MESSAGE' => 'Hello from the execute resource' end
Note − Setting an environment variable using ENV will make that variable available during the whole Chef run. In contrast, passing it to the execute resource will only make it available for that one command executed by the resource.