Halite

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Write as a gem, release as a cookbook.

Quick Start

Create a gem as per normal and add a dependency on halite. Add require 'halite/rake_tasks' to your Rakefile. Run rake build and the converted cookbook will be written to pkg/.

All Ruby code in the gem will be converted in to libraries/ files. You can add cookbook-specific files by add them to a chef/ folder in the root of the gem.

Why?

Developing cookbooks as gems allows using the full Ruby development ecosystem and tooling more directly. This includes things like Simplecov for coverage testing, YARD for documentation, and Gemnasium for dependency monitoring. For a cookbook that is already mostly library files, this is a natural transition, with few cookbook-specific pieces to start with. This also allows using Bundler to manage versions instead of Berkshelf.

Cookbook Dependencies

To add cookbook dependencies either add them to the gem requirements or use the halite_dependencies metadata field:

Gem::Specification.new do |spec|
  spec.requirements = %w{apache2 mysql}
  # or
  spec.metadata['halite_dependencies'] = 'php >= 2.0.0, chef-client'
end

Additionally if you gem depends on other Halite-based gems those will automatically converted to cookbook dependencies.

Cookbook Files

Any files under chef/ in the gem will be written as is in to the cookbook. For example you can add a recipe to your gem via chef/recipes/default.rb.

Chef Version

By default cookbooks will be generated with chef_version '~> 12' to require Chef 12.x. This can be overridden using the halite_chef_version metadata field:

Gem::Specification.new do |spec|
  spec.metadata['halite_chef_version'] = '>= 12.0.0'
end

Rake Tasks

The halite/rake_tasks module provides quick defaults. Gem name will be auto-detected from the .gemspec file and the cookbook name will be based on the gem name.

rake build

The build command will convert the gem to a cookbook and write it to the pkg/ folder.

Advanced Usage

You can also pass custom arguments to the Rake tasks. All parameters are optional:

require 'halite/rake_helper'
Halite::RakeHelper.install(
  gem_name: 'name', # Name of the gem to convert
  base: File.basename(__FILE__), # Base folder for the gem
)

Berkshelf Extension

Halite includes a Berkshelf extension to pull in any gem-based cookbooks that are available on the system.

To activate it, include the extension in your Berksfile:

extension 'halite'

Spec Helper

Halite includes a set of helpers for RSpec tests. You can enable them in your spec_helper.rb:

require 'halite/spec_helper'

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include Halite::SpecHelper
end

recipe

Recipes to converge for the test can be defined inline on example groups:

describe 'cookbook recipe' do
  recipe 'myrecipe'
  it { is_expected.to create_file('/myfile') }
end

describe 'inline recipe' do
  recipe do
    file '/myfile' do
      content 'mycontent'
    end
  end
  it { is_expected.to create_file('/myfile') }
end

step_into

A resource can be added to the list to step in to via the step_into helper:

describe 'mycookbook' do
  recipe 'mycookbook::server'
  step_into :mycookbook_lwrp
  it { is_expected.to ... }
end

resource and provider

For testing mixin-based cookbooks, new resource and provider classes can be declared on an example group:

describe MyMixin do
  resource(:test_resource) do
    include MyMixin
    def foo(val=nil)
      set_or_return(:foo, val, {})
    end
  end
  provider(:test_resource) do
    def action_run
      # ...
    end
  end
  recipe do
    test_resource 'test' do
      foo 1
      action :run
    end
  end
  it { is_expected.to ... }
end

These helper resources and providers are only available within the scope of recipes defined on that example group or groups nested inside it. Helper resources are automatically step_into'd.

Using a Pre-release Version of a Cookbook

When a Halite-based cookbook is released, a converted copy is generally uploaded to the Supermarket. To use unreleased versions, you need to pull in the code from git via bundler and then tell the Berkshelf extension to convert it for you.

To grab the pre-release gem, add a line like the following to your Gemfile:

gem 'poise-application', github: 'poise/application'

You will need one gem line for each Halite-based cookbook you want to use, possibly including dependencies if you want to use pre-release versions of those as well.

Next you need to use Berkshelf to convert the gem to its cookbook form:

source 'https://supermarket.chef.io/'
extension 'halite'
cookbook 'application', gem: 'poise-application'

Again you will need one cookbook line per Halite based cookbook you want to use. Also make sure to check the correct names for the gem and cookbook, they may not be the same though for other Poise cookbooks they generally follow the same pattern.

If you are using something that integrates with Berkshelf like Test-Kitchen or ChefSpec, this is all you need to do. You could use berks upload to push a converted copy of all cookbooks to a Chef Server, though running pre-release code in production should be done with great care.

License

Copyright 2015, Noah Kantrowitz

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.