RFC | Title | Author | Status | Type | Chef-Version |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
24 |
Local Mode Default |
John Keiser <jkeiser@chef.io> |
Withdrawn |
Standards Track |
12 |
Turn on Local Mode by default in Chef 12 (do not require -z).
As a new Chef user,
I want to be able to run my first recipe without typing weird parameters,
so that I can come to love Chef that much more quickly and without any conceptual obstacles.
As a local developer,
I want to be able to iterate quickly on recipes with less typing,
so that I can avoid carpal tunnel syndrome.
As a Chef book or tutorial author,
I want to be able to write examples free of dashes,
because they mess up formatting and make the user ask questions I don't need them asking early in the tutorial.
I propose that:
Chef::Config.local_mode
default totrue
whenchef_server_url
is not set.- The default
Chef::Config.chef_server_url
of https://localhost:443 be removed (and have no default). - When
chef-client
does not find/etc/chef/client.rb
, it search forknife.rb
in the same manner as local mode. - The warning for missing config file is set to INFO.
- When the config file is missing, the algorithm that detects the chef repository by looking for a "cookbooks/" directory also looks for "clients/" (and thus, after the first time you run chef-client, you will no longer get any warnings).
This will make it so that when you first walk up to Chef, your experience is thus:
$ echo "puts 'hi'" > x.rb
$ chef-client x.rb
WARN: No chef repository detected at or above current directory (no cookbooks/ or clients/ subdirectories found). Assuming current directory (/Users/jkeiser/test).
WARN: chef-client will create a /Users/jkeiser/test/clients and /Users/jkeiser/test/nodes, and you will not see this warning again.
...
$ knife node list
foo
$ chef-client x.rb
...
Presently, when chef-client is run without configuration (or the configuration does not point at a Chef server), we assume the user wanted to point at a local Chef server (https://localhost:443). This is not a particularly common mode of operation now that chef-zero exists (which only recently supported https), and many many more users will be running local mode. Further, existing real clients will definitely not be pointing at localhost; they point at real servers.
This change could have been implemented more simply by simply defaulting Chef::Config.local_mode
to true
. However, this would impact nearly all chef-clients (which would stop working until local_mode was turned off) without actually helping any more of the intended users (who generally will not have configuration). By tying this to setting the chef_server_url
, we ensure that clients who actually want to contact a Chef server can do so, and target only people who weren't talking to a Chef server in the first place.
The oddest behavior here is that users who want to run chef-client
in local mode on a managed machine probably won't actually run in local mode. Without changing the default behavior of chef-client
, I'm not sure there is a way around this without changing the config structure completely (which would be another RFC). Nonetheless, this at least gets us much closer to a parameter-free world, and definitely gets us there for new users.
chef-client
andknife
, when run with no parameters and no configuration, will run in local mode without the-z
parameter.- Existing clients that do have configuration but assume the Chef server is at https://localhost:443, will start running with empty runlists.
- Existing clients that do not have
/etc/chef/client.rb
but just assume https://localhost:443 will loadknife.rb
. - Users who want to run
chef-client
in local mode on a managed machine with/etc/chef/client.rb
will not end up loadingknife.rb
and probably not even run local mode. - When users accidentally run knife and chef-client outside of their repository, they will now warn the user but still give them output which they might not expect. When you run
knife node list
, for example, outside of a repository, it will not return any nodes and have empty output. We rely on the warnings to indicate to the user that something is up:
$ knife node list
WARN: No chef repository detected at or above current directory (no cookbooks/ or clients/ subdirectories found). Assuming current directory (/Users/jkeiser/test).
WARN: You may not be in the right directory.
Before, that would have triggered an error related to not having a private key or being able to access https://localhost:443.
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