CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rubychef-infra
spinn p
spinn p

Reputation: 361

Accessing template attributes in Chef

I am declaring a variable in Chef/Ruby and assigning it a value. The value is different for different environments. I am setting the value in respective environment files like this: 

region = us-west-1

In the template file I am using it this way 

region =<%= @region %>

and in the recipe as

:region =>node.region

The instance doesn't come up when my fix is merged. Is this right way of doing it or am I missing something?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 546

Answers (1)

Neal
Neal

Reputation: 318

Here are two of my favourite ways to do that:

  • Use chef attributes.

Define the default for the attribute in an attribute file. so in <cookbook_name>/attributes/default.rb file add this line:

default['instance_region'] = 'us-west-1'

and then in your recipe where you are adding the template:

variables(region: node['instance_region'])

you can access that in you template as you mentioned:

region =<%= @region %>
  • Using chef library.

For wider usage you can define such value within a chef library. so in <cookbook>/libraries/common.rb add:

module Common
   def instance_region
     # This will return the name of AWS region that the nodes is in.
     shell_out!('curl -s http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/placement/availability-zone/').stdout
   end
 end

and then in your recipe you can use it just by calling plain instance_region

Upvotes: 1

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