Chef stop and start service in sequence

chefchef-solo

I have the following lines in my recipe

service "apache" do
  action :stop
end

# Do something..

service "apache" do
  action :start
end

I found that the 2nd block is not executed. Any reason?

Best Answer

The default for service starts and restarts is to save it all up to the end of the chef-client run. If you really want to have two service starts or restarts, then specify that they are to happen immediately:

service "apache" do 
  action :start, :immediately
end

It isn't usually a good idea to do this since multiple restarts can cause unnecessary service interruptions. That's why Chef tries to save up all the service restarts until the end of the run.

Related Solutions

Chef recipe order of execution

It should be running in sequence. If you're getting that error, I think you may be having an issue in the bash block.

In any case, you can do a "only_if" in the template. Something like:

template "<config dir>/inspircd.conf" do
  source "inspircd.conf.erb"
  ....
  only_if "test -d <config dir>" 
end

http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Resources#Resources-ConditionalExecution

Merging Chef attribute arrays

If you want to add individual hash elements to an array you can do it using the insertion operator << instead of the assignment operator =

In cookbook A

# Create the default attribute as an array
default[:test]=[{:baz => 'A', :qux => 'B'}]

In cookbook B

# Using array insertion on an existing array
default[:test] << {:baz => 'C', :qux => 'D'}

If the runlist order is not guaranteed to be A,B then you need to guard against trying to insert into an array which doesn't yet exist.