directory Resource
This page is generated from the Chef Infra Client source code.To suggest a change, edit the directory.rb file and submit a pull request to the Chef Infra Client repository.
Use the directory resource to manage a directory, which is a hierarchy of folders that comprises all of the information stored on a computer. The root directory is the top-level, under which the rest of the directory is organized. The directory resource uses the name property to specify the path to a location in a directory. Typically, permission to access that location in the directory is required.
Syntax
A directory resource block declares a directory and the permissions needed on that directory. For example:
directory '/etc/apache2' do
owner 'root'
group 'root'
mode '0755'
action :create
end
The full syntax for all of the properties that are available to the directory resource is:
directory 'name' do
group String, Integer
inherits true, false
mode String, Integer
owner String, Integer
path String # defaults to 'name' if not specified
recursive true, false
rights Hash
action Symbol # defaults to :create if not specified
end
where:
directory
is the resource.name
is the name given to the resource block.action
identifies which steps Chef Infra Client will take to bring the node into the desired state.group
,mode
,owner
,path
, andrecursive
are the properties available to this resource.
Actions
The directory resource has the following actions:
:create
- Create a directory. If a directory already exists (but does not match), update that directory to match. (default)
:delete
- Delete a directory.
:nothing
- This resource block does not act unless notified by another resource to take action. Once notified, this resource block either runs immediately or is queued up to run at the end of a Chef Infra Client run.
Properties
The directory resource has the following properties:
group
- Ruby Type: Integer, String
A string or ID that identifies the group owner by group name or SID, including fully qualified group names such as
domain\group
orgroup@domain
. If this value is not specified, existing groups remain unchanged and new group assignments use the defaultPOSIX
group (if available).
inherits
- Ruby Type: true, false | Default Value:
true
Microsoft Windows only. Whether a file inherits rights from its parent directory.
mode
- Ruby Type: Integer, String
A quoted 3-5 character string that defines the octal mode. For example:
'755'
,'0755'
, or00755
. Ifmode
is not specified and if the directory already exists, the existing mode on the directory is used. Ifmode
is not specified, the directory does not exist, and the:create
action is specified, Chef Infra Client assumes a mask value of'0777'
, and then applies the umask for the system on which the directory is to be created to themask
value. For example, if the umask on a system is'022'
, Chef Infra Client uses the default value of'0755'
.The behavior is different depending on the platform.
UNIX- and Linux-based systems: A quoted 3-5 character string that defines the octal mode that is passed to chmod. For example:
'755'
,'0755'
, or00755
. If the value is specified as a quoted string, it works exactly as if thechmod
command was passed. If the value is specified as an integer, prepend a zero (0
) to the value to ensure that it is interpreted as an octal number. For example, to assign read, write, and execute rights for all users, use'0777'
or'777'
; for the same rights, plus the sticky bit, use01777
or'1777'
.Microsoft Windows: A quoted 3-5 character string that defines the octal mode that is translated into rights for Microsoft Windows security. For example:
'755'
,'0755'
, or00755
. Values up to'0777'
are allowed (no sticky bits) and mean the same in Microsoft Windows as they do in UNIX, where4
equalsGENERIC_READ
,2
equalsGENERIC_WRITE
, and1
equalsGENERIC_EXECUTE
. This property cannot be used to set:full_control
. This property has no effect if not specified, but when it andrights
are both specified, the effects are cumulative.
owner
- Ruby Type: Integer, String
A string or ID that identifies the group owner by user name or SID, including fully qualified user names such as
domain\user
oruser@domain
. If this value is not specified, existing owners remain unchanged and new owner assignments use the current user (when necessary).
path
- Ruby Type: String | Default Value:
The resource block's name
The path to the directory. Using a fully qualified path is recommended, but is not always required. Default value: the
name
of the resource block. See “Syntax” section above for more information.
recursive
- Ruby Type: true, false | Default Value:
false
Create parent directories recursively, or delete directory and all children recursively. For the owner, group, and mode properties, the value of this property applies only to the leaf directory.
rights
- Ruby Type: Integer, String
Microsoft Windows only. The permissions for users and groups in a Microsoft Windows environment. For example:
rights <permissions>, <principal>, <options>
where<permissions>
specifies the rights granted to the principal,<principal>
is the group or user name, and<options>
is a Hash with one (or more) advanced rights options.
Recursive Directories
The remote_directory resource can be used to recursively create the
path outside of remote directory structures, but the permissions of
those outside paths are not managed. This is because the recursive
attribute only applies group
, mode
, and owner
attribute values to
the remote directory itself and any inner directories the resource
copies.
A directory structure:
/foo
/bar
/baz
The following example shows a way create a file in the /baz
directory:
remote_directory '/foo/bar/baz' do
owner 'root'
group 'root'
mode '0755'
action :create
end
But with this example, the group
, mode
, and owner
attribute values
will only be applied to /baz
. Which is fine, if that’s what you want.
But most of the time, when the entire /foo/bar/baz
directory structure
is not there, you must be explicit about each directory. For example:
%w( /foo /foo/bar /foo/bar/baz ).each do |path|
remote_directory path do
owner 'root'
group 'root'
mode '0755'
end
end
This approach will create the correct hierarchy—/foo
, then /bar
in
/foo
, and then /baz
in /bar
—and also with the correct attribute
values for group
, mode
, and owner
.
Windows File Security
To support Windows security, the template, file, remote_file, cookbook_file, directory, and remote_directory resources support the use of inheritance and access control lists (ACLs) within recipes. Access Control Lists (ACLs)The rights
property can be used in a recipe to manage access control
lists (ACLs), which allow permissions to be given to multiple users and
groups. Use the rights
property can be used as many times as
necessary; Chef Infra Client will apply them to the file or directory as
required. The syntax for the rights
property is as follows:
rights permission, principal, option_type => value
where
permission
Use to specify which rights are granted to the
principal
. The possible values are::read
,:write
,read_execute
,:modify
,:full_control
, or an integer.Integers used for permissions must match the following list FileSystemRights Enum fields.
These permissions are cumulative. If
:write
is specified, then it includes:read
. If:full_control
is specified, then it includes both:write
and:read
.(For those who know the Windows API:
:read
corresponds toGENERIC_READ
;:write
corresponds toGENERIC_WRITE
;:read_execute
corresponds toGENERIC_READ
andGENERIC_EXECUTE
;:modify
corresponds toGENERIC_WRITE
,GENERIC_READ
,GENERIC_EXECUTE
, andDELETE
;:full_control
corresponds toGENERIC_ALL
, which allows a user to change the owner and other metadata about a file.)principal
Use to specify a group or user. The principal can be specified by either name or SID. When using name, this is identical to what is entered in the login box for Windows, such as
user_name
,domain\user_name
, oruser_name@fully_qualified_domain_name
. When using a SID, you may use either the standard string representation of a SID (S-R-I-S-S) or one of the SDDL string constants. Chef Infra Client does not need to know if a principal is a user or a group.option_type
A hash that contains advanced rights options. For example, the rights to a directory that only applies to the first level of children might look something like:
rights :write, 'domain\group_name', :one_level_deep => true
.Possible option types:
:applies_to_children
Specify how permissions are applied to children. Possible values:
true
to inherit both child directories and files;false
to not inherit any child directories or files;:containers_only
to inherit only child directories (and not files);:objects_only
to recursively inherit files (and not child directories).:applies_to_self
Indicates whether a permission is applied to the parent directory. Possible values:
true
to apply to the parent directory or file and its children;false
to not apply only to child directories and files.:one_level_deep
Indicates the depth to which permissions will be applied. Possible values:
true
to apply only to the first level of children;false
to apply to all children.
For example:
resource 'x.txt' do
rights :read, 'S-1-1-0'
rights :write, 'domain\group'
rights :full_control, 'group_name_or_user_name'
rights :full_control, 'user_name', applies_to_children: true
end
or:
rights :read, %w(Administrators Everyone)
rights :full_control, 'Users', applies_to_children: true
rights :write, 'Sally', applies_to_children: :containers_only, applies_to_self: false, one_level_deep: true
Some other important things to know when using the rights
attribute:
- Only inherited rights remain. All existing explicit rights on the object are removed and replaced.
- If rights are not specified, nothing will be changed. Chef Infra Client does not clear out the rights on a file or directory if rights are not specified.
- Changing inherited rights can be expensive. Windows will propagate rights to all children recursively due to inheritance. This is a normal aspect of Windows, so consider the frequency with which this type of action is necessary and take steps to control this type of action if performance is the primary consideration.
Use the deny_rights
property to deny specific rights to specific
users. The ordering is independent of using the rights
property. For
example, it doesn’t matter if rights are granted to everyone is placed
before or after deny_rights :read, ['Julian', 'Lewis']
, both Julian
and Lewis will be unable to read the document. For example:
resource 'x.txt' do
rights :read, 'Everyone'
rights :write, 'domain\group'
rights :full_control, 'group_name_or_user_name'
rights :full_control, 'user_name', applies_to_children: true
deny_rights :read, %w(Julian Lewis)
end
or:
deny_rights :full_control, ['Sally']
By default, a file or directory inherits rights from its parent
directory. Most of the time this is the preferred behavior, but
sometimes it may be necessary to take steps to more specifically control
rights. The inherits
property can be used to specifically tell Chef
Infra Client to apply (or not apply) inherited rights from its parent
directory.
For example, the following example specifies the rights for a directory:
directory 'C:\mordor' do
rights :read, 'MORDOR\Minions'
rights :full_control, 'MORDOR\Sauron'
end
and then the following example specifies how to use inheritance to deny access to the child directory:
directory 'C:\mordor\mount_doom' do
rights :full_control, 'MORDOR\Sauron'
inherits false # Sauron is the only person who should have any sort of access
end
If the deny_rights
permission were to be used instead, something could
slip through unless all users and groups were denied.
Another example also shows how to specify rights for a directory:
directory 'C:\mordor' do
rights :read, 'MORDOR\Minions'
rights :full_control, 'MORDOR\Sauron'
rights :write, 'SHIRE\Frodo' # Who put that there I didn't put that there
end
but then not use the inherits
property to deny those rights on a child
directory:
directory 'C:\mordor\mount_doom' do
deny_rights :read, 'MORDOR\Minions' # Oops, not specific enough
end
Because the inherits
property is not specified, Chef Infra Client will
default it to true
, which will ensure that security settings for
existing files remain unchanged.
Common Resource Functionality
Chef resources include common properties, notifications, and resource guards.
Common Properties
The following properties are common to every resource:
compile_time
Ruby Type: true, false | Default Value:
false
Control the phase during which the resource is run on the node. Set to true to run while the resource collection is being built (the
compile phase
). Set to false to run while Chef Infra Client is configuring the node (theconverge phase
).ignore_failure
Ruby Type: true, false, :quiet | Default Value:
false
Continue running a recipe if a resource fails for any reason.
:quiet
will not display the full stack trace and the recipe will continue to run if a resource fails.retries
Ruby Type: Integer | Default Value:
0
The number of attempts to catch exceptions and retry the resource.
retry_delay
Ruby Type: Integer | Default Value:
2
The delay in seconds between retry attempts.
sensitive
Ruby Type: true, false | Default Value:
false
Ensure that sensitive resource data is not logged by Chef Infra Client.
Notifications
notifies
Ruby Type: Symbol, 'Chef::Resource[String]'
A resource may notify another resource to take action when its state changes. Specify a
'resource[name]'
, the:action
that resource should take, and then the:timer
for that action. A resource may notify more than one resource; use anotifies
statement for each resource to be notified.If the referenced resource does not exist, an error is raised. In contrast,
subscribes
will not fail if the source resource is not found.
A timer specifies the point during a Chef Infra Client run at which a notification is run. The following timers are available:
:before
Specifies that the action on a notified resource should be run before processing the resource block in which the notification is located.
:delayed
Default. Specifies that a notification should be queued up, and then executed at the end of a Chef Infra Client run.
:immediate
,:immediately
Specifies that a notification should be run immediately, for each resource notified.
The syntax for notifies
is:
notifies :action, 'resource[name]', :timer
subscribes
Ruby Type: Symbol, 'Chef::Resource[String]'
A resource may listen to another resource, and then take action if the
state of the resource being listened to changes. Specify a
'resource[name]'
, the :action
to be taken, and then the :timer
for
that action.
Note that subscribes
does not apply the specified action to the
resource that it listens to - for example:
file '/etc/nginx/ssl/example.crt' do
mode '0600'
owner 'root'
end
service 'nginx' do
subscribes :reload, 'file[/etc/nginx/ssl/example.crt]', :immediately
end
In this case the subscribes
property reloads the nginx
service
whenever its certificate file, located under
/etc/nginx/ssl/example.crt
, is updated. subscribes
does not make any
changes to the certificate file itself, it merely listens for a change
to the file, and executes the :reload
action for its resource (in this
example nginx
) when a change is detected.
If the other resource does not exist, the subscription will not raise an
error. Contrast this with the stricter semantics of notifies
, which
will raise an error if the other resource does not exist.
A timer specifies the point during a Chef Infra Client run at which a notification is run. The following timers are available:
:before
Specifies that the action on a notified resource should be run before processing the resource block in which the notification is located.
:delayed
Default. Specifies that a notification should be queued up, and then executed at the end of a Chef Infra Client run.
:immediate
,:immediately
Specifies that a notification should be run immediately, for each resource notified.
The syntax for subscribes
is:
subscribes :action, 'resource[name]', :timer
Guards
A guard property can be used to evaluate the state of a node during the execution phase of a Chef Infra Client run. Based on the results of this evaluation, a guard property is then used to tell Chef Infra Client if it should continue executing a resource. A guard property accepts either a string value or a Ruby block value:
- A string is executed as a shell command. If the command returns
0
, the guard is applied. If the command returns any other value, then the guard property is not applied. String guards in a powershell_script run Windows PowerShell commands and may returntrue
in addition to0
. - A block is executed as Ruby code that must return either
true
orfalse
. If the block returnstrue
, the guard property is applied. If the block returnsfalse
, the guard property is not applied.
A guard property is useful for ensuring that a resource is idempotent by allowing that resource to test for the desired state as it is being executed, and then if the desired state is present, for Chef Infra Client to do nothing.
PropertiesThe following properties can be used to define a guard that is evaluated during the execution phase of a Chef Infra Client run:
not_if
Prevent a resource from executing when the condition returns
true
.only_if
Allow a resource to execute only if the condition returns
true
.
Examples
The following examples demonstrate various approaches for using the directory resource in recipes:
Create a directory
directory '/tmp/something' do
owner 'root'
group 'root'
mode '0755'
action :create
end
Create a directory in Microsoft Windows
directory "C:\\tmp\\something" do
rights :full_control, "DOMAIN\\User"
inherits false
action :create
end
or:
directory 'C:\tmp\something' do
rights :full_control, 'DOMAIN\User'
inherits false
action :create
end
Note
The difference between the two previous examples is the single- versus
double-quoted strings, where if the double quotes are used, the backslash character
(\
) must be escaped using the Ruby escape character (which is a
backslash).
Create a directory recursively:
%w{dir1 dir2 dir3}.each do |dir|
directory "/tmp/mydirs/#{dir}" do
mode '0755'
owner 'root'
group 'root'
action :create
recursive true
end
end
Delete a directory:
directory '/tmp/something' do
recursive true
action :delete
end
Set directory permissions using a variable
The following example
shows how read/write/execute permissions can be
set using a variable named
user_home
, and then for owners and groups
on any matching node:
user_home = "/#{node[:matching_node][:user]}"
directory user_home do
owner 'node[:matching_node][:user]'
group 'node[:matching_node][:group]'
mode '0755'
action :create
end
where matching_node
represents
a type of node. For example, if the
user_home
variable specified {node[:nginx]...}
,
a recipe might look
similar to:
user_home = "/#{node[:nginx][:user]}"
directory user_home do
owner 'node[:nginx][:user]'
group 'node[:nginx][:group]'
mode '0755'
action :create
end
Set directory permissions for a specific type of node
The following example shows how permissions can be set for the
/certificates
directory on any node that is running Nginx. In this
example, permissions are being set for the owner
and group
properties as root
, and then read/write permissions are granted to the
root.
directory "#{node[:nginx][:dir]}/shared/certificates" do
owner 'root'
group 'root'
mode '0755'
recursive true
end
Reload the configuration
The following example shows how to reload the configuration of a chef-client using the remote_file resource to:
- using an if statement to check whether the plugins on a node are the latest versions
- identify the location from which Ohai plugins are stored
- using the
notifies
property and a ruby_block resource to trigger an update (if required) and to then reload the client.rb file.
directory 'node[:ohai][:plugin_path]' do
owner 'chef'
recursive true
end
ruby_block 'reload_config' do
block do
Chef::Config.from_file('/etc/chef/client.rb')
end
action :nothing
end
if node[:ohai].key?(:plugins)
node[:ohai][:plugins].each do |plugin|
remote_file node[:ohai][:plugin_path] +"/#{plugin}" do
source plugin
owner 'chef'
notifies :run, 'ruby_block[reload_config]', :immediately
end
end
end
Manage dotfiles
The following example shows using the directory and cookbook_file resources to manage dotfiles. The dotfiles are defined by a JSON data structure similar to:
"files": {
".zshrc": {
"mode": '0755',
"source": "dot-zshrc"
},
".bashrc": {
"mode": '0755',
"source": "dot-bashrc"
},
".bash_profile": {
"mode": '0755',
"source": "dot-bash_profile"
},
}
and then the following resources manage the dotfiles:
if u.has_key?('files')
u['files'].each do |filename, file_data|
directory "#{home_dir}/#{File.dirname(filename)}" do
recursive true
mode '0755'
end if file_data['subdir']
cookbook_file "#{home_dir}/#{filename}" do
source "#{u['id']}/#{file_data['source']}"
owner 'u['id']'
group 'group_id'
mode 'file_data['mode']'
ignore_failure true
backup 0
end
end