group resource¶

Use the group resource to manage a local group.

Syntax¶

The group resource has the following syntax:

group 'name' do
  append                true, false # default value: false
  excluded_members      String, Array
  gid                   String, Integer
  group_name            String # default value: 'name' unless specified
  members               String, Array
  non_unique            true, false # default value: false
  system                true, false # default value: false
  action                Symbol # defaults to :create if not specified
end

where:

group is the resource.
name is the name given to the resource block.
action identifies which steps the chef-client will take to bring the node into the desired state.
append, excluded_members, gid, group_name, members, non_unique, and system are the properties available to this resource.

Actions¶

The group resource has the following actions:

:create: Default. Create a group. If a group already exists (but does not match), update that group to match.
:manage: Manage an existing group. This action does nothing if the group does not exist.
:modify: Modify an existing group. This action raises an exception if the group does not exist.
:nothing: Define this resource block to do nothing until notified by another resource to take action. When this resource is notified, this resource block is either run immediately or it is queued up to be run at the end of the Chef Client run.
:remove: Remove a group.

Properties¶

The group resource has the following properties:

append

Ruby Type: true, false | Default Value: false

How members should be appended and/or removed from a group. When true, members are appended and excluded_members are removed. When false, group members are reset to the value of the members property.

excluded_members

Ruby Type: String, Array

Remove users from a group. May only be used when append is set to true.

gid

Ruby Type: String, Integer

The identifier for the group.

group_name

Ruby Type: String | Default Value: 'name'

The name of the group. Default value: the name of the resource block. See “Syntax” section above for more information.

ignore_failure

Ruby Type: true, false | Default Value: false

Continue running a recipe if a resource fails for any reason.

members

Ruby Type: Array

Which users should be set or appended to a group. When more than one group member is identified, the list of members should be an array: members ['user1', 'user2'].

non_unique

Ruby Type: true, false | Default Value: false

Allow gid duplication. May only be used with the Groupadd provider.

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 a notifies statement for each resource to be notified.

A timer specifies the point during the Chef 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 the Chef Client run.
:immediate, :immediately: Specifies that a notification should be run immediately, per resource notified.

The syntax for notifies is:

notifies :action, 'resource[name]', :timer

retries

Ruby Type: Integer | Default Value: 0

The number of times to catch exceptions and retry the resource.

retry_delay

Ruby Type: Integer | Default Value: 2

The retry delay (in seconds).

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.

A timer specifies the point during the Chef 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 the Chef Client run.
:immediate, :immediately: Specifies that a notification should be run immediately, per resource notified.

The syntax for subscribes is:

subscribes :action, 'resource[name]', :timer

system

Ruby Type: true, false | Default Value: false

Set if a group belongs to a system group. Set to true if the group belongs to a system group.

Examples¶

The following examples demonstrate various approaches for using resources in recipes. If you want to see examples of how Chef uses resources in recipes, take a closer look at the cookbooks that Chef authors and maintains: https://github.com/chef-cookbooks.

Append users to groups

group 'www-data' do
  action :modify
  members 'maintenance'
  append true
end

Add a user to group on the Windows platform

group 'Administrators' do
  members ['domain\foo']
  append true
  action :modify
end