windows_env resource¶

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Use the windows_env resource to manage environment keys in Microsoft Windows. After an environment key is set, Microsoft Windows must be restarted before the environment key will be available to the Task Scheduler.

This resource was previously called the env resource; its name was updated in Chef Client 14.0 to reflect the fact that only Windows is supported. Existing cookbooks using env will continue to function, but should be updated to use the new name.

Note

On UNIX-based systems, the best way to manipulate environment keys is with the ENV variable in Ruby; however, this approach does not have the same permanent effect as using the windows_env resource.

Syntax¶

The windows_env resource has the following syntax:

windows_env 'name' do
  delim         String, nil, false
  key_name      String # default value: 'name' unless specified
  user          String # default value: <System>
  value         String
  action        Symbol # defaults to :create if not specified
end

where:

windows_env 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.
delim, key_name, user, and value are the properties available to this resource.

Actions¶

This resource has the following actions:

:create: Default. Create an environment variable. If an environment variable already exists (but does not match), update that environment variable to match.
:delete: Delete an environment variable.
:modify: Modify an existing environment variable. This prepends the new value to the existing value, using the delimiter specified by the delim property.
: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.

Properties¶

This resource has the following properties:

delim

Ruby Type: String

The delimiter that is used to separate multiple values for a single key.

ignore_failure

Ruby Type: true, false | Default Value: false

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

key_name

Ruby Type: String

The name of the key that is to be created, deleted, or modified. Default value: the name of the resource block. See “Syntax” section above for more information.

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

value

Ruby Type: String

The value with which key_name is set.

Guards¶

A guard property can be used to evaluate the state of a node during the execution phase of the chef-client run. Based on the results of this evaluation, a guard property is then used to tell the chef-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 return true in addition to 0.
A block is executed as Ruby code that must return either true or false. If the block returns true, the guard property is applied. If the block returns false, 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 the chef-client to do nothing.

Attributes

The following properties can be used to define a guard that is evaluated during the execution phase of the chef-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.

Arguments

The following arguments can be used with the not_if or only_if guard properties:

:user

Specify the user that a command will run as. For example:

not_if 'grep adam /etc/passwd', :user => 'adam'

:group

Specify the group that a command will run as. For example:

not_if 'grep adam /etc/passwd', :group => 'adam'

:environment

Specify a Hash of environment variables to be set. For example:

not_if 'grep adam /etc/passwd', :environment => {
  'HOME' => '/home/adam'
}

:cwd

Set the current working directory before running a command. For example:

not_if 'grep adam passwd', :cwd => '/etc'

:timeout

Set a timeout for a command. For example:

not_if 'sleep 10000', :timeout => 10

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.

Set an environment variable

windows_env 'ComSpec' do
  value "C:\\Windows\\system32\\cmd.exe"
end