How can I get Chef to run apt-get update before running other recipes

Question

Right now I have the following in my Vagrantfile:

config.vm.provision :chef_solo do |chef|
    chef.cookbooks_path = \"cookbooks\"
    chef.add_recipe \"apt\"
           


        

Answer 1

The simplest and most direct way to solve the problem is by applying the following patch (h/t @ashchristopher):

https://github.com/wil/cookbooks/commit/a470a4f68602ec3bf3374830f4990a7e19e9de81

The problem is that the postgresql::client recipe runs the install action on the package resources at postgresql/recipes/client.rb:39 and 44 at compile-time rather than run-time like normal (h/t Tim Potter), causing them to be evaluated by Chef (and thus installed) before anything else runs.

pg_packages.each do |pg_pack|
  package pg_pack do
    action :nothing
  end.run_action(:install)
end

gem_package "pg" do
  action :nothing
end.run_action(:install)

I believe this is done in service of the database cookbook's postgres provider, which depends on the postgresql cookbook and relies on the pg gem being installed before it will compile. Applying the above patch may break the database cookbook.

The other alternative solution would be to create a recipe which runs apt-get update also at compile time and put it in your run_list before the postgresql cookbook. In its simplest form that would probably be something like:

execute "apt-get update" do
  action :nothing
end.run_action(:install)