Installing a gem w/chef fails with Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError: chef_gem[fog]

Question

I'm attempting to use the route53 cookbook but it continuously fails on the fog installation phase.

libxml2-dev and libxslt1-dev are already installed but the chef_gem "fog" phase fails:

Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError: chef_gem[fog] (route53::default line 42) had an error: Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

        /opt/chef/embedded/bin/ruby extconf.rb
Extracting libxml2-2.8.0.tar.gz into tmp//ports/libxml2/2.8.0... OK
Running 'configure' for libxml2 2.8.0... ERROR, review 'tmp//ports/libxml2/2.8.0/configure.log' to see what happened.
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.

Provided configuration options:
    --with-opt-dir
    --with-opt-include
    --without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
    --with-opt-lib
    --without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
    --with-make-prog
    --without-make-prog
    --srcdir=.
    --curdir
    --ruby=/opt/chef/embedded/bin/ruby
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mini_portile-0.5.2/lib/mini_portile.rb:265:in `block in execute': Failed to complete configure task (RuntimeError)
    from /opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mini_portile-0.5.2/lib/mini_portile.rb:257:in `chdir'
    from /opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mini_portile-0.5.2/lib/mini_portile.rb:257:in `execute'
    from /opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mini_portile-0.5.2/lib/mini_portile.rb:65:in `configure'
    from /opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mini_portile-0.5.2/lib/mini_portile.rb:108:in `cook'
    from extconf.rb:101:in `block in <main>'
    from extconf.rb:119:in `call'
    from extconf.rb:119:in `block in <main>'
    from extconf.rb:109:in `tap'
    from extconf.rb:109:in `<main>'


Gem files will remain installed in /opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/nokogiri-1.6.1 for inspection.
Results logged to /opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/nokogiri-1.6.1/ext/nokogiri/gem_make.out

Very similar to Installing a gem after native extension packages during chef execution but the circumstances are different. The installation recipe: https://github.com/hw-cookbooks/route53/blob/master/recipes/default.rb

Anyone have any suggestions as to how I can resolve this? Basically the fault is nokogiri won't install with ruby 1.9.3p484. /opt/chef/embedded/bin/gem install nokogiri fails as well.

Answer 1

You'll need to have the prerequisite packages installed on the machine. For instance, on Ubuntu you'll need the build-essential package and possibly some others installed in order for this to succeed.