Chef-solo: issues with unset attributes

Question

Folks, I am at a loss with Chef-solo attributes. I have a bunch of recipies, some of which used to be coded as roles and when as roles they mostly worked ok. So for example where I used to have a role:

name "apache"
description "Configure php5.3 and apache2 with mod_php."
run_list ( "recipe[php]", "recipe[apache2]" )

I now have :

# "Configure php5.3 and apache2 with mod_php."
include_recipe "php"
include_recipe "apache2"

This seemed fairly easy, but I am now running into attribute problems. The "php" cookbook recipe has attributes in its default.rb file and the code fails with the error:

NoMethodError
-------------
undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass

at the line in the standard php cookbook php/recipes/default.rb:

include_recipe "php::#{node['php']['install_method']}"

which I believe is because the attributes file has not been run, because if it were run the value install_method would have been set to 'package'. I don't think this issue is specific to the "php" recipe either... though I suppose it could be.

I can't find anything to indicate which circumstances a given attribute file is run in, except a cryptic comment about files being read in alphabetic order, though when wasn't stated.

For example, is attribute/default.rb run when any recipe from the cookbook is used? Are all attribute files loaded as soon as a cookbook is used, irrespective? Is it just the attribute file whose name matches the recipe being run?

Have you any idea how I can debug this?

EDIT: Add in some error messages:

[2013-10-26T22:44:10+00:00] DEBUG: Loading Recipe el-drupal-cookbook::apache2_mod_php via include_recipe
[2013-10-26T22:44:10+00:00] DEBUG: Found recipe apache2_mod_php in cookbook el-drupal-cookbook
[2013-10-26T22:44:10+00:00] DEBUG: Loading Recipe php via include_recipe
[2013-10-26T22:44:10+00:00] DEBUG: Found recipe default in cookbook php
[2013-10-26T22:44:10+00:00] DEBUG: filtered backtrace of compile error: /tmp/vagrant-chef-1/chef-solo-1/    cookbooks/php/recipes/default.rb:22:in `from_file',/tmp/vagrant-chef-1/chef-solo-1/cookbooks/el-drupal-    cookbook/recipes/apache2_mod_php.rb:3:in `from_file',/tmp/vagrant-chef-1/chef-solo-1/cookbooks/el-drupal-    cookbook/recipes/drupal_lamp_dev.rb:4:in `from_file'
[2013-10-26T22:44:10+00:00] DEBUG: filtered backtrace of compile error: /tmp/vagrant-chef-1/chef-solo-1/    cookbooks/php/recipes/default.rb:22:in `from_file',/tmp/vagrant-chef-1/chef-solo-1/cookbooks/el-drupal-    cookbook/recipes/apache2_mod_php.rb:3:in `from_file',/tmp/vagrant-chef-1/chef-solo-1/cookbooks/el-drupal-    cookbook/recipes/drupal_lamp_dev.rb:4:in `from_file'
[2013-10-26T22:44:10+00:00] DEBUG: backtrace entry for compile error: '/tmp/vagrant-chef-1/chef-solo-1/    cookbooks/php/recipes/default.rb:22:in `from_file''
[2013-10-26T22:44:10+00:00] DEBUG: Line number of compile error: '22'

================================================================================
Recipe Compile Error in /tmp/vagrant-chef-1/chef-solo-1/cookbooks/el-drupal-cookbook/recipes/drupal_lamp_dev    .rb
================================================================================

NoMethodError
-------------
undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass


Cookbook Trace:
---------------
  /tmp/vagrant-chef-1/chef-solo-1/cookbooks/php/recipes/default.rb:22:in `from_file'
  /tmp/vagrant-chef-1/chef-solo-1/cookbooks/el-drupal-cookbook/recipes/apache2_mod_php.rb:3:in `from_file'
  /tmp/vagrant-chef-1/chef-solo-1/cookbooks/el-drupal-cookbook/recipes/drupal_lamp_dev.rb:4:in `from_file'


Relevant File Content:
----------------------
/tmp/vagrant-chef-1/chef-solo-1/cookbooks/php/recipes/default.rb:

 15:  # Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 16:  # distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 17:  # WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 18:  # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 19:  # limitations under the License.
 20:  #
 21:  
 22>> include_recipe "php::#{node['php']['install_method']}"
 23:  
 24:  # update the main channels
 25:  php_pear_channel 'pear.php.net' do
 26:    action :update
 27:  end
 28:  

Answer 1

A lot of debug messages later I have figured it out. I had omitted to include the necessary "depends" lines in the metadata.rb file, which is how chef works out that it needs to load an attribute or library file (though confusingly it will still find the recipe).

Answer 2

When a cookbook is run, all of it's attributes files are loaded.

If you are using Chef 11, you can debug attribute with debug_value:

node.debug_value(:php, :install_method)

Can you show use the attribute file for the php recipe? Does it set default[:php][:install_method]? The error you're getting implies that there's no value at node[:php]. Does the log output show any other errors before this?