W3cubDocs

/Chef 12

file

Use the file resource to manage files directly on a node.

Note

Use the cookbook_file resource to copy a file from a cookbook’s /files directory. Use the template resource to create a file based on a template in a cookbook’s /templates directory. And use the remote_file resource to transfer a file to a node from a remote location.

Syntax

A file resource block manages files that exist on nodes. For example, to write the home page for an Apache website:

file '/var/www/customers/public_html/index.php' do
  content '<html>This is a placeholder for the home page.</html>'
  mode '0755'
  owner 'web_admin'
  group 'web_admin'
end

where

  • '/var/www/customers/public_html/index.php' is path to the file and also the filename to be managed
  • content defines the contents of the file

The full syntax for all of the properties that are available to the file resource is:

file 'name' do
  atomic_update              TrueClass, FalseClass
  backup                     FalseClass, Integer
  checksum                   String
  content                    String
  force_unlink               TrueClass, FalseClass
  group                      String, Integer
  inherits                   TrueClass, FalseClass
  manage_symlink_source      TrueClass, FalseClass, NilClass
  mode                       String, Integer
  notifies                   # see description
  owner                      String, Integer
  path                       String # defaults to 'name' if not specified
  provider                   Chef::Provider::File
  rights                     Hash
  sensitive                  TrueClass, FalseClass
  subscribes                 # see description
  verify                     String, Block
  action                     Symbol # defaults to :create if not specified
end

where

  • file is the resource
  • name is the name of the resource block; when the path property is not specified as part of a recipe, name is also the path to the file
  • content specifies the contents of the file
  • :action identifies the steps the chef-client will take to bring the node into the desired state
  • atomic_update, backup, checksum, content, force_unlink, group, inherits, manage_symlink_source, mode, owner, path, provider, rights, sensitive, and verify are properties of this resource, with the Ruby type shown. See “Properties” section below for more information about all of the properties that may be used with this resource.

Actions

This resource has the following actions:

:create
Default. Create a file. If a file already exists (but does not match), update that file to match.
:create_if_missing
Create a file only if the file does not exist. When the file exists, nothing happens.
:delete
Delete a file.
: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.
:touch
Touch a file. This updates the access (atime) and file modification (mtime) times for a file.

Warning

For a machine on which SELinux is enabled, the chef-client will create files that correctly match the default policy settings only when the cookbook that defines the action also conforms to the same policy.

Properties

This resource has the following properties:

atomic_update

Ruby Types: TrueClass, FalseClass

Perform atomic file updates on a per-resource basis. Set to true for atomic file updates. Set to false for non-atomic file updates. This setting overrides file_atomic_update, which is a global setting found in the client.rb file. Default value: true.

backup

Ruby Types: FalseClass, Integer

The number of backups to be kept in /var/chef/backup (for UNIX- and Linux-based platforms) or C:/chef/backup (for the Microsoft Windows platform). Set to false to prevent backups from being kept. Default value: 5.

checksum

Ruby Types: String

The SHA-256 checksum of the file. Use to ensure that a specific file is used. If the checksum does not match, the file is not used. Default value: no checksum required.

content

Ruby Type: String

A string that is written to the file. The contents of this property replace any previous content when this property has something other than the default value. The default behavior will not modify content.

force_unlink

Ruby Types: TrueClass, FalseClass

How the chef-client handles certain situations when the target file turns out not to be a file. For example, when a target file is actually a symlink. Set to true for the chef-client delete the non-file target and replace it with the specified file. Set to false for the chef-client to raise an error. Default value: false.

group

Ruby Types: Integer, String

A string or ID that identifies the group owner by group name, including fully qualified group names such as domain\group or [email protected]. If this value is not specified, existing groups remain unchanged and new group assignments use the default POSIX group (if available).

ignore_failure

Ruby Types: TrueClass, FalseClass

Continue running a recipe if a resource fails for any reason. Default value: false.

inherits

Ruby Types: TrueClass, FalseClass

Microsoft Windows only. Whether a file inherits rights from its parent directory. Default value: true.

manage_symlink_source

Ruby Types: TrueClass, FalseClass, NilClass

Cause the chef-client to detect and manage the source file for a symlink. Possible values: nil, true, or false. When this value is set to nil, the chef-client will manage a symlink’s source file and emit a warning. When this value is set to true, the chef-client will manage a symlink’s source file and not emit a warning. Default value: nil. The default value will be changed to false in a future version.

mode

Ruby Types: Integer, String

A quoted 3-5 character string that defines the octal mode. For example: '755', '0755', or 00755. If mode is not specified and if the file already exists, the existing mode on the file is used. If mode is not specified, the file does not exist, and the :create action is specified, the chef-client assumes a mask value of '0777' and then applies the umask for the system on which the file is to be created to the mask value. For example, if the umask on a system is '022', the chef-client uses the default value of '0755'.

The behavior is different depending on the platform.

UNIX- and Linux-based systems: A quoted 3-5 character string that defines the octal mode that is passed to chmod. For example: '755', '0755', or 00755. If the value is specified as a quoted string, it works exactly as if the chmod command was passed. If the value is specified as an integer, prepend a zero (0) to the value to ensure that it is interpreted as an octal number. For example, to assign read, write, and execute rights for all users, use '0777' or '777'; for the same rights, plus the sticky bit, use 01777 or '1777'.

Microsoft Windows: A quoted 3-5 character string that defines the octal mode that is translated into rights for Microsoft Windows security. For example: '755', '0755', or 00755. Values up to '0777' are allowed (no sticky bits) and mean the same in Microsoft Windows as they do in UNIX, where 4 equals GENERIC_READ, 2 equals GENERIC_WRITE, and 1 equals GENERIC_EXECUTE. This property cannot be used to set :full_control. This property has no effect if not specified, but when it and rights are both specified, the effects are cumulative.

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 notifiy 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 very 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
owner

Ruby Types: Integer, String

A string or ID that identifies the group owner by user name, including fully qualified user names such as domain\user or [email protected]. If this value is not specified, existing owners remain unchanged and new owner assignments use the current user (when necessary).

path

Ruby Type: String

The full path to the file, including the file name and its extension. For example: /files/file.txt. Default value: the name of the resource block See “Syntax” section above for more information.

Microsoft Windows: A path that begins with a forward slash (/) will point to the root of the current working directory of the chef-client process. This path can vary from system to system. Therefore, using a path that begins with a forward slash (/) is not recommended.

provider

Ruby Type: Chef Class

Optional. Explicitly specifies a provider.

retries

Ruby Type: Integer

The number of times to catch exceptions and retry the resource. Default value: 0.

retry_delay

Ruby Type: Integer

The retry delay (in seconds). Default value: 2.

rights

Ruby Types: Integer, String

Microsoft Windows only. The permissions for users and groups in a Microsoft Windows environment. For example: rights <permissions>, <principal>, <options> where <permissions> specifies the rights granted to the principal, <principal> is the group or user name, and <options> is a Hash with one (or more) advanced rights options.

sensitive

Ruby Types: TrueClass, FalseClass

Ensure that sensitive resource data is not logged by the chef-client. Default value: false.

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.

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 very 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
verify

Ruby Types: String, Block

A block or a string that returns true or false. A string, when true is executed as a system command.

A block is arbitrary Ruby defined within the resource block by using the verify property. When a block is true, the chef-client will continue to update the file as appropriate.

For example, this should return true:

file '/tmp/baz' do
  verify { 1 == 1 }
end

This should return true:

file '/etc/nginx.conf' do
  verify 'nginx -t -c %{path}'
end

Warning

For releases of the chef-client prior to 12.5 (chef-client 12.4 and earlier) the correct syntax is:

file '/etc/nginx.conf' do
  verify 'nginx -t -c %{file}'
end

See GitHub issues https://github.com/chef/chef/issues/3232 and https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/3693 for more information about these differences.

This should return true:

file '/tmp/bar' do
  verify { 1 == 1}
end

And this should return true:

file '/tmp/foo' do
  verify do |path|
    true
  end
end

Whereas, this should return false:

file '/tmp/turtle' do
  verify '/usr/bin/false'
end

If a string or a block return false, the chef-client run will stop and an error is returned.

Atomic File Updates

Atomic updates are used with file-based resources to help ensure that file updates can be made when updating a binary or if disk space runs out.

Atomic updates are enabled by default. They can be managed globally using the file_atomic_update setting in the client.rb file. They can be managed on a per-resource basis using the atomic_update property that is available with the cookbook_file, file, remote_file, and template resources.

Note

On certain platforms, and after a file has been moved into place, the chef-client may modify file permissions to support features specific to those platforms. On platforms with SELinux enabled, the chef-client will fix up the security contexts after a file has been moved into the correct location by running the restorecon command. On the Microsoft Windows platform, the chef-client will create files so that ACL inheritance works as expected.

Windows File Security

To support Microsoft Windows security, the template, file, remote_file, cookbook_file, directory, and remote_directory resources support the use of inheritance and access control lists (ACLs) within recipes.

Access Control Lists (ACLs)

The rights property can be used in a recipe to manage access control lists (ACLs), which allow permissions to be given to multiple users and groups. Use the rights property can be used as many times as necessary; the chef-client will apply them to the file or directory as required. The syntax for the rights property is as follows:

rights permission, principal, option_type => value

where

permission

Use to specify which rights are granted to the principal. The possible values are: :read, :write, read_execute, :modify, and :full_control.

These permissions are cumulative. If :write is specified, then it includes :read. If :full_control is specified, then it includes both :write and :read.

(For those who know the Microsoft Windows API: :read corresponds to GENERIC_READ; :write corresponds to GENERIC_WRITE; :read_execute corresponds to GENERIC_READ and GENERIC_EXECUTE; :modify corresponds to GENERIC_WRITE, GENERIC_READ, GENERIC_EXECUTE, and DELETE; :full_control corresponds to GENERIC_ALL, which allows a user to change the owner and other metadata about a file.)

principal
Use to specify a group or user name. This is identical to what is entered in the login box for Microsoft Windows, such as user_name, domain\user_name, or [email protected]_qualified_domain_name. The chef-client does not need to know if a principal is a user or a group.
option_type

A hash that contains advanced rights options. For example, the rights to a directory that only applies to the first level of children might look something like: rights :write, 'domain\group_name', :one_level_deep => true. Possible option types:

Option Type Description
:applies_to_children Specify how permissions are applied to children. Possible values: true to inherit both child directories and files; false to not inherit any child directories or files; :containers_only to inherit only child directories (and not files); :objects_only to recursively inherit files (and not child directories).
:applies_to_self Indicates whether a permission is applied to the parent directory. Possible values: true to apply to the parent directory or file and its children; false to not apply only to child directories and files.
:one_level_deep Indicates the depth to which permissions will be applied. Possible values: true to apply only to the first level of children; false to apply to all children.

For example:

resource 'x.txt' do
  rights :read, 'Everyone'
  rights :write, 'domain\group'
  rights :full_control, 'group_name_or_user_name'
  rights :full_control, 'user_name', :applies_to_children => true
end

or:

rights :read, ['Administrators','Everyone']
rights :full_control, 'Users', :applies_to_children => true
rights :write, 'Sally', :applies_to_children => :containers_only, :applies_to_self => false, :one_level_deep => true

Some other important things to know when using the rights attribute:

  • Only inherited rights remain. All existing explicit rights on the object are removed and replaced.
  • If rights are not specified, nothing will be changed. The chef-client does not clear out the rights on a file or directory if rights are not specified.
  • Changing inherited rights can be expensive. Microsoft Windows will propagate rights to all children recursively due to inheritance. This is a normal aspect of Microsoft Windows, so consider the frequency with which this type of action is necessary and take steps to control this type of action if performance is the primary consideration.

Use the deny_rights property to deny specific rights to specific users. The ordering is independent of using the rights property. For example, it doesn’t matter if rights are granted to everyone is placed before or after deny_rights :read, ['Julian', 'Lewis'], both Julian and Lewis will be unable to read the document. For example:

resource 'x.txt' do
  rights :read, 'Everyone'
  rights :write, 'domain\group'
  rights :full_control, 'group_name_or_user_name'
  rights :full_control, 'user_name', :applies_to_children => true
  deny_rights :read, ['Julian', 'Lewis']
end

or:

deny_rights :full_control, ['Sally']

Inheritance

By default, a file or directory inherits rights from its parent directory. Most of the time this is the preferred behavior, but sometimes it may be necessary to take steps to more specifically control rights. The inherits property can be used to specifically tell the chef-client to apply (or not apply) inherited rights from its parent directory.

For example, the following example specifies the rights for a directory:

directory 'C:\mordor' do
  rights :read, 'MORDOR\Minions'
  rights :full_control, 'MORDOR\Sauron'
end

and then the following example specifies how to use inheritance to deny access to the child directory:

directory 'C:\mordor\mount_doom' do
  rights :full_control, 'MORDOR\Sauron'
  inherits false # Sauron is the only person who should have any sort of access
end

If the deny_rights permission were to be used instead, something could slip through unless all users and groups were denied.

Another example also shows how to specify rights for a directory:

directory 'C:\mordor' do
  rights :read, 'MORDOR\Minions'
  rights :full_control, 'MORDOR\Sauron'
  rights :write, 'SHIRE\Frodo' # Who put that there I didn't put that there
end

but then not use the inherits property to deny those rights on a child directory:

directory 'C:\mordor\mount_doom' do
  deny_rights :read, 'MORDOR\Minions' # Oops, not specific enough
end

Because the inherits property is not specified, the chef-client will default it to true, which will ensure that security settings for existing files remain unchanged.

Windows File Redirection

64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows have a 32-bit compatibility layer that redirects attempts by 32-bit application to access the System32 directory to a different location. Starting with chef-client version 12.9, the 32-bit version of the chef-client is subject to the file redirection policy.

For example, consider the following script:

process_type = ENV['PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE'] == 'AMD64' ? '64-bit' : '32-bit'
system32_dir = ::File.join(ENV['SYSTEMROOT'], 'system32')
test_dir = ::File.join(system32_dir, 'cheftest')
test_file = ::File.join(test_dir, 'chef_architecture.txt')

directory test_dir do
  # some directory
end

file test_file do
  content "Chef made me, I come from a #{process_type} process."
end

When running a 32-bit version of chef-client, the script will write the chef_architecture file to the C:\Windows\SysWow64 directory. However, when running a native 64-bit version of the chef-client, the script will write a file to the C:\Windows\System32 directory, as expected.

For more information, see: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa384187(v=vs.85).aspx.

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.

Create a file

file '/tmp/something' do
  owner 'root'
  group 'root'
  mode '0755'
  action :create
end

Create a file in Microsoft Windows

To create a file in Microsoft Windows, be sure to add an escape character—\—before the backslashes in the paths:

file 'C:\\tmp\\something.txt' do
  rights :read, 'Everyone'
  rights :full_control, 'DOMAIN\\User'
  action :create
end

Remove a file

file '/tmp/something' do
  action :delete
end

Set file modes

file '/tmp/something' do
  mode '0755'
end

Delete a repository using yum to scrub the cache

# the following code sample thanks to gaffneyc @ https://gist.github.com/918711

execute 'clean-yum-cache' do
  command 'yum clean all'
  action :nothing
end

file '/etc/yum.repos.d/bad.repo' do
  action :delete
  notifies :run, 'execute[clean-yum-cache]', :immediately
  notifies :create, 'ruby_block[reload-internal-yum-cache]', :immediately
end

Add the value of a data bag item to a file

The following example shows how to get the contents of a data bag item named impossible_things, create a .pem file located at some/directory/path/, and then use the content attribute to update the contents of that file with the value of the impossible_things data bag item:

private_key = data_bag_item('impossible_things', private_key_name)['private_key']

file "some/directory/path/#{private_key_name}.pem" do
  content private_key
  owner 'root'
  group 'group'
  mode '0755'
end

Write a YAML file

The following example shows how to use the content property to write a YAML file:

file "#{app['deploy_to']}/shared/config/settings.yml" do
  owner "app['owner']"
  group "app['group']"
  mode '0755'
  content app.to_yaml
end

Write a string to a file

The following example specifies a directory, and then uses the content property to add a string to the file created in that directory:

status_file = '/path/to/file/status_file'

file status_file do
  owner 'root'
  group 'root'
  mode '0755'
  content 'My favourite foremost coastal Antarctic shelf, oh Larsen B!'
end

Create a file from a copy

The following example shows how to copy a file from one directory to another, locally on a node:

file '/root/1.txt' do
  content IO.read('/tmp/1.txt')
  action :create
end

where the content attribute uses the Ruby IO.read method to get the contents of the /tmp/1.txt file.

© Chef Software, Inc.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
The Chef™ Mark and Chef Logo are either registered trademarks/service marks or trademarks/servicemarks of Chef, in the United States and other countries and are used with Chef Inc's permission.
We are not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Chef Inc.
https://docs-archive.chef.io/release/12-13/resource_file.html