Chef Infra Language: Shelling Out

In most cases when you need to run a particular command in a cookbook, you’ll want to use the execute resource. Helper methods for shelling out can be useful when writing custom resources or other more advanced Ruby code.

shell_out

The shell_out method can be used to run a command against the node, and then display the output to the console when the log level is set to debug.

The syntax for the shell_out method is as follows:

shell_out(command_args)

where command_args is the command that’s run against the node.

shell_out!

The shell_out! method can be used to run a command against the node, display the output to the console when the log level is set to debug, and then raise an error when the method returns false.

The syntax for the shell_out! method is as follows:

shell_out!(command_args)

where command_args is the command that’s run against the node. This method will return true or false.