chef-solo hangs at the end installing redis

Question

chef-solo hangs at the end when installing redis as if chef is waiting for some event to occur. Here is output when I had to kill it with ctrl+c.

[2013-05-14T15:55:27+00:00] ERROR: Running exception handlers
[2013-05-14T15:55:27+00:00] ERROR: Exception handlers complete Chef Client failed. 8 resources updated
[2013-05-14T15:55:27+00:00] FATAL: Stacktrace dumped to /home/ubuntu/cache/chef-stacktrace.out [2013-05-14T15:55:27+00:00] FATAL: Chef::Exceptions::MultipleFailures: Multiple failures occurred:
* SystemExit occurred in chef run: service[redis] (redis::default line 107) had an error: SystemExit: exit
* Chef::Exceptions::Exec occurred in delayed notification: service[redis] (redis::default line 83) had an error: Chef::Exceptions::Exec: /sbin/start redis returned 1, expected 0

I am new to chef and unable to figure out why this is happening. Has anyone noticed this behaviour before?

Here is my recipe file

package "build-essential" do
  action :install
end

user node[:redis][:user] do
  action :create
  system true
  shell "/bin/false"
end

directory node[:redis][:dir] do
  owner node[:redis][:user]
  group node[:redis][:user]
  mode "0755"
  action :create
end

directory node[:redis][:data_dir] do
  owner node[:redis][:user]
  group node[:redis][:user]
  mode "0755"
  action :create
end

directory node[:redis][:log_dir] do
  owner node[:redis][:user]
  group node[:redis][:user]
  mode "0755"
  action :create
end

remote_file "#{Chef::Config[:file_cache_path]}/redis-2.6.10.tar.gz" do
  source "http://redis.googlecode.com/files/redis-2.6.10.tar.gz"
  action :create_if_missing
end

# Adding 'make test' causes the install to freeze for some reason.
bash "compile_redis_source" do
  cwd Chef::Config[:file_cache_path]
  code <<-EOH
    tar zxf redis-2.6.10.tar.gz
    cd redis-2.6.10
    make && sudo make install
    # to give permissions to the executables that it copied to.
    chown -R redis:redis /usr/local/bin
  EOH
  creates "/usr/local/bin/redis-server"
end

service "redis" do
  provider Chef::Provider::Service::Upstart
  subscribes :restart, resources(:bash => "compile_redis_source")
  supports :restart => true, :start => true, :stop => true
end

template "redis.conf" do
  path "#{node[:redis][:dir]}/redis.conf"
  source "redis.conf.erb"
  owner node[:redis][:user]
  group node[:redis][:user]
  mode "0644"
  notifies :restart, resources(:service => "redis")
end

template "redis.upstart.conf" do
  path "/etc/init/redis.conf"
  source "redis.upstart.conf.erb"
  owner node[:redis][:user]
  group node[:redis][:user]
  mode "0644"
  notifies :restart, resources(:service => "redis")
end

service "redis" do
  action [:enable, :start]
end

There are 2 service "redis" resource statements, is that a problem? or how does chef workout in this case, does it merge into a single resource when running?

I am using upstart and here is the redis.upstart.conf.erb file. Not sure if anything is wrong with this. Does the order of the statement matter in this file?

#!upstart
description "Redis Server"
emits redis-server

# run when the local FS becomes available
start on local-filesystems
stop on shutdown

setuid redis
setgid redis
expect fork

# Respawn unless redis dies 10 times in 5 seconds
#respawn
#respawn limit 10 5

# start a default instance
instance $NAME
env NAME=redis
#instance $NAME

# run redis as the correct user
#setuid redis
#setgid redis

# run redis with the correct config file for this instance
exec /usr/local/bin/redis-server /etc/redis/redis.conf

respawn
#respawn limit 10 5

Answer 1

I think Dmytro was on the right path, but not exactly.

I see that you are using Upstart as the service provider in Chef. Please check your Upstart config for redis-server for any expect statement. If you have an expect fork or expect daemon statement in there, it means that when starting redis-server , Upstart will be waiting for the Redis service to fork once or twice respectively. If you have daemonize no in the redis.conf , Redis process will never fork, and therefore Upstart just hangs at the execution of the init script.

Answer 2

Your redis is not failing to start, it simply runs in the foreground.

I had similar problem with one of the Redis cookbooks I was using. In the redis.conf.erb file it had configuration option

daemonize no

Some other cookbooks have this option configurable by attribute. So, your fix would depend on the cookbook you are using. Either edit your redis.conf.erb file or find how that attribute is configured and set it to yes .