Fixed size /tmp in Fedora 19 box

[hectcastro]

/tmp in the Fedora 19 box is currently ~255MB, which gets exhausted with almost any Chef run that extracts an archive into Chef's cache directory.

Executing the following prevents /tmp from being created as tmpfs:

# systemctl mask tmp.mount

[juliandunn]

@hectcastro Any idea how you turn this off for realzies on a Fedora box? I'd happily add it to some systemd unit or whatever if I knew how.

[bflad]

Here's the full story: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/tmp-on-tmpfs

It seems that Chef should possibly change from using /tmp as the cache directory to match Fedora's filesystem guidelines? Maybe:

• From the linked page: "Programs should follow the rule: if you are privileged, place it in /run/<your-program-name>/. Otherwise, if it's large or needs persistency across reboots, place it in /var/tmp."
• /var/cache/chef

The systemd unit file it seems is created by default at: /usr/lib/systemd/system/tmp.mount

#  This file is part of systemd.
#
#  systemd is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
#  under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
#  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or
#  (at your option) any later version.

[Unit]
Description=Temporary Directory
Documentation=man:hier(7)
Documentation=http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/APIFileSystems
DefaultDependencies=no
Conflicts=umount.target
Before=local-fs.target umount.target

[Mount]
What=tmpfs
Where=/tmp
Type=tmpfs
Options=mode=1777,strictatime

Let me know if you'd like me to submit a ticket to CHEF.

[bflad]

Although if Chef is already not using /tmp for file_cache_path on Fedora, wouldn't you be violating http://acrmp.github.io/foodcritic/#FC013? Trying to find the Chef code from my phone to confirm.

[bflad]

Chef caching defaults to /var/chef/cache according to the code unless its configured differently (file_cache_path or chef-client cookbook attribute in my experience).

[hectcastro]

A wild @bflad appears.

After a closer look, this is being caused by the default location of Test Kitchen's cache:

[vagrant@default-fedora-19 ~]$ cat /tmp/kitchen/solo.rb
node_name "default-fedora-19"
checksum_path "/tmp/kitchen/checksums"
file_cache_path "/tmp/kitchen/cache"
file_backup_path "/tmp/kitchen/backup"
cookbook_path ["/tmp/kitchen/cookbooks", "/tmp/kitchen/site-cookbooks"]
data_bag_path "/tmp/kitchen/data_bags"
environment_path "/tmp/kitchen/environments"
node_path "/tmp/kitchen/nodes"
role_path "/tmp/kitchen/roles"
client_path "/tmp/kitchen/clients"
user_path "/tmp/kitchen/users"
validation_key "/tmp/kitchen/validation.pem"
client_key "/tmp/kitchen/client.pem"
chef_server_url "http://127.0.0.1:8889"
encrypted_data_bag_secret "/tmp/kitchen/encrypted_data_bag_secret"

Given Fedora's file system guidelines, I probably need to find a way to override the default provisioner root_path for Fedora tests.

[juliandunn]

@hectcastro Yes, and you should be able to do that within the driver config for test-kitchen -- I've done that successfully.

[hectcastro]

For anyone who is interested, the real issue appears to be the ark provider for the java cookbook: https://github.com/socrata-cookbooks/java/blob/master/providers/ark.rb#L152-L159 (when you try to install the Oracle JDK).

[hectcastro]

Hopefully resolved in sous-chefs/java#150.

[sciurus]

Could you reconsider disabling tmp on tmprfs for Fedora? Like @hectcastro said all that would take is running systemctl mask tmp.mount. That will permanently make the necessary systemd unit changes.