I am new to Chef. I just finished creating a cookbook that deploys a node.js app, configures Nginx, and then starts the app as 1 or more workers that are "load balanced" by Nginx. It works great. I made sure to keep it pretty generic, and all the app level config is done via attributes.
Now I am trying to think about an instance where I have multiple node.js apps running on the same server. For example, the primary API app, and another app that registered itself as a Gearman worker.
How would I go about doing this? Would I simply create another cookbook that is specific to that app, make sure it includes the generic cookbook's recipe, and then do attribute overrides just for that app's recipe?
Or, would it be better if I moved away from using attributes for the app config, and used data_bags instead?
Any help is appreciated.
I would have separated nginx and node.js installation/configuration into separate cookbooks.
If you must have several different applications running on node.js, I think it's ok to add a recipe for every application inside node.js cookbook and make sure each of them includes installation of node.js itself.
If you must have several instances of 1 and the same application/service running, then it is better to use one recipe with different attributes or data bags to introduce differences among instances.
Any more specific questions?
You should use roles Roles to manage multiple cookbooks on a server.
I'm not exactly sure of your scenario, but from your description, I would create 3 cookbooks. One that installs nginx, one that installs your app, and one that does node specific configuration and deployment. Bundle these into a role 'app_server' and put the role in the run_list.
This makes your app more composable, and it's easier to change out any of the pieces in the future.