chef-gem-pg package builder

Scripts in this repository build a .deb package with the pg gem for Omnibus Chef client.

The postgresql cookbook needs the pg gem installed within Chef environment. Installing directly with gem install it is problematic, because of linking issues (system vs omnibus OpenSSL). The gem needs to be patched. The cookbook handles that, but it needs some quite awful workarounds. This needs to run on every node that needs Postgres integration, and it's difficult to debug when it goes wrong.

This scripting will build a chef-gem-pg Debian package that will include a prebuilt pg gem. It has a strict dependency on Omnibus Chef package version to make sure dynamic linking won't break when Chef is upgraded, and it depends on libpq5, the PostgreSQL client library.

Building

The package is built in a Docker container. Run ./build.sh to build the package with latest Chef and Ubuntu 16.04. Run ./build.sh -h to see available options. You can choose base image, Chef version, pg gem version, and you can build against libraries from the PGDG repository.

At the end, package is tested in a separate container against a dockerized PostgreSQL server. You should see {"hello"=>"world"} near the bottom of the output.

The test.sh script can be used to test an already built package.

Using the package

If you use the postgresql cookbook, make sure the package is installed (in compile time) before postgresq::ruby recipe runs. Distributing the package is left as an exercise to the reader.

For example, if the package is available in an apt repository, the following should work:

package('chef-gem-pg').action(:install)
include_recipe 'postgresql::ruby'

If Postgres integration outside what postgresql cookbook provides is needed, just install the package in compile time before it's required.