require_chef_omnibus: latest reinstalls chef on each converge

[failshell]

When adding that parameter to .kitchen.yml, Chef is reinstalled on each 'kitchen converge' run. Even if the latest version is installed already.

[sethvargo]

@failshell this is the correct behavior. If you want to pin to a particular version, put that in as the value. There's no way for TK to know if a new version of Chef is available without querying the server. And it does not make sense to perform 3 HTTP queries instead of one.

[adnichols]

@failshell To expand on this, there are three valid values for require_chef_omnibus:

• true : this will simply ensure that chef is installed, independent of version.
• false : test-kitchen will do nothing to validate that chef is installed or at correct version.
• x.y.z (ex: 11.10.2) : This will ensure this specific version is installed.

I have been caught in the past by doing things like using a fuzzy version for this field, ex. 11.10 and this will never match an installed version of chef and thus test-kitchen will always re-install chef no matter what version you have. Also using a vagrant/docker image which has an older version of chef and specifying a newer version will similarly always install chef because it'll always see a mismatch.

[curiositycasualty]

Thank for you for the expansion @adnichols, I came here looking for require_chef_omnibus: true without knowing it.

[ghost]

In my opinion that's nothing to do with version pinning (in fact it's reinstalling) and could not be the desired behaviour.
It's possible to query for the latest version and skip installation if the latest version is already installed, isn't it?

If you agree I'll submit a pull request.