Allow resources to skip repository install

[patcon]

Some restricted environments cannot add yum repositories, and must install newrelic manually. Would be great if there was a resource attribute flag that would allow the "install_repository" method to be skipped.

Would you be willing to accept a PR for this?

[djoos]

Definitely @patcon, ping it over!

FYI: I'm hoping to catch up on PRs and issues over the next couple of weeks...

Thanks in advance!
David

[patcon]

Would you mind if I made the "skip_install" attr top-level (ie. not for a specific type of agent install, like app or server). The rationale being that turning off auto-install would be applied when repos can't be managed, so it should affect all.

On a related note, perahps we could separate :install and :configure actions on the resource? That might be a little cleaner than just a "skip_install" resource attr.

EDIT: The good news is that it seems default_action when defining the custom resource can be an array :)
https://github.com/chef/chef/blob/master/spec/unit/lwrp_spec.rb#L266-L272

[patcon]

OK, this was how I was thinking. I can further run and fix up any integrations tests (?). We could also force the other LWRPs to use the same pattern.

While this is mostly backward compat, if someone has explicitly used the resource and explicitly set the :install action, it might silently stop managing config, which might call for a major version bump (or further consideration of our strategy)

[djoos]

Hi @patcon,

just to make sure I've got it at the right end of the stick: would the "manual" install be the manual installation on other Linux flavours?

Thanks in advance for the additional background!

Kind regards,
David

[patcon]

Yep, that's right :)

[shatil]

I don't see any other means of up-voting, but +1. Can't wait to see this in master. Thanks @patcon!

My use case is similar: some networks aggressively limit outbound connections, particularly over HTTP (I see New Relic's download servers do serve HTTPS though the recipe specifies HTTP).