Run List Item regex is too lenient, creating bizarre invalid item names

You need to put the roles/recipes in quotes when using the knife node run list add subcommand.

knife node run list add NODE "role[dev_env_yum_repo]"

I thought there was another ticket for this issue, but I couldn't find it. Anyway, the root cause of this problem is that the fallback case for RunListItem parsing is too lenient, so it ends up generating run list item names like this:

   "recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[[dev_env_yum_repo]]]]]"

Edited the ticket to reflect the above.

Hi there.

This happened to me before, and has just happened to a friend of mine. I looked into it, and this is what i found out:

It's not about the quotes! For the shell (bash/dash), 'recipe[blabla]' and recipe[blabla] is parsed the same. [] is used for indexing arrays, but for that to take effect, ${} must be used, as in ${MYARRAY[42]}. Not the case here.

The problem occurs when there is a SPACE char between the recipe and [blabla]. Simple as that. The poster of the bug has one:

$ knife node run_list add i-d97952b2 [dev_env_yum_repo]
                                    ^
                                    ¦
                                    +-- aha!

Adding quotes to that, doesn't help either.

Here is a run that reproduces it:

# Initial run list for node-1440.vm:
{
    "run_list": [
        "role[frontend]"
    ]
}
flox$ knife node run_list add node-1440.vm 'recipe [openssh]' # note the spurious space
{
    "run_list": [
        "role[frontend]",
        "recipe[recipe [openssh]]" # aha!
    ]
}
flox$ knife node run_list remove node-1440.vm 'recipe [openssh]' # trying to remove it makes it worse!
{
    "run_list": [
        "role[frontend]",
        "recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe [openssh]]]]]"
    ]
}
flox$ knife node run_list remove node-1440.vm 'recipe [openssh]'
{   "run_list": [
        "role[frontend]",
        "recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe [openssh]]]]]]]]"
    ]
}
flox$ knife node run_list remove node-1440.vm 'recipe [openssh]'
{
    "run_list": [
        "role[frontend]",
"recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe [openssh]]]]]]]]]]]"
    ]
}
flox$

The same happens if one unadvertedly tries to add a role with this typo (note 'role_s_', plural instead of the correct 'role', singular):

flox$ knife node run_list add node-1440.vm 'roles[openssh]'
{
    "run_list": [
        "role[frontend]",
        "recipe[roles[openssh]]"
    ]
}
flox$ knife node run_list remove node-1440.vm 'roles[openssh]' # again, trying to amend it, makes it worse!
{
    "run_list": [
        "role[frontend]",
        "recipe[recipe[recipe[recipe[roles[openssh]]]]]"
    ]
}
flox$

Checked against Version: 0.9.14+dfsg-1, on Debian 6.0.1 “squeeze”.
Tested again on Version: 0.9.16+dfsg-1, similar results.

Hope that it helps.

Happy hacking, fellas.

It looks like this customer also has an issue due to this bug: http://help.opscode.com/discussions/problems/677-knife-runlist-catastrophe

I was also able to repro it on my computer.

I typed this command:

knife node run_list add 20066637 'recipe[percona::master],recipe[percona::default],recipe[percona::client],recipe[percona::server]'

Now I am unable to remove it from the run_list, when I try it just adds 'recipe[' to the front of the node and ']' to the end of it.

When using this command you need to put "role[somerecipe]" in quotes or bad things will happen. I had this problem in my first week or so with Chef. In order to remove the bad run list items you can knife node edit <node>, go all the way to the bottom and remove the lines from the run list setting. If you try single quotes, try double quotes.

[sbates@dldchfapp01 network]$ knife node run_list add dvdolsapp03.na.com "recipe[users::legacy_apps]"

Edited to remove some client specific info.

A ticket was opened for this that appears to be related to this: http://help.opscode.com/discussions/problems/846-erroneous-runlist-entry-when-creatingediting-roles-in-hosted-console

Repro Steps:
1. Go to manage.opscode.com, select roles
2. Create a new role, do not add anything to it

You'll see that afterwards, a recipe has been added to the role with the name "recipe[recipe[]] recipe" and can't be deleted with the WebUI.

Another ticket was opened for the WebUI issue: http://help.opscode.com/discussions/problems/898-creating-a-new-role-with-empty-runlist

I just sent a pull-request that I believe fix this issue:

https://github.com/opscode/chef/pull/246

This commit adds extra check for RunListItems with bad type or spaces. This was taken by plain recipes.

I tried to reproduce the user cases from the ticket on the unit tests. There is one case that is related with another ticket (linked in this one) and is fixed (no closed yet) in there. That case is to add more than one item. This is really an issue from Knife so I didn't try to fix or test here.

I tried the tests and tried the user cases by hand, before and after the fix. Seems to be ok, please test it and give me some feedback.

Thanks

FALSE_FRIEND                 = %r{^[\w\s]+\[([^\]]+)\]$}

Why not match against /[\[\]]+/? At this point we should have already matched a valid role or recipe and we should catch more cases this way.

What about this case?

it "raises an exception when the string does not close the bracket" do
      lambda {Chef::RunList::RunListItem.new("recipe[lobster") }.should raise_error(ArgumentError)
    end

Bryan, you're totally right. My regex didn't get that test case and yours is much simplier. I did try to keep it simply, but maybe I try too much to pass the test cases I knew.

I added your test and your regex to the pull-request, do you think we need something else?

Thanks for your time and help.

Awesome, marked to be merged.

Merged to master, thanks again Juanje.

updating reporter (duplicate account)