chef cookbook fails on ohai undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass

Question

I'm working on a chef cookbook to set up a vanilla ubuntu 12.04.2 with nginx postgresql and unicorn on my vagrant box, but I'm getting into troubles with nginx, there's an exception ``` undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass ``` when installing it that seem to relate to ohai configuration. I've posted all I have here: ``` https://github.com/DonGiulio/mychef ``` here's the output from chef-solo: ``` Starting Chef Client, version 11.4.0 Compiling Cookbooks... ================================================================================ Recipe Compile Error in /var/chef/cookbooks/nginx/recipes/source.rb ================================================================================ NoMethodError ------------- undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass Cookbook Trace: --------------- /var/chef/cookbooks/nginx/recipes/ohai_plugin.rb:27:in `from_file' /var/chef/cookbooks/nginx/recipes/source.rb:42:in `from_file' Relevant File Content: ---------------------- /var/chef/cookbooks/nginx/recipes…

Accepted Answer

You haven't stated which version of the ohai and nginx cookbooks you're using.

While I can't answer your question I can provide some advice on managing your cookbooks by using a dependency manager (think bundler for cookbooks).

Install Berkshelf

```
gem install berkshelf
```

Create a Berkshelf file

```
$ cat Berksfile

site :opscode

cookbook "nginx"
```

And use this to download all the cookbooks associated with nginx:

```
$ berks install -p cookbooks
Using nginx (2.0.0)
Using apt (2.3.0)
Using bluepill (2.3.0)
Using rsyslog (1.9.0)
Using build-essential (1.4.2)
Using ohai (1.1.12)
Using runit (1.2.0)
Using yum (2.3.2)
```

The "-p" option places them in the "cookbooks" subdirectory:

```
$ ls -d cookbooks/*
cookbooks/apt       
cookbooks/build-essential  
cookbooks/ohai     
cookbooks/runit
cookbooks/bluepill  
cookbooks/nginx            
cookbooks/rsyslog  
cookbooks/yum
```

chef cookbook fails on ohai undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass

Solution

Problem