Mastering Chef

Different types of attributes

Chef provides six different types of attributes, as listed in the following table:

Attribute type	Description
default	This attribute is reset upon the start of every chef-client run and has the lowest attribute precedence. A cookbook should make the most use of the default attributes.
force_default	Say you've specified the same default attribute in role and environment along with a cookbook, and you want to ensure that the attribute in the cookbook takes precedence. In order to do so, one must make use of the force_default attribute type.
normal	A normal attribute is never reset and persists with the node object. It has higher precedence over the default attribute.
override	An override attribute has higher ...