shell_out() without { default_env: false } param causes pecl install to fail

[followfung]

👻 (Not A) Brief Description

When trying to install PHP7.2 from SCL on CentOS 7, installing a pecl package (imagick for example) using the php_pear resource fails because the dependencies cannot be found even when they are installed. But SSH-ing into the machine and running pecl install imagick via command line, runs without issue.

I think I've narrowed down the problem to the usage of shell_out() and how it handles the PATH environment variable. Calling it without the { default_env: false } flag causes the chef-client to inject /opt/chef/embedded/bin to the beginning of the $PATH so that when command runs, it picks up the pkg-config embedded in Chef instead of the one installed on the system.

Calling shell_out() without the flag: checking for pkg-config... /opt/chef/embedded/bin/pkg-config

Calling shell_out() with the flag: checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config

I can't figure out why it works without problems when using the default php version installed by CentOS, but either way I think that php_pear should explicitly tell chef-client to not muck with $PATH for consistency. Even the execute resource uses this flag to have the output match what you would see if you were to run it manually via command line (See: https://github.com/chef/chef/blob/master/lib/chef/resource/execute.rb#L72).

I'm not sure if this would break for other platforms, but it seems to work fine when updating calls to shell_out() to include this flag. Example below:

def pear_shell_out(command)
  p = shell_out!(command, { default_env: false })
  # pear/pecl commands return a 0 on failures...we'll grep for it
  p.invalid! if p.stdout.split('\n').last =~ /^ERROR:.+/i
  p
end

For reference:

• Unrelated, but similar issue: not_if 'which ruby' does not work because chef-client contaminates ENV['PATH'] chef/chef#5331
• Another unrelated, but similar: /opt/embedded/chef/bin in PATH causes scripts to fail chef/chef#6239
• Chef release notes (v14.2) about default_env: https://github.com/chef/chef/blob/a7938b8af1892438223f7bb468697d7097fe67a1/RELEASE_NOTES.md#default_env-property-in-execute-resource

🥞 Cookbook version

7.0.0

👩‍🍳 Chef-Infra Version

Chef 14.2+

EDIT (2020-02-20):

I'm not sure how to comment further so I'm making an edit here...

Sorry, I wasn't clear. The default_env flag is true by default in Chef 14. The fix that I suggested is to modify the pear_shell_out() method (https://github.com/sous-chefs/php/blob/master/resources/pear.rb#L187) to call shell_out()! with { default_env: false } flag.

The problem only occurs when using a PHP version provided in SCL (e.g.: CentOS 7 running PHP7.2 from SCL). In order to install PHP7.2 I've overridden a lot of the default attributes.

Overrides for reference:

override['php']['packages'] = %w(rh-php72 rh-php72-php-devel rh-php72-php-json rh-php72-php-ldap rh-php72-php-mbstring rh-php72-php-mysqlnd rh-php72-php-opcache rh-php72-php-pdo rh-php72-php-xml)
override['php']['pear'] = '/opt/rh/rh-php72/root/bin/pear'
override['php']['conf_dir'] = '/etc/opt/rh/rh-php72'
override['php']['ext_conf_dir'] = '/etc/opt/rh/rh-php72/php.d'
override['php']['ext_dir'] = '/opt/rh/rh-php72/root/usr/lib64/php/modules'
override['php']['fpm_package'] = 'rh-php72-php-fpm'
override['php']['fpm_pooldir'] = '/etc/opt/rh/rh-php72/php-fpm.d'
override['php']['fpm_default_conf'] = '/etc/opt/rh/rh-php72/php-fpm.d/www.conf'
override['php']['fpm_service'] = 'rh-php72-php-fpm'

To be clear, when using the default PHP that is provided by CentOS 7 (i.e.: without using SCL), there are no issues. I've tested the fix and it works fine for my use case, but I'm not sure if it will break on other platforms.

[damacus]

I do wonder if this is a simple as default_env: true here instead? If you fancy giving that a go be our guest. And please do shout up if you need any help in debugging this