How to set environment variable using Chef?

Question

Theres a similar question to this, but cant manage it to work: I want to simply set an env variable, then use it:

execute "start zookeeper" do
    cwd "/opt/zookeeper-3.4.5/bin"
    command "./zkServer.sh start"
    environment "JVMFLAGS" => "-Xmx#{heap_jvm} -Xms#{heap_jvm}"
    user "root"
    action :run
end

I've also tried using bash to "export JVMFLAGS='-blabla'" but still it runs the sh with none set to the variable. Is there some issue preventing my sh script from checking the variable? I could use the sh like a template and replace the ocurrence of JVMFLAGS... But i want to check if theres a better solution..

Answer 1

Have you tried setting environment variable through Ruby just before the execute block? Chef actually recommends using ENV (See the note on that page).

ENV['JVMFLAGS'] = "-Xmx#{heap_jvm} -Xms#{heap_jvm}"

Another possibility is to add JVMFLAGS to the command itself.

execute "start zookeeper" do
  [...]
  command "JVMFLAGS=-Xmx#{heap_jvm} -Xms#{heap_jvm} ./zkServer.sh start"
  [...]
end