Chef multiple level attribute file override with role JSON - json

Question

I have an attributes file that looks like this:
default['ftp_provision']['vsftpd']['pasv_ip'] = "192.168.0.10"
where the first attribute is the cookbook name, the second is the program, and the third is the option I want to change, implemented in a template .erb file as:
pasv_ip=<%node['ftp_provision']['vsftpd']['pasv_ip']%>
This is working correctly as expected.
However, I would like to add a role to change these attributes as required for several nodes. I'm using knife role create ftp_node1 to do that doing something like:
"default_attributes": {
"ftp_provision" => {"ftp_provision" => "vsftpd" => "pasv_ip" => "192.168.0.10"}
},
I keep getting syntax errors. All the examples I've been able to see have referenced making JSON files from Ruby DSL with only one level deep of attributes (e.g. default['key']['value']) so I'd like to know how to do this correctly per role.

Answer 1

you'll need to use actual JSON for this, and not sure what you mean about one level deep. this will create a hash 3 or 4 levels deep, depending on how you count it. i haven't seen issues with going further with attributes, and see many cookbooks in the wild with default['really']['freakin']['long']['strings']['of'] = attributes
i took a look at chef's examples and they're using ruby's hash format there rather than json, and that method of creating hashes makes rubocop squawk and say it's been deprecated. i can certainly see how that example would mislead you.
use a linter when building json, here's one https://jsonlint.com/
also I think this may work for you:
{
"ftp_provision": {
"vsftpd": {
"pasv_ip": "192.168.0.10"
}
}
}