Installing packages from a third-party repository

Even though the Ubuntu package repository contains many up-to-date packages, you might encounter situations in which the package you need is either missing or outdated. In such cases, you can either use third-party repositories or your own repositories (containing self-made packages). Chef makes it simple to use additional APT repositories with the apt cookbook.

Getting ready

Make sure that you have a cookbook called my_cookbook and that the run_list of your node includes my_cookbook, as described in the Creating and using cookbooks recipe in Chapter 1, Chef Infrastructure.

Let's retrieve the required apt cookbook:

1. Add it to Berksfile:

   mma@laptop:~/chef-repo $ subl Berksfile
   source 'https://supermarket.getchef.com'
   cookbook 'my_cookbook', path: './cookbooks/my_cookbook'
   cookbook 'apt','~> 5.0.0'
   

2. Install it to your local workstation:

   mma@laptop:~/chef-repo $ berks install
   Resolving cookbook dependencies...
   Fetching cookbook index from https...