Is this a Chef/ohai bug when dealing with FQDNs?

Let me walk you through my steps.

• I have a node with a base RHEL 5.10 OS; the /etc/hosts file is empty
• Running the CLI "hostname -f" gives server1-nodex.domain.com, which is correct
• I bootstrap the node successfully; when I do a "knife node show node_name" I see the correct FQDN, e.g., server1-nodex.domain.com

• I run a recipe with creates a /etc/hosts file, and puts it in this format; note the alias (nodex) after the IP. I NEED it in this format!

  10.22.10.10 nodex server1-nodex.domain.com

• Now if I do a knife node show node_name Chef shows the FQDN to be "nodex." Huh???
• Sure enough running the CLI "hostname -f" also gives "nodex" Huh???

• Just to test, I stat over, but create the /etc/hosts file in this format; note the alias now appears after the FQDN in the line (I don't need it this way)

  10.22.10.10 server1-nodex.domain.com nodex

• Now if I do a knife node show node_name, Chef shows the correct FQDN, so does "hostname -f"

Why does Chef do this to my FQDN based on what's in the /etc/hosts file? I have a pre-Chef configuration process (shell scripts) that configures the /etc/hosts file the way I want it, and the FQDN does NOT get affected?

Is this a "bug" or at least an undesirable side effect in Chef?

I am pretty sure this is not Chef's fault, but the init scripts on your Linux box. They read /etc/hosts to determine how to set the hostname.

Look in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts

You should be able to override this in /etc/sysconfig/network.