Yet another Systemd Timer activation issue (edge case)

[Annih]

Cookbook version

11.2.0

Chef-client version

12.18.31 (old one sorry, but I'm sure it is reproducible with >= 14)

Platform Details

CentOS 7.4

Scenario:

Reboot a server after system upgrades and have Chef-client still running every X minutes - when configured as timer.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Setup Chef-client as timer
2. Reboot

This is a rare edge case, I didn't manage to reproduce it on demand. I suspect a race condition blocking the activation of the chef-client.service at boot time.

Expected Result:

Chef runs every X minutes.

Actual Result:

Chef never runs.

Timer is in weird state:

UNIT              LOAD   ACTIVE SUB     DESCRIPTION
chef-client.timer loaded active elapsed chef-client periodic run

sudo systemctl list-timers chef-client.timer
NEXT LEFT LAST PASSED UNIT              ACTIVATES
n/a  n/a  n/a  n/a    chef-client.timer chef-client.service

sudo systemctl status chef-client.timer
● chef-client.timer - chef-client periodic run
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/chef-client.timer; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (elapsed) since Tue 2019-05-14 08:06:35 UTC; 34min ago

[Annih]

From #613

we have had reliable activation for the most part. the one exception to that is that a few months back, possibly due to a systemd update (we're on CentOS 7), the service unit stopped activating after reboots, and the timer would not trigger until the service unit had been started. we overrode the systemd_unit[chef-client.service] resource to enable it, and thereafter once the initial chef-client.service run was triggered on boot-up, the timer would actually do its thing.

@nathwill don't you think we should enable the chef-client.service even in timer mode?

Another solution could be to translate the configured interval into a systemd.time compatible format and use OnCalendar. Would it be accepted @tas50 ?
actually it would be very hard to translate that properly

[dheerajd-msys]

@tas50 We may need your input here ^.

[dheerajd-msys]

@Annih We've recently made some changes in cookbook for Systemd Timer, Could you please check and confirm if issue is still there?