Ugly Chef hackery

recipe.rb

# The problem: I've got to swap the apt mirror out (idempotently) and update apt 
# BEFORE build-essential triggers at compile time. Hence the run_action trick
# to force the resource to trigger at compile time, not run time.
#
# Why? Old Ubuntu release apt mirrors get retired to old-releases.ubuntu.com

if node['platform_version'].to_f == 13.04
  execute "swap in old release mirror" do
    user 'root'
    command "/bin/sed -i -e 's#http:\/\/.*.ubuntu.com#http:\/\/old-releases.ubuntu.com#g' /etc/apt/sources.list && apt-get update"
    not_if "grep 'old-releases.ubuntu.com' /etc/apt/sources.list"
    action :nothing
  end.run_action(:run)
end