A first pass at trying to install Tomcat from wherever the hell you please to keep your pkg.

tomcat_install_provider.rb

#
# Cookbook Name:: tomcat
# Provider:: install
#
# Author:: Sascha Bates

def load_current_resource
  @inst = new_resource.pkg_src
  @uid  = new_resource.uid  || "5001"
  @gid  = new_resource.gid  || "5001"
  @user = new_resource.user || "tomcat"
  @group = new_resource.group || "tomcat" 
end

action :install do
  user @user do
    uid @uid
    group @group
    shell "/bin/bash"
    comment "This is the tomcat user"
  end
  
  get_package
  install
end

def get_package
  case @inst
    when "package"
      Chef::Log.debug("I don't need to fetch the tomcat install package because we are using yum")
      #install from package; note that tomcat6 rpm requires 93 package deps to install (wtf?)
    when "artifactory"
      # Let's go get an rpm which will install tomcat into /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-version
      artifact new_resource.run_context.node[:tomcat][:pkg_name] do
        action :download_static
        repo new_resource.run_context.node[:tomcat][:repo]
        version full_version
        filetype "rpm"
        group_id new_resource.run_context.node[:tomcat][:pkg_name]
      end
      # When making instances, we'll be deleting the local log dir
      # and symlinking it to /var/log/tomcat/inst
      # to avoid filling up application partions
      directory "/var/log/tomcat" do
        action :create
      end   
    when "s3"
    # We might write a provider for this or wherever ops gets their packages from
      Chef::Log.debug("Planning to fetch the tomcat package from S3")
  end
end

def full_version
  [new_resource.run_context.node[:tomcat][:version], new_resource.run_context.node[:tomcat][:minor_version]].join(".")
end

def create_default
  case install_type
    when "artifactory"
    when "package"
      #someone should write some code for this
    when "s3"
      #someone should also write code for this
  end
end

def install
  provider = Chef::Provider::Package::Rpm if @inst == "artifactory"
  tomcat_file = [node[:tomcat][:pkg_name], full_version].join("-")
  pkg = [tomcat_file, "rpm"].join(".")
  src = ::File.join(Chef::Config[:file_cache_path], pkg)
    package pkg do
      action :install
      provider provider 
      source src
    end
end