How to add dynamic parameters to the Chef's node?

Question

I have an infrastructure under Chef's control with a lot of servers deploys each day. I need to add some dynamic data to each node based on user info, like:

user_data:
  first_name: aaa
  last_name: bbb
  department: ccc

knife node edit doesn't look like what I need, as I would prefer not to parse file on the fly, only add (and rewrite) single parameter structure.

edit: This plugin seems to be quite good, if there are no native way: https://github.com/amian84/knife-set-attribute

Answer 1

Have you considered using tags?

• http://docs.opscode.com/dsl_recipe_method_tag.html
• http://docs.opscode.com/knife_tag.html