change file_staging_uses_destdir default to true

4 files changed, 19 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index e38c8160b1..81b7ec01e1 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 * [**Xabier de Zuazo**](https://github.com/zuazo):
   Remove the unused StreamingCookbookUploader class (CHEF-4586)
 
+* set file_stating_uses_destdir config option default to true (CHEF-5040)
 * remove dependency on rest-client gem
 * Add method shell_out_with_systems_locale to ShellOut.
 * Fix knife cookbook site share on windows (CHEF-4994)
diff --git a/RELEASE_NOTES.md b/RELEASE_NOTES.md
index e550382238..16bd09b67e 100644
--- a/RELEASE_NOTES.md
+++ b/RELEASE_NOTES.md
@@ -1,5 +1,14 @@
 # Chef Client Release Notes:
 
+## Changed file_staging_uses_destdir Config default to True
+
+Staging into the system's tempdir (usually /tmp or /var/tmp) rather than the destination directory can
+cause issues with permissions or available space.  It can also become problematic when doing cross-devices
+renames which turn move operations into copy operations (using mv uses a new inode on Unix which avoids
+ETXTBSY exceptions, while cp reuses the inode and can raise that error).  Staging the tempfile for the
+Chef file providers into the destination directory solve these problems for users.  Windows ACLs on the
+directory will also be inherited correctly.
+
 ## Removed Rest-Client dependency
 
 - cookbooks that previously were able to use rest-client directly will now need to install it via `chef_gem "rest-client"`.
diff --git a/lib/chef/config.rb b/lib/chef/config.rb
index 65952b8cf7..929138488c 100644
--- a/lib/chef/config.rb
+++ b/lib/chef/config.rb
@@ -567,7 +567,7 @@ class Chef
     # If false file staging is will be done via tempfiles that are
     # created under ENV['TMP'] otherwise tempfiles will be created in
     # the directory that files are going to reside.
-    default :file_staging_uses_destdir, false
+    default :file_staging_uses_destdir, true
 
     # Exit if another run is in progress and the chef-client is unable to
     # get the lock before time expires. If nil, no timeout is enforced. (Exits
diff --git a/lib/chef/file_content_management/tempfile.rb b/lib/chef/file_content_management/tempfile.rb
index 0bb7f3a6fa..61a5ce2a7c 100644
--- a/lib/chef/file_content_management/tempfile.rb
+++ b/lib/chef/file_content_management/tempfile.rb
@@ -54,7 +54,14 @@ class Chef
       end
 
       def tempfile_dirname
-        Chef::Config[:file_staging_uses_destdir] ? ::File.dirname(@new_resource.path) : Dir::tmpdir
+        # in why-run mode we need to create a Tempfile to compare against, which we will never
+        # wind up deploying, but our enclosing directory for the destdir may not exist yet, so
+        # instead we can reliably always create a Tempfile to compare against in Dir::tmpdir
+        if Chef::Config[:file_staging_uses_destdir] && !Chef::Config[:why_run]
+          ::File.dirname(@new_resource.path)
+        else
+          Dir::tmpdir
+        end
       end
     end
   end