chef-resource.rb

module MCollective
    module Agent
        # An agent that uses Opscode to manage resources
        # Original credit goes to R.I. Pienaar
        class ChefExistingResource < RPC::Agent
            metadata    :name        => "SimpleRPC Existing Chef Resource Agent",
                        :description => "Generic resource management",
                        :author      => "Nicolas Szalay <nico@rottenbytes.info>",
                        :license     => "BSD",
                        :version     => "1.0",
                        :url         => "https://github.com/rottenbytes/mcollective",
                        :timeout     => 60

            # Does the actual work with the chef provider and sets appropriate reply options
            action "handle" do
                validate :resourcename, String
                validate :resourceaction, String

                require 'chef'
                require 'chef/client'
                require 'chef/run_context'

                begin
                    Chef::Config[:solo] = true
                    Chef::Config[:log_level] = :debug
                    Chef::Log.level(:debug)
                    client = Chef::Client.new
                    client.run_ohai
                    client.build_node

                    last_run = JSON.parse(File.read(Dir["/var/chef/reports/chef-run-report-*.json"].sort.last))

                    run_context = Chef::RunContext.new(last_run.node, Chef::CookbookCollection.new(Chef::CookbookLoader.new))
                    last_run["all_resources"].each { |r| run_context.resource_collection << r }

                    resource = run_context.resource_collection.lookup(request[:resourcename])
                    resource.run_action(request[:resourceaction])
                    reply["status"] = resource.updated?
                    reply["status"] = status
                rescue Exception => e
                    reply.fail "#{e}"
                end
            end
            
        end
    end
end

chef_config.rb

# In your client.rb
#

report_handlers << Chef::Handler::JsonFile.new

generic_mc.rb

require 'mcollective'
include MCollective::RPC

mc = rpcclient("chefresource")
mc.progress = false

r = [ { "action" => "restart" }, { "supports" => {:status => true } } ]

mc.handle(:resourcename => "cron", :resourcetype => "service", :resourceactions => r).each do |resp|
  puts resp[:sender] + " => " + resp[:status].inspect
end