Every now and I then I see this from Berkshelf. This example was running in a test kitchen.

test-kitchen-berks.log

D      ------Exception-------
D      Class: Kitchen::ActionFailed
D      Message: Failed to complete #converge action: [bad response #<Faraday::Response:0x007f31560f7df8 @env={:method=>:get, :body=>"503", :url=>#<URI::HTTPS:0x007f3156099050 URL:https://api.berkshelf.com/universe>, :request_headers=>{"User-Agent"=>"Faraday v0.8.8"}, :parallel_manager=>nil, :request=>{:proxy=>nil}, :ssl=>{}, :status=>503, :response_headers=>{"content-type"=>"application/json", "retry-after"=>"600", "content-length"=>"3", "connection"=>"Close"}, :response=>#<Faraday::Response:0x007f31560f7df8 ...>}, @on_complete_callbacks=[]>]
D      ---Nested Exception---
D      Class: RuntimeError
D      Message: bad response #<Faraday::Response:0x007f31560f7df8 @env={:method=>:get, :body=>"503", :url=>#<URI::HTTPS:0x007f3156099050 URL:https://api.berkshelf.com/universe>, :request_headers=>{"User-Agent"=>"Faraday v0.8.8"}, :parallel_manager=>nil, :request=>{:proxy=>nil}, :ssl=>{}, :status=>503, :response_headers=>{"content-type"=>"application/json", "retry-after"=>"600", "content-length"=>"3", "connection"=>"Close"}, :response=>#<Faraday::Response:0x007f31560f7df8 ...>}, @on_complete_callbacks=[]>

Looks like it's as simple as a web service not responding in a favorable way. My main question is: Why is it making that request? Is there a way to disable it? What if I'm testing on a server that can't get out? My next question would be: Why is it failing periodically. I can't reproduce it at will.

Yes, it is.
Very bad problem.