jenkins_plugin emits unhelpful error message when plugin does not exist

[jayhendren]

It took me a little while to figure out that the following occurs when the plugin being installed does not exist. At first, I inferred from this error message that there was a bug in jenkins_plugin, not that the plugin does not exist.

Recipe: cub_jenkins::master
  * jenkins_plugin[foobar] action install
  Recipe: <Dynamically Defined Resource>
    * remote_file[/tmp/kitchen/cache/update-center.json] action create (up to date) 
    * file[/tmp/kitchen/cache/extracted-update-center.json] action create (up to date) 
    
    ================================================================================
    Error executing action `install` on resource 'jenkins_plugin[foobar]'
    ================================================================================
    
    NoMethodError
    -------------
    undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass
    
    Cookbook Trace:
    ---------------
    /tmp/kitchen/cache/cookbooks/jenkins/libraries/plugin.rb:267:in `install_plugin_from_update_center'
    /tmp/kitchen/cache/cookbooks/jenkins/libraries/plugin.rb:124:in `block (2 levels) in <class:JenkinsPlugin>'
    /tmp/kitchen/cache/cookbooks/jenkins/libraries/plugin.rb:154:in `block in <class:JenkinsPlugin>'
    
    Resource Declaration:
    ---------------------
    # In /tmp/kitchen/cache/cookbooks/cub_jenkins/recipes/master.rb
    
      5: node['cub_jenkins']['plugins'].each { |p| jenkins_plugin p }
      6: 
    
    Compiled Resource:
    ------------------
    # Declared in /tmp/kitchen/cache/cookbooks/cub_jenkins/recipes/master.rb:5:in `block in from_file'
    
    jenkins_plugin("foobar") do
      action [:install]
      retries 0
      retry_delay 2
      default_guard_interpreter :default
      declared_type :jenkins_plugin
      cookbook_name "cub_jenkins"
      recipe_name "master"
    end
    
    Platform:  
    ---------
    x86_64-linux

[iennae]

We discussed this last week in our issue triage. We know about it, and when we rewrite this resource will resolve this issue. With ChefConf coming up shortly, this will be completed most likely post-ChefConf.

Thanks for reporting.