Chef build error on AWS Linux AMI - linux

Question

In the last few days we've had a previously working AWS Cloud Formation and associated Chef script start failing. At this point there does not seem to be any identifiable reason for this. If anyone has any insights as to the potential cause and/or solution to this we'd love to hear it. Below is the error log from chef-client.log:
[2015-03-26T23:20:31+00:00] INFO: Processing execute[resize2fs /dev/xvda1 2>/dev/null] action run (base::default line 26) [2015-03-26T23:20:31+00:00] INFO: execute[resize2fs /dev/xvda1 2>/dev/null] ran successfully [2015-03-26T23:20:31+00:00] INFO: Processing yum_package[git] action install (base::default line 29) [2015-03-26T23:20:34+00:00] INFO: Processing yum_package[htop] action install (base::default line 30) [2015-03-26T23:20:34+00:00] INFO: yum_package[htop] installing htop-1.0.1-2.3.amzn1 from amzn-main repository [2015-03-26T23:20:38+00:00] INFO: Processing directory[/var/builds/dependencies/] action create (base::common_dependencies line 9) [2015-03-26T23:20:38+00:00] INFO: directory[/var/builds/dependencies/] created directory /var/builds/dependencies/ [2015-03-26T23:20:38+00:00] INFO: Processing s3_file[/var/builds/dependencies/deploy_key] action create (base::common_dependencies line 14) [2015-03-26T23:20:38+00:00] INFO: Processing chef_gem[rest-client] action install (dynamically defined)
================================================================================ Error executing action `install` on resource 'chef_gem[rest-client]'
================================================================================
Mixlib::ShellOut::ShellCommandFailed
------------------------------------ Expected process to exit with [0], but received '1'
---- Begin output of /opt/chefdk/embedded/bin/gem install rest-client -q --no-rdoc --no-ri -v "1.8.0" ---- STDOUT: Successfully installed netrc-0.10.3 Building native extensions. This could take a while... STDERR: WARNING: You don't have /.chefdk/gem/ruby/2.1.0/bin in your PATH,
gem executables will not run. ERROR: Error installing rest-client:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
/opt/chefdk/embedded/bin/ruby -r ./siteconf20150326-4306-ptf6fb.rb extconf.rb checking for main() in -lstdc++... *** extconf.rb failed
*** Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of necessary libraries and/or headers. Check the mkmf.log file for more details. You may need configuration options.
Provided configuration options:
--with-opt-dir
--with-opt-include
--without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
--with-opt-lib
--without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
--with-make-prog
--without-make-prog
--srcdir=.
--curdir
--ruby=/opt/chefdk/embedded/bin/ruby
--with-stdc++lib
--without-stdc++lib /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:467:in `try_do': The compiler failed to generate an executable file. (RuntimeError) You have to install development tools first.
from /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:552:in `try_link0'
from /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:567:in `try_link'
from /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:753:in `try_func'
from /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:984:in `block in have_library'
from /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:929:in `block in checking_for'
from /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:351:in `block (2 levels) in postpone'
from /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:321:in `open'
from /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:351:in `block in postpone'
from /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:321:in `open'
from /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:347:in `postpone'
from /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:928:in `checking_for'
from /opt/chefdk/embedded/lib/ruby/2.1.0/mkmf.rb:979:in `have_library'
from extconf.rb:2:in `<main>'
extconf failed, exit code 1
Gem files will remain installed in /.chefdk/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/unf_ext-0.0.6 for inspection. Results logged to /.chefdk/gem/ruby/2.1.0/extensions/x86_64-linux/2.1.0/unf_ext-0.0.6/gem_make.out
---- End output of /opt/chefdk/embedded/bin/gem install rest-client -q --no-rdoc --no-ri -v "1.8.0" ---- Ran /opt/chefdk/embedded/bin/gem install rest-client -q --no-rdoc --no-ri -v "1.8.0" returned 1
Cookbook Trace:
--------------- /etc/chef/local-mode-cache/cache/cookbooks/s3_file/providers/default.rb:8:in `block in class_from_file'
Compiled Resource:
------------------
# Declared in
chef_gem("rest-client") do action :install retries 0 retry_delay 2 default_guard_interpreter :default package_name "rest-client" version "1.8.0" timeout 900 gem_binary "/opt/chefdk/embedded/bin/gem" end

Answer 1

The rubygem rest-client was updated recently:
1.8.0 - March 24, 2015 (122 KB)
This adds a dependency to http-cookie gem, which resolves in dependencies to domain_name, unf and unf_ext which needs a C++ compiler and libstdc++ (https://github.com/knu/ruby-unf_ext, Requirement)
For CentOS this means: yum install gcc-c++ libstdc++-devel
I created an issue on their bug tracker (https://github.com/rest-client/rest-client/issues/371)