I finally found a solution to the ‘No version specified, and no candidate version available for php’ problem

According to this AskUbuntu answer, I need to run the following command to add more repository

    sudo add-apt-repository universe
    sudo add-apt-repository multiverse

    sudo apt-get update

To resolve it in the Chef way, I need this in my recipe:

 include_recipe "ubuntu"

The ubuntu recipe will replace the /etc/apt/sources.list with this content:

    #
    # Ubuntu trusty - Generated by Chef
    #

    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main restricted universe multiverse
    deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main restricted universe multiverse

    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-updates main restricted universe multiverse

    #
    # Security updates
    #
    deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-security main restricted universe multiverse
    deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-security main restricted universe multiverse