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Getting Started with Salt

Speaker: Peter Baumgartner

Saltstack is configuration management.

  • Version-control your servers.
  • Self-documenting.
  • Repeatable.
  • Reusable.
  • Remote Execution.
    • deploy
    • run one-off scripts

Why saltstack instead of Chef/Puppet

  • Familiar tools
    • YAML configuration
    • Python source
    • Jinja templates
  • Great documentation
  • Responsive community (#salt on IRC)
  • Backed by a for-profit org

And why not?

  • young project
  • moves fast
  • not ssh (but that's coming soon)

Learning Salt

  • master: server that manages others
  • minion: connects to master
  • state: declaritive repr of system state, configuration
  • grain: static information about a minion, e.g. what os? how much ram?
  • pillar: variable for one or more minion (ports, file paths, config params)
  • top file: matches states or pillars to minions
  • high state: all the state data for a minion

Master hold states and pillars and connects to minions which each have grains that tell the master about them. Master uses top file to verify what goes on the minion. Master has a grains cache.

Installation

You can use pip to install it. There also http://bootstrap.saltstack.org.

root@master: apt-get install salt-master
root@minion: apt-get install salt-minion

accept the minion key on the master

salt-key -a minion.domain.name

Write first state

/srv/salt/mystate.sls

nginx:
    pkg.installed

Create top file

/srv/salt/top.sls

base:
    myserver.mydomain.com
    state:
        highstate

_^^^ don't know if that's right __

Then you can push the high state from the master, or pull from the minion.

Create a user state

pete:
    user.present:
        - shell: /bin/bash
        - home: /home/pete
        - groups:
            - sudo
    ssh_auth.present:
        - user: pete
        - source: salt://pete.pub
        - require:
            - user: pete

Code repo

git@github.com/ipmb/mysite.git:
    git.latest:
        ...

There are over 50 built-in states. Pip, virtualenv, postgres, files, cron, or you can build your own in Python.

Example Pillar

mysite:
    - branch: develop

/srv/pillar/top.sls

base:
    '*':
        - default
    '*.mydomain.com':
        - mydomain
    'os.Ubuntu':
        - match: grain
        - pkgs.ubuntu

git@github.com/..: git.latest: -rev: {{ pillar.mysite.branch }} - target: /usr/local/src/mysite - require: - pkg: git-core

Tips & Tricks

  • Use output_mode: mixed in your minions' config.
  • Jinja2 is powerful, don't go nuts with it or it'll be more difficult to maintain and understand.
  • Update often and review the changelog (salt moves fast)
  • Test before you deploy -- use vagrant or docker

Reference

Speaker

@ipmb
Founder of Lincoln Loop