Salt

Salt is primarily a configuration management solution and remote execution engine.
Thanks to the latter, many use-cases can (but not necessarily should) be covered using just this one tool.

Basics

Term	meaning
minion	slave, managed host
sls	salt state file, file that represents the state the system should end up in
pillar	sensitive data, tree like structure, targeted and securely send to selected minions
grain	minion data, information for state to behave differently (minion os information)

Architecture

Event-based, highly modular and highly customizable. Runs:

• master-slave
• master-less

Supports both management modes:

• push (the config server sends the config updates to slaves)
• pull (the slaves check server for config updates)

Can operate:

• with agents
• agent-less

States are matched to minions using (primarily) top.sls file.
Each state is then executed on targeted minion (slave).

Full state execution details on minion nodes is described in Modules section

References:

1. https://repo.saltstack.com/
2. https://docs.saltstack.com/en/getstarted/config/functions.html
3. https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/tutorials/states_pt1.html
4. https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/states/highstate.html
5. https://github.com/saltstack/salt-bootstrap
6. https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/configuration/master.html
7. https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/development/conventions/formulas.html
8. https://vimeo.com/289106306/7fd5601ce6