Install salt-master¶

I am focusing on rackspace for salt-cloud.

Initially I build a cloud server, and then convert it into a salt-master. You could use your laptop, but thats not a particularly long term solution.

Installing salt onto ubunutu 12.04:

sudo apt-get -y install python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:saltstack/salt
sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get -y install salt-master
sudo apt-get -y install salt-minion
sudo apt-get -y install salt-cloud
## delete as applicable

We now have a salt-master on a host, lets put salt-cloud up

Basic Directory Layout¶

There are two directorys to worry about

/etc/salt - basic config for both cloud, master, minion
/srv/salt - location of all the files we are going to put on minion. (Its more complex than that but thats the simplest explantion)

configure the cloud¶

In /etc/salt we want to create / adjust two files, /etc/salt/cloud.providers holds credentials and identifiers for our cloud account. /etc/salt/cloud.profiles

salt-cloud is going through a revamp of it’s configuration, and the new stuff is not quite ready for prime time. This works to date.

/etc/salt/cloud.providers

my-rackspace-config:
  # Set the location of the salt-master
  #
  minion:
    master: saltmaster.example.com

  # Configure Rackspace using the OpenStack plugin
  #
  identity_url: 'https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/tokens'
  compute_name: cloudServersOpenStack
  protocol: ipv4

  # Set the compute region:
  #
  compute_region: DFW

  # Configure Rackspace authentication credentials
  #
  user: myname
  tenant: 123456
  apikey: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

  provider: openstack

/etc/salt/cloud.profiles:

mikado_512:
    provider: mikado-rackspace
    size: 512MB Standard Instance
    image: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin)

I have linked this minimal profile called mikado_512, to the rackspace account mikado-rackspace, with the sizes and images configured from (tbd).

Bring up our first minion¶

sudo salt-cloud -p mikado_512 minone

We are telling salt-cloud to create a minion, using the mikado_512 profile defined above, and the provider details, and call that minion minone.

When it exists we can do lots of fun things with the minion, from salt-master.

salt '*' test.ping
sudo salt '*' test.ping
sudo salt 'myinstance' test.ping
sudo salt 'myinstance' sys.doc
sudo salt 'myinstance' timezone.get_zone
sudo salt 'myinstance' cmd.run 'ls -l /tmp'
sudo salt 'myinstance' pkg.install emacs

This is all very well, but still fairly manual and prescriptive. Lets move on.