Configuring Salt Minion

Types of Configuration

The Salt system is incredibly simple and straightforward to set up.

That means its configuration is really easy. The master's default setup will work for most installations. However, the only need for configuring a minion is to specify the location of the master in the minion configuration file.

Master

Now, let us take a brief idea about Salt Master The Salt master serves as the main server to which all minions connect. The master sends commands to the minions. On the other hand, the minions send data back to the master. Unless otherwise specified by a returner. It starts with the salt-master program.

Minion

Let us get a brief idea on Minion. Each component of the Salt system has its own configuration file. We got to know that the master configuration file is used to configure the salt-master, and the minion configuration file is used to configure the salt-minion.

The Salt Minion configuration is straightforward. Typically, the only parameter that needs to be set is the master value, which tells the Minion where to find its master.

Salt minions are possibly hundreds or thousands of servers that the master can query and control. The configuration files will be installed to /etc/salt. They will be called after the relevant components, "/etc/salt/master" and "/etc/salt/minion".

Configuring the Salt minion

Now we will take a look at the steps to configuring the Salt Minion. As told, the Salt minion's configuration file is located in /etc/salt/minion. It is also a good practice to generate additional configuration files with the ".conf" extension in "/etc/salt/minion.d/". This will be read alongside all other files when the Salt minion daemon gets started.

Steps

Step 1

In the first step, we will uncomment and edit the following parameters in /etc/salt/minion: 

master: salt-master

Step 2

In the second step, we will start the salt-minion service daemon. Along with that, we will also configure it so that it can automatically start at boot time. These are a bit different based on the OS. Example:

For Fedora/RedHat/CentOS:

[root@salt-minion ~]# service salt-minion start
[root@salt-minion ~]# chkconfig salt-minion on

For Ubuntu:

Because the installation process begins the daemon automatically here, it must be restarted:

[root@salt-minion ~]# service salt-minion restart
[root@salt-minion ~]# update-rc.d salt-minion defaults

By following the simple steps above, we will be able to configure Salt Minion.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do Salt commands do?

Salt commands enable the execution of a wide range of functions as well as the targeting of certain minions and groups of minions for execution.

What do salt minions do?

The Salt minions are the servers that run our apps and services. Each Minion is granted an ID, which the Salt master can use to target commands to particular minions.

Which are valid states for a salt-minion key?

Salt minion keys can be found in one of three states: Unaccepted state: This is the one where the key is awaiting acceptance. Approved state: In this, the key was accepted, and the Minion now has access to the Salt master. Rejected state:  The salt-key command was used to reject the key.

Conclusion

In the article above, we read about the Types of configuration, and we found out about the steps to configure Salt Minion. The commands for different OS were also discussed. Refer to our courses and explore Coding Ninjas Studio to find more exciting stuff. You can also look into the interview experiences and solve different problems. Look into our Guided paths, test series, libraries and resources to know more.

Happy Coding!