Salty Vagrant

Provision ‘Vagrant`_ boxes using `Saltstack`_.

Help and discussion can be found at “#salt“ on Freenode IRC (just ping “akoumjian“) or the ‘salt-users mailing list`_.

.. _`Vagrant`: www.vagrantup.com/ .. _`Saltstack`: saltstack.org/ .. _`bootstrap`: github.com/saltstack/salt-bootstrap .. _`Salt`: saltstack.org/ .. _`salt-users mailing list`: groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/salt-users

Introduction

‘Salty Vagrant`_ is a plugin for Vagrant which lets you use salt as a provisioning tool. You can use your existing salt formulas and configs to build up development environments.

.. _`Salty Vagrant`: github.com/saltstack/salty-vagrant

The simplest way to use ‘Salty Vagrant`_ is by configuring it for masterless mode. With this setup, you use a standalone minion along with your file_roots and/or pillar_roots. See the “examples/“ folder for more details.

Masterless (Quick Start)

  1. Install ‘Vagrant`_

  2. Install ‘Salty Vagrant`_ (“vagrant plugin install vagrant-salt“)

  3. Get the Ubuntu 12.04 base box: “vagrant box add precise64 files.vagrantup.com/precise64.box“

  4. Create/Update your “Vagrantfile“ (Detailed in ‘Configuration`_) [#shared_folders]_

  5. Place your minion config in “salt/minion“ [#file_client]_

  6. Run “vagrant up“ and you should be good to go.

.. [#file_client] Make sure your minion config sets “file_client: local“ for masterless .. [#shared_folders] Don’t forget to create a shared folder for your salt file root

Configuration

Here is an extremely simple “Vagrantfile“, to be used with

the above masterless setup

Vagrant.configure(“2”) do |config|

## Chose your base box
config.vm.box = "precise64"

## For masterless, mount your salt file root
config.vm.synced_folder "salt/roots/", "/srv/"

## Use all the defaults:
config.vm.provision :salt do |salt|

  salt.run_highstate = true

end

end

Actions

run_highstate (true/false)

Executes ``state.highstate`` on vagrant up

accept_keys (true/false)

Accept all keys if running a master

Install Options

install_master (true/false)

Install the salt-master

no_minion (true/false)

Don't install the minion

install_syndic (true/false)

Install the salt-syndic

install_type (stable | git | daily)

Whether to install from a distribution's stable package manager, a
daily ppa, or git treeish.

install_args (develop)

When performing a git install, you can specify a branch, tag, or 
any treeish.

always_install (true/false)

Installs salt binaries even if they are already detected

Minion Options

minion_config (salt/minion)

Path to a custom salt minion config file.

minion_key (salt/key/minion.pem)

Path to your minion key

minion_pub (salt/key/minion.pub)

Path to your minion public key

Master Options

master_config (salt/minion)

Path to a custom salt master config file

master_key (salt/key/master.pem)

Path to your master key

master_pub (salt/key/master.pub)

Path to your master public key

Other

bootstrap_script (salt/bootstrap_salt.sh)

Path to a custom `bootstrap`_ script

temp_config_dir (/tmp)

Path on the guest box that config and bootstrap files will be copied 
to before placing in the salt directories

verbose (true/false)

Prints bootstrap script output to screen

Installation Notes

Supported Operating Systems

  • Ubuntu 10.x/11.x/12.x

  • Debian 6.x/7.x

  • CentOS 6.3

  • Fedora

  • Arch

  • FreeBSD 9.0

Installing from source

  1. “wget github.com/saltstack/salty-vagrant/tarball/master -O salty-vagrant.tar.gz“

  2. “tar zxf salty-vagrant.tar.gz“

  3. “cd saltstack-salty-vagrant-“

  4. “git submodule init“

  5. “git submodule update“

  6. “gem build vagrant-salt.gemspec“

  7. “vagrant plugin install vagrant-salt-.gem“

Miscellaneous

Using Remote Salt Master

If you are already using ‘Salt`_ for deployment, you can use your existing master to provision your vagrant boxes as well. You will need to do one of the following:

#. Manually accept the vagrant’s minion key after it boots. [#accept_key]_ #. Preseed the Vagrant box with minion keys pre-generated on the master

.. [#accept_key] This is not recommended. If your developers need to destroy and rebuild their VM, you will have to repeat the process.

Preseeding Vagrant Minion Keys

On the master, create the keypair and add the public key to the accepted minions

folder

root@saltmaster# salt-key –gen-keys= root@saltmaster# cp [minion_id].pub /etc/salt/pki/master/minions/

Replace “[minion_id]“ with the id you would like to assign the minion.

Next you want to bundle the key pair along with your Vagrantfile, the salt_provisioner.rb, and your minion config. The directory should look

something like this

myvagrant/

Vagrantfile
salt/
    minion.conf
    key/
        minion.pem
        minion.pub

You will need to determine your own secure method of transferring this package. Leaking the minion’s private key poses a security risk to your salt network.

The are two required settings for your “minion.conf“ file

master: [master_fqdn] id: [minion_id]

Make sure you use the same “[minion_id]“ that you used on the master or it will not match with the key.

Create/Update your “Vagrantfile“ per the example provided in the ‘Configuration`_ section.

Finally, you should be able to run “vagrant up“ and the salt should put your vagrant minion in state.highstate.