Saltstack usage

Documentation

cli docs (salt, salt-call)	https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/cli/index.html
runners overview (state.apply)	https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/runners/index.html

states

Basics (from salt-master)

# run on all minions with hostnames matching 'dev-*'
salt  'dev-*'  test.ping

# target servers by grain
salt \
  -C 'G@os:FreeBSD and G@server:1' \
  -t 120 \
  cmd.run 'pkg upgrade -y'

Basics (from self)

salt-call          #..              # from minion, call salt
salt-call --local  #..              # run salt on masterless minion

salt-call  state.highstate          # apply this machine's highstate
salt-call  state.apply  progs.vim   # apply state {file_roots}/progs/vim/init.sls

salt-call                \          # my preferences for calling salt
    -l debug             \
    --state-output=mixed \
    state.highstate

Preview Highstate

# detailed
salt-call  state.show_highstate

# concise (jq)
salt-call state.show_highstate --out json \
  | jq '.local | keys'

Execution Modules

# modules listed under 'salt.modules.*' can be run directly on the commandline

salt * cmd.run 'ls -l'
salt * file.copy  '/src/dir/' '/dst/dir/' recurse=True   # optional keyword-args are assigned using '=' with no spaces

salt-call saltutil.refresh_modules

Filtering Hosts/Minions

salt      '*'            cmd.run 'ls -l'				## run commands on all systems
salt     'arch-*'        cmd.run 'ls -l'				## glob-matching minion-ids
salt -E 'arch-[0-9]'     cmd.run 'ls -l'				## regex-matching minion-ids
salt -L 'arch-1.arch-2'  cmd.run 'ls -l'				## list of minions
salt -G 'os:FreeBSD'     cmd.run 'ls -l'				## using grains (facts), run on all machines

salt -C  G@os:FreeBSD and G@os:Archlinux or S@192.168.50.2'             ## combine arguments with various flags and logic

pillar

salt-call  saltutil.refresh_pillar         ## refresh pillar entries

salt-call  pillar.ls                       ## list all pillar-items accessible to machine
salt-call  pillar.get  passwd:will         ## query a pillar-keyval

salt-call  state.apply \
    progs.vim  pillar='{"user":"will"}'    ## substitute pillar values

grains

salt-call  grains.ls                      ## list all grains on machine
salt-call  grains.get  os_family          ## list value of a grain