Saltstack troubleshooting

Invalid Jinja

Check the minion's /var/log/salt/minion to get the full python stacktrace.

Salt Modules won't Execute

Here there be dragons.
If you're lucky, the salt modules documentation will stipulate a requirement. For example, see the note on salt.modules.gpg.
In most cases, a problem can be pinned down by reading stacktraces in /var/log/salt/minion.

Here are some modules that I bang my head against frequently.

gpg

• install gpg
• install python-gpg to saltstack's python interpreter

pip

Most of my problems here come from:

1. salt using the global python installation rather than a virtualenv
2. my package manager installing a newer package than salt supports.

Unfortunately this is a moving target, so pinning packages becomes a bit of a headache. ungh.