grinder

Grinder is a dynamic environment deployment tool for SaltStack inspired by the excellent r10k. Using it allows for dynamic, flexible deployments of multiple environments with formulas, states, and pillars.

Requirements

• Python 3+
• Git
• OpenSSH

Setup

• It is recommended to use VirtualEnv to manage your Python environment.
• python3 -m venv ~/.virtualenv/grinder
• source ~/.virtualenv/grinder/bin/activate
• pip install grinder

Configuration

Grinder

You'll need to update the environment configuration to point at your states repository and your pillar repository. This is currently located under the project directory in <repobase>/grinder/conf/grinder/grinder.conf. Modify the environment section to point at your remote repositories.

Repository

There are several steps to be taken to prepare your repositories for dynamic deployment.

• The top.sls file must be configured as if it is the only one being deployed. It can be completely unique between branches.
• The pillar and states repositories at this time must have the same branches as they will be deployed together. This may be altered in the future. Just remember that when you make a new feature branch in your states repository you're going to have to make a corresponding branch for pillar as well.
• Remove all external formulas from your states repository branches. In each branch place them into a seasoning.yml file located in the base of the states respository. There is an example YAML file specifying the format located in this repository.

Salt

• Configure the Salt master configuration file to set top_file_merging_strategy: same.

Usage

This workflow assumes that you have a base branch and wish to create, test, and then integrate a new feature into the codebase. The normal workflow goes like this:

• Have Pillar and States repos.
• In each repo, check out a new branch called, featurebranch.
• In each top.sls, either use {{ saltenv }} at the top or add a featurebranch section with targets.
• Modify code in repos until satisfied with changes.
• Push each repo to origin.
• On salt master, run grinder.
• Update master.conf to point at new file_roots and pillar_roots directories. [to be eventually handled by Grinder]
• Kick saltmaster service. [to be eventually handled by Grinder]
• Either from salt master or from minion, run salt state.apply --saltenv=featurebranch --pillarenv=featurebranch.
• Iterate on code, pushing back to master and redeploying with Grinder until desired behavior is achieved.
• In both repos remove the featurebranch section or leave in {{ saltenv }}.
• git checkout base && git merge featurebranch.
• On salt master run grinder, update master.conf to remove references to featurebranch, kick salt master.

Future

At the moment Grinder does not automatically update the Salt master.conf file. It also does not automatically kick the saltmaster service to reload and re-initialize values. Eventually there should also be an option not to touch the Pillar data in any way as alternatives may be desired. Finally Grinder should eventually handle more than just Git.