Salting the Salt Master

[ruimarinho]

The documentation includes a very small reference to this topic but I think it's an important aspect of salt that would benefit from more details.

I have a couple of doubts that I consider to be worthy of an extended documentation:

• Do I need to install salt-minion on the master? salt-call specifically says ..does not require a running salt minion to run.
• Considering that I already have a salt-master process running, can't I simply point it towards the local master? I've tried to do this on the salt-minion config file, under the master property.
• If the previous scenario is contemplated, then does this mean I can use GitFS that I have setup on the master or will I need to point the salt-minion to the local git directories? In the first case, I wouldn't need to change the file_client setting.
• What is the recommended way of targeting the master on the top.sls?

Thanks!

[basepi]

To your points:

1. Yes, it must be installed, but does not need to be running to use salt-call.
2. A master cannot act as a minion, so you can't point the master process to another master. You must have a minion installed, and either have the minion running, or use salt-call.
3. If you have a minion running on the master and have it pointed to the local master, then the master will serve it files just like any other minion. Only time you need to change file_client on the minion is if you're running it without a master.
4. Just target the minion that's running on the master machine.

Hope that helps!

[ruimarinho]

@basepi thank you! It works perfectly. I guess the confusion originated from the fact that I've used another setup with a masterless minion before.

Regarding docs, it looks obvious to me now, but maybe it can help others troubleshooter their setup to see these clarifications added?

Cheers!

[basepi]

As someone who found this section of the docs confusing previously, could you give some suggestions on how we could make the docs more clear to new users? I feel like I'm too close to the problem, and take too much salt knowledge for granted.

[ruimarinho]

As it is, the documentation on using the minion in standalone mode makes it look like you need to go through the same steps to salt a salt master as if you were trying to run a masterless (local) configuration. The fact that it is all under the same chapter and organised into the same bullet group makes it look that way.

I suggest creating another section with the specific title of "Salting the Salt Master" with a basic paragraph loosely based on your initial comment which looks very clear to me. Ideally, it would mention the following:

1. Salt Minion is required to be installed in order to salt the master (salt-master and salt-minion will be running on the same machine).
2. You need to point the minion config to the local master (master: 127.0.0.1). Optionally give it an id for easier targeting.
3. You can run the salt minion as a service and target it via the usual salt command on master or use salt-call to execute operations instead of having the minion running.

Hope this helps clarify what I was initially looking for. What do you think?

[basepi]

Great suggestions. Thank you! We'll get these docs fixed.