Auto-restart salt-minion.service on crash (#69182) - #69671
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The shipped pkg/common/salt-minion.service systemd unit had no Restart=/RestartSec=/StartLimit* directives. When the minion crashed (unhandled exception, worker OOM, etc.) the unit stayed in the failed state until someone logged in and ran systemctl start salt-minion, leaving the host offline from the master's point of view for as long as it took a human to notice. Ask systemd to restart on failure with a 15-second gap between attempts and a 3-attempts-in-5-minutes cap so a persistent crash loop cannot hammer the box. StartLimitBurst and StartLimitIntervalSec live in [Unit] (systemd rejects them in [Service] with "Unknown key ... in section [Service], ignoring."); Restart and RestartSec live in [Service]. Extend the existing static-file audit in tests/pytests/unit/test_pkg_systemd_units.py (added alongside the KillMode=mixed fix in saltstack#68406) to assert the new directives are set and cannot silently regress. Fixes saltstack#69182
twangboy
approved these changes
Jul 14, 2026
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What does this PR do?
Adds
Restart=on-failure,RestartSec=15,StartLimitBurst=3, andStartLimitIntervalSec=300to the shippedpkg/common/salt-minion.servicesystemd unit so that a crashed minion (unhandled exception, worker OOM,
etc.) is revived by systemd instead of being left in the failed state.
What issues does this PR fix or reference?
Fixes #69182
Related: #68406 (the recent
KillMode=mixedfix on the same file — thisPR extends the
tests/pytests/unit/test_pkg_systemd_units.pystaticaudit added there).
Previous Behavior
The shipped unit had no
Restart=/RestartSec=/StartLimit*directives.When the
salt-minionprocess crashed the unit went tofailedandstayed there until someone ran
systemctl start salt-minionby hand. Asthe reporter observed on 3008.0rc4 (Ubuntu 22.04) and a second contributor
confirmed on 3007.14 (Rocky 9), an unhandled exception took the minion
offline from the master's point of view until the next manual intervention.
New Behavior
Restart=on-failure+RestartSec=15in[Service]cause systemd torestart the minion 15 seconds after a non-clean exit.
StartLimitBurst=3StartLimitIntervalSec=300in[Unit]cap the loop at three restartattempts per five minutes so a persistent crash cannot hammer the box.
StartLimitBurst/StartLimitIntervalSecare intentionally placed in[Unit]—systemd-analyze verifyrejects them in[Service]withUnknown key 'StartLimitIntervalSec' in section [Service], ignoring.,and
[Unit]is systemd's canonical section for these directives.Merge requirements satisfied?
changelog/69182.fixed.md)Commits signed with GPG?
Yes