Bootstrap Salt Formula

Opinionated formula to bootstrap other formula for Saltstack. It is very awesome, but not yet ready for release - use it at your own risk.

What is this?

• Formula for the Saltstack configuration management system.
• Formula that installs other formula, and sets up Saltstack to use that formula
• Independent configuration and formula file_roots for the bootstrap (de-coupled from the host's CM configuration, if you break one, the other is functional).
• Something easier than git_file_roots and similar capabilities built into Salt

What does it do?

bootstrap-salt-formula runs in one of several modes with the following behavior:

• setup file_roots with a single git repo
• setup file_roots with multiple git repos
• fetch and install a .deb package from an HTTP URL, then setup file_roots with that package.

How to Use?

There are a few different "layers" one could use to get started.

There is a helper script that can bootstrap salt before this repo.

There is a helper script for installing this repo.

There is another helper that can tie this all together, or you can install manually and use the repo by itself.

Note: Do not use multiple package distribution formula at the same time. Eg, use only one at a time: salt.file_roots.single, salt.file_roots.git or salt.file_roots.deb. The formula applied in top.sls depends on the pillar key defined in pillar/bootstrap.sls.

Short-Version

To install saltstack, the bootstrap formula, and fpco-salt-formula (more info on this method is below), run:

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fpco/bootstrap-salt-formula/master/simple-bootstrap.sh | sh

To only install the bootstrap formula by itself, run:

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fpco/bootstrap-salt-formula/master/install.sh | sh

Env Variables

The script will use the following variables, if present:

Name	purpose	default
BOOTSTRAP_URL	base url to raw install.sls to download and apply	https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fpco/bootstrap-salt-formula
BOOTSTRAP_BRANCH	the git branch to checkout when installing the bootstrap formula	master
BOOTSTRAP_TMP_DIR	the path to download the install.sls to	/tmp/bootstrap
BOOTSTRAP_LOG_LEVEL	maps to --log-level	info

Complete Automated Install

For provisioning linux hosts or building images with Packer, here is a method for automated systems. Note that how you complete the first step is optional and only included for demonstration purposes:

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fpco/bootstrap-salt-formula/master/simple-bootstrap.sh | sh

This does the following:

• install Saltstack and git (customize that for your linux system of choice)
• use salt to accept github's SSH pubkey, based on the published fingerprint
• use salt to clone the bootstrap-salt-formula git repo to /srv/bootstrap-salt-formula
• write out pillar to instruct how you want to bootstrap salt formula on the host
• use the bootstrap formula to bootstrap formula for salt (state.highstate will determine which formula to apply based on the pillar key(s) you have provided).

See details below on customizing the pillar to configure the bootstrap formula.

Manual Install

Assuming salt and git are installed, here is a manual setup:

# install
git clone https://github.com/fpco/bootstrap-salt-formula /srv/bootstrap-salt-formula

# update /srv/bootstrap-salt-formula/pillar/bootstrap.sls to meet your needs

# run
salt-call --local                                           \
          --file-root   /srv/bootstrap-salt-formula/formula \
          --pillar-root /srv/bootstrap-salt-formula/pillar  \
          --config-dir  /srv/bootstrap-salt-formula/conf    \
          state.highstate

Bootstrapping Modes

The formula is setup to support different bootstrapping scenarios. These modes of operation have been developed out of need, and have held their ground under fire in production.. but it is not exhaustive, so feel free to recommend new methods that would improve this collection.

Run only one mode at a time, and manually remove the offending Salt configuration file(s) from /etc/salt/{master.d,minion.d}/file_roots_*.conf if there is a conflict between multiple configuration states you have put in place.

Single git repo

For the times where you have a single git repository that contains all of your salt formula:

file_roots_single:
  user: root
  ssh_key_path: /root/.ssh/id_rsa
  roots_root: /srv/salt
  url: git@github.com:saltstack-formulas/salt-formula.git
  rev: develop

Note that the user, ssh_key_path, and roots_root keys are optional, with the defaults shown here.

Multiple git repos

More often than not, we actually source formula from multiple repositories, so we need something a little more robust:

file_roots_git:
  # run the git checkout as this user
  user: root
  # SSH key for git checkouts
  ssh_key_path: /root/.ssh/id_rsa
  # file_roots source repos
  install:
    openssh-formula:
      url: https://github.com/saltstack-formulas/openssh-formula
      rev: '1b74efd'
    fail2ban-formula:
      url: https://github.com/saltstack-formulas/fail2ban-formula
      rev: 'master'
    fpco-salt-formula:
      url: git@github.com:fpco/fpco-salt-formula.git
      rev: 'develop'
  # update this list to choose the repos to enable, not listed == inactive
  #active:
  #  - salt-formula

Installable .deb Package

An installable Debian package (.deb) provides for a few interesting advantages over sourcing formula from git repositories:

• Clear build process, more easily and reliably reproducible in the future.
• A bit more robust in archival - a git repository's history may change, but the .deb will be the same.
• Better performant, pre-built and hosted .deb formula is minimal in file transfer, and faster to update, especially for distributed systems with many nodes.

file_roots_deb:
  install:
    salt-formula:
      url: http://ubuntu.example.com/salt-formula-v2015-09-15.deb
      checksum: FFAADD
  absent:
    - old-formula-v2015-07-20
  active:
    - salt-formula-v2015-09-15

The file_roots_deb formula will download the .deb, verify the checksum, install it with the dpkg utility, and uninstall and unregister any formula packages included in the absent list.

Integration with Consul

By combining this formula to bootstrap Saltstack formula with other tools, we can easily establish a powerful method for managing the CM formula across the diversity of your deployments.

For example, we can combine this formula for Saltstack with consul to distribute the bootstrap pillar, and consul-template to write out that pillar and run the bootstrap when the bootstrap key changes.

To do that, one would configure consul-template with:

template {
  source = "/srv/consul-templates/bootstrap_salt_formula.tpl"
    destination = "/srv/bootstrap-salt-formula/pillar/bootstrap.sls"
      command = "salt-call  --local  --file-root /srv/bootstrap-salt-formula/formula  --pillar-root /srv/bootstrap-salt-formula/pillar  --config-dir /srv/bootstrap-salt-formula/conf  state.highstate"
      }

With your cluster connected via consul, and consul-template running on all nodes, updating the pillar in the bootstrap_salt_formula key in consul would trigger all nodes to apply the bootstrap formula with your updated pillar.

That update might look like:

consulkv put bootstrap_salt_formula < /srv/bootstrap-salt-formula/pillar/bootstrap.sls

Note that, one could also remove consul-template from this picture, leaving only Saltstack and Consul. In this configuration, one would need to configure Consul with a watch on the formula bootstrap key and with a handler that applies the bootstrap formula when that key changes. This would require configuring Salt with Consul as an external pillar source. While using Consul as ext_pillar is highly recommended, it is best to ensure the formula bootstrap methodology is deployed in such a way that it is separate from your other Salt configuration. Eg, a system to maintain the CM formula should run as an out-of-band service, de-coupled from the primary CM system. This greatly simplifies fixing the CM system when it is broken, and provides robustness in the face of chaos in the cloud.