SaltStack Use Cases

scottalanmiller

So you can use Salt (or Chef, or Ansible, or Puppet) for anything. But where it shines is in defining your systems (servers, desktops, routers, switches, etc.) It's the tool for doing everything you do for management.... installing apps, configuring apps, configuring system settings, remote access, pulling information, etc.

scottalanmiller

@DustinB3403 said in SaltStack Use Cases:

So the only issue I see that is holding me back from using saltstack is that it seems to be more for deploying servers and systems.

That's the issue. It seems.

scottalanmiller

@DustinB3403 said in SaltStack Use Cases:

I don't often have a ton of systems to deploy at once, or on a regular basis.

Yeah, that's a perception problem. I'm not saying that you should just up and install Salt and do everything that way. But I am saying that the perception that Salt is for new builds is incorrect.

DustinB3403

@scottalanmiller said in SaltStack Use Cases:

@DustinB3403 said in SaltStack Use Cases:

So the only issue I see that is holding me back from using saltstack is that it seems to be more for deploying servers and systems.

That's the issue. It seems.

How does something seeming to be for a specific use case an issue? I'm asking where might I find use out of saltstack. . .

scottalanmiller

@DustinB3403 said in SaltStack Use Cases:

@scottalanmiller said in SaltStack Use Cases:

@DustinB3403 said in SaltStack Use Cases:

So the only issue I see that is holding me back from using saltstack is that it seems to be more for deploying servers and systems.

That's the issue. It seems.

How does something seeming to be for a specific use case an issue? I'm asking where might I find use out of saltstack. . .

Well the biggest challenge there is knowing what you do. And I mean that honestly, like... I know you and I know what you did a month ago. But you are in a new job and I actually don't know what your day to day workload looks like yet. So where Salt would make sense to you is hard for me to describe.

scottalanmiller

@DustinB3403 said in SaltStack Use Cases:

@scottalanmiller said in SaltStack Use Cases:

@DustinB3403 said in SaltStack Use Cases:

So the only issue I see that is holding me back from using saltstack is that it seems to be more for deploying servers and systems.

That's the issue. It seems.

How does something seeming to be for a specific use case an issue?

By making you think that it might not apply to you because of the assumed use case.

dafyre

@FATeknollogee said in SaltStack Use Cases:

@dafyre said in SaltStack Use Cases:

Installing ZeroTier / joining machines to the ZT network.

Any how to guides?

Not quite. I've got to sanitize my salt files before I can share them.

scottalanmiller

@DustinB3403 said in SaltStack Use Cases:

What I feel like would be useful would be PDQ Deploy / GPO - Godmode all in one solution. But every time someone explains their use of SaltStack I immediately think to my self that it is not what I need.

So I use it for every time that I need to deploy a new module or piece of software. Someone needs something, just stick it in the salt file. I do this constantly. I'm on my laptop and I have the state files locally. They are in a directory that opens all at once in Atom (my editor of choice.) All I do is add that software item to the right state file and save... done.

I have it set to upload the state files to GitLab, which is free, and my Salt Master pulls updates from GitLab every fifteen minutes or so. So my laptop changes flow straight to the servers, automatically.

Alex Sage

@scottalanmiller said in SaltStack Use Cases:

@DustinB3403 said in SaltStack Use Cases:

What I feel like would be useful would be PDQ Deploy / GPO - Godmode all in one solution. But every time someone explains their use of SaltStack I immediately think to my self that it is not what I need.

So I use it for every time that I need to deploy a new module or piece of software. Someone needs something, just stick it in the salt file. I do this constantly. I'm on my laptop and I have the state files locally. They are in a directory that opens all at once in Atom (my editor of choice.) All I do is add that software item to the right state file and save... done.

I have it set to upload the state files to GitLab, which is free, and my Salt Master pulls updates from GitLab every fifteen minutes or so. So my laptop changes flow straight to the servers, automatically.

Very Nice Setup

scottalanmiller

@aaronstuder said in SaltStack Use Cases:

@scottalanmiller said in SaltStack Use Cases:

@DustinB3403 said in SaltStack Use Cases:

What I feel like would be useful would be PDQ Deploy / GPO - Godmode all in one solution. But every time someone explains their use of SaltStack I immediately think to my self that it is not what I need.

So I use it for every time that I need to deploy a new module or piece of software. Someone needs something, just stick it in the salt file. I do this constantly. I'm on my laptop and I have the state files locally. They are in a directory that opens all at once in Atom (my editor of choice.) All I do is add that software item to the right state file and save... done.

I have it set to upload the state files to GitLab, which is free, and my Salt Master pulls updates from GitLab every fifteen minutes or so. So my laptop changes flow straight to the servers, automatically.

Very Nice Setup

It's new, and I love it.

AdamF

So this could also be useful for copying files to many servers at once from the central master I assume. For example, all minions need to have copies of source files that are updated from a central point. This could be used to push updates to all minions at once. Correct?

Alex Sage

@scottalanmiller said in SaltStack Use Cases:

@aaronstuder said in SaltStack Use Cases:

@scottalanmiller said in SaltStack Use Cases:

@DustinB3403 said in SaltStack Use Cases:

What I feel like would be useful would be PDQ Deploy / GPO - Godmode all in one solution. But every time someone explains their use of SaltStack I immediately think to my self that it is not what I need.

So I use it for every time that I need to deploy a new module or piece of software. Someone needs something, just stick it in the salt file. I do this constantly. I'm on my laptop and I have the state files locally. They are in a directory that opens all at once in Atom (my editor of choice.) All I do is add that software item to the right state file and save... done.

I have it set to upload the state files to GitLab, which is free, and my Salt Master pulls updates from GitLab every fifteen minutes or so. So my laptop changes flow straight to the servers, automatically.

Very Nice Setup

It's new, and I love it.

You should share

Emad R

Will be monitoring this thread like:

http://cdn.bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/halloween_1978_still.jpg

Also does it really work in Windows environments like it does on Linux, it seems like SaltStack and its brothers (Chef, Ansible, I forgot one) are tailored for Linux, and I dont want the master/server to be on Windows, that will be redundant I mean passing commands to Windows agents, and is their template library with commands where we can see what we can do under Windows.

Alex Sage

@msff-amman-Itofficer said in SaltStack Use Cases:
is their template library with commands where we can see what we can do under Windows.

Link?

Romo

@msff-amman-Itofficer said in SaltStack Use Cases:

Will be monitoring this thread like:
Also does it really work in Windows environments like it does on Linux, it seems like SaltStack and its brothers (Chef, Ansible, I forgot one) are tailored for Linux, and I dont want the master/server to be on Windows, that will be redundant I mean passing commands to Windows agents, and is their template library with commands where we can see what we can do under Windows.

They do work for windows, the don't have all the modules for Windows yet but they have a pretty good selection.

Ansible Windows Modules

win_acl - Set file/directory permissions for a system user or group.
win_acl_inheritance - Change ACL inheritance
win_chocolatey - Installs packages using chocolatey
win_command - Executes a command on a remote Windows node
win_copy - Copies files to remote locations on windows hosts.
win_disk_image - Manage ISO/VHD/VHDX mounts on Windows hosts
win_dns_client - Configures DNS lookup on Windows hosts
win_domain - Ensures the existence of a Windows domain.
win_domain_controller - Manage domain controller/member server state for a Windows host
win_domain_membership - Manage domain/workgroup membership for a Windows host
win_dotnet_ngen - Runs ngen to recompile DLLs after .NET updates
win_environment - Modifies environment variables on windows hosts.
win_feature - Installs and uninstalls Windows Features on Windows Server
win_file - Creates, touches or removes files or directories.
win_file_version - Get DLL or EXE file build version
win_find - return a list of files based on specific criteria
win_firewall_rule - Windows firewall automation
win_get_url - Fetches a file from a given URL
win_group - Add and remove local groups
win_iis_virtualdirectory - Configures a virtual directory in IIS.
win_iis_webapplication - Configures IIS web applications.
win_iis_webapppool - Configures an IIS Web Application Pool.
win_iis_webbinding - Configures a IIS Web site.
win_iis_website - Configures a IIS Web site.
win_lineinfile - Ensure a particular line is in a file, or replace an existing line using a back-referenced regular expression.
win_msg - Sends a message to logged in users on Windows hosts.
win_msi - Installs and uninstalls Windows MSI files
win_nssm - NSSM - the Non-Sucking Service Manager
win_owner - Set owner
win_package - Installs/Uninstalls an installable package, either from local file system or url
win_path - Manage Windows path environment variables
win_ping - A windows version of the classic ping module.
win_psexec - Runs commands (remotely) as another (privileged) user
win_reboot - Reboot a windows machine
win_reg_stat - returns information about a Windows registry key or property of a key
win_regedit - Add, change, or remove registry keys and values
win_region - Set the region and format settings
win_regmerge - Merges the contents of a registry file into the windows registry
win_robocopy - Synchronizes the contents of two directories using Robocopy.
win_say - Text to speech module for Windows to speak messages and optionally play sounds
win_scheduled_task - Manage scheduled tasks
win_service - Manages Windows services
win_share - Manage Windows shares
win_shell - Execute shell commands on target hosts.
win_shortcut - Manage shortcuts on Windows
win_stat - returns information about a Windows file
win_tempfile - Creates temporary files and directories.
win_template - Templates a file out to a remote server.
win_timezone - Sets Windows machine timezone
win_unzip - Unzips compressed files and archives on the Windows node
win_updates - Download and install Windows updates
win_uri - Interacts with webservices.
win_user - Manages local Windows user accounts
win_webpicmd - Installs packages using Web Platform Installer command-line

Saltack Windows Modules

salt.states.win_certutil module
salt.states.win_dacl
salt.states.win_dism module
salt.states.win_dns_client
salt.states.win_firewall
salt.states.win_iis module
salt.states.win_lgpo module
salt.states.win_license module
salt.states.win_network
salt.states.win_path
salt.states.win_pki module
salt.states.win_powercfg
salt.states.win_servermanager
salt.states.win_smtp_server module
salt.states.win_snmp module
salt.states.win_system
salt.states.win_update

Speaking about ansible and saltstack the master/control node only runs on Linux.

stacksofplates

So I can't answer for Salt since I don't use it, but I use Ansible for everything. For example, I have a separate DHCP and DNS server. Records are held in a YAML dictionary and when I need to add a machine, I add the DNS info and mac address and Ansible sets up the DHCP reservation on one machine and the DNS record in the other.

I also use it for kickstart configs. Instead of Foreman or Cobbler, Ansible has a Jinja2 kickstart template. When I run the playbook, Ansible creates all of the kickstart configs for all of the machines in the same dictionary as above and then creates PXE boot files based on the MAC address for each machine.

Ansible is pretty awesome with cloud services also. Dynamic inventories means you don't need to keep track of static inventories for your playbooks. Ansible can use any kind of script to get an inventory from AWS, DO, OpenStack, etc. As long as it returns JSON, your inventory is now the actual machines in your provider.

scottalanmiller

@msff-amman-Itofficer said in SaltStack Use Cases:

Will be monitoring this thread like:

http://cdn.bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/halloween_1978_still.jpg

Also does it really work in Windows environments like it does on Linux, it seems like SaltStack and its brothers (Chef, Ansible, I forgot one) are tailored for Linux, and I dont want the master/server to be on Windows, that will be redundant I mean passing commands to Windows agents, and is their template library with commands where we can see what we can do under Windows.

Not tailored for any specific OS. Windows works fine.

scottalanmiller

@fuznutz04 said in SaltStack Use Cases:

So this could also be useful for copying files to many servers at once from the central master I assume. For example, all minions need to have copies of source files that are updated from a central point. This could be used to push updates to all minions at once. Correct?

Yes. Or to tell them to all grab updates from somewhere.

Emad R

@Romo

Interesting thanks...

matteo nunziati

Generic answer:
basically Ansible, Salt, etc... are configuration managers. To understand when to use them, let say this:

you want to deploy a machine (VM/physical, even a desktop)

a) you do it. so ok, next time you have to do the same task you have to remember what you did - and if the platform will change (run a web server on a different OS/distribution) you have to deal with the differences time per time.
b) as above, but you write all the steps (especially the tricky ones) on a file, so next time you have just to follow instructions and everything should be in place. Still OS is a matter but you can follow the quirks in your paperwrites.
c) you go over and you "drop" the minutes in favour of a script (shell/powershell etc...) which - if well laid out, will automagically re-deploy the machine again and again and again with a lot of custom if/else logic...

or...

d) as above, but you do it with a CM script.

It is all about how much reproducibility, automation and platform independence(°) and standardization is a requisite for your job.
(°) you have to deal with platform at writing time, not at run time. Also idempotency is not always attained with windows PS things.

Personal example:
Recently, I've migrated my VMs from KVM to hyper-v, rather than do anything else, I've used the existent VMs as a target and I've tried to reach the same objective by using fresh installs on hyper-v and Ansible scripts for deployments. My playbooks (ansible code) are still rude but I push them on bitbucket with git and I will be sure that next time I'll need a VM (even for testing) I will be able to fire a script and get exactly the same env.