SaltStack Cheat Sheet

SaltStack Cheat Sheet .. My collection of often used commands on my Salt master.

This list is partly inspired by the fine lists on:

• http://www.xenuser.org/saltstack-cheat-sheet/
• https://github.com/saltstack/salt/wiki/Cheat-Sheet

Table of Contents generated with DocToc

• SaltStack Cheat Sheet
• First things first : Documentation
  • Documentation on the system
  • Documentation on the web
• Minions
  • Minion status
  • Target minion with state files
  • Grains
• Jobs in Salt
• Sysadmin specific
  • System and status
  • Packages
  • Check status of a service and manipulate services
  • Network
• Salt Cloud

Documentation

This is important because the help system is very good.

Documentation on the system

salt '*' sys.doc         # output sys.doc (= all documentation)
salt '*' sys.doc pkg     # only sys.doc for pkg module
salt '*' sys.doc network # only sys.doc for network module
salt '*' sys.doc system  # only sys.doc for system module
salt '*' sys.doc status  # only sys.doc for status module

Documentation on the web

• SaltStack documentation: http://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/
• Salt-Cloud: http://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/cloud/
• Jobs: http://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/jobs/

Minions

Minion status

You can also use several commands to check if minions are alive and kicking but I prefer manage.status/up/down.

salt-run manage.status  # What is the status of all my minions? (both up and down)
salt-run manage.up      # Any minions that are up?
salt-run manage.down    # Any minions that are down?
salt-run manage.alived  # Show all alive minions
salt '*' test.version   # Display salt version
salt '*' test.ping      # Use test module to check if minion is up and responding.
                        # (Not an ICMP ping!)

Target minion with state files

Apply a specific state file to a (group of..) minion(s). Do not use the .sls extension. (just like in the state files!)

salt '*' state.sls mystatefile           # mystatefile.sls will be applied to *
salt 'minion1' state.sls prod.somefile  # prod/somefile.sls will be applied to minion1

Grains

List all grains on all minions

salt '*' grains.ls

Look at a single grains item to list the values.

salt '*' grains.item os      # Show the value of the OS grain for every minion
salt '*' grains.item roles   # Show the value of the roles grain for every minion

Manipulate grains.

salt 'minion1' grains.setval mygrain True  # Set mygrain to True (create if it doesn't exist yet)
salt 'minion1' grains.delval mygrain       # Delete the value of the grain

Jobs in Salt

Some jobs operations that are often used. (http://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/jobs/)

salt-run jobs.active      # get list of active jobs
salt-run jobs.list_jobs   # get list of historic jobs
salt-run jobs.lookup_jid <job id number>  # get details of this specific job

Sysadmin specific

Some stuff that is specifically of interest for sysadmins.

System and status

salt 'minion-x-*' system.reboot  # Let's reboot all the minions that match minion-x-*
salt '*' status.uptime           # Get the uptime of all our minions

Packages

salt '*' pkg.list_upgrades             # get a list of packages that need to be upgrade
salt '*' pkg.upgrade                   # Upgrades all packages via apt-get dist-upgrade (or similar)

salt '*' pkg.version bash              # get current version of the bash package
salt '*' pkg.install bash              # install or upgrade bash package
salt '*' pkg.install bash refresh=True # install or upgrade bash package but
                                      # refresh the package database before installing.

Check status of a service and manipulate services

salt '*' service.status <service name>
salt '*' service.available <service name>
salt '*' service.start <service name>
salt '*' service.restart <service name>
salt '*' service.stop <service name>

Network

Do some network stuff on your minions.

salt 'minion1' network.ip_addrs          # Get IP of your minion
salt 'minion1' network.ping <hostname>   # Ping a host from your minion
salt 'minion1' network.traceroute <hostname>   # Traceroute a host from your minion
salt 'minion1' network.get_hostname      # Get hostname
salt 'minion1' network.mod_hostname      # Modify hostname

Salt Cloud

Salt Cloud is used to provision virtual machines in the cloud. (surprise!) (http://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/cloud/)

salt-cloud -p profile_do my-vm-name -l debug  # Provision using profile_do as profile
                                              # and my-vm-name as the virtual machine name while
                                              # using the debug option.
salt-cloud -d my-vm-name                      # destroy the my-vm-name virtual machine.
salt-cloud -u                                 # Update salt-bootstrap to latest develop version on GitHub.