How to install something using saltstack? - salt-stack

Question

Saltstack documentation is very difficult and unclear for beginner. If you could give simple example how to install something on vagrant machine using saltstack I'd be very grateful

Answer 1

I believe some tutorials are out on the web. I could offer some of mine:
Setup Zabbix using Salt in a masterless setup, this installs among others a PHP stack needed for Zabbix.
Setup Consul in the cloud at DigitalOcean, with Saltstack. Includes a full script, but also works with Vagrant (see cheatsheet.adoc)

Answer 2

I think the biggest help for me when starting was the SaltStack tutorials.
https://docs.saltstack.com/en/getstarted/fundamentals/index.html
The states tutorial gives an example of installing rsync, lftp and curl:
https://docs.saltstack.com/en/getstarted/fundamentals/states.html
This tutorial shows how to setup what you need with vagrant with a master and a couple of minions, shows basics of targeting minions and setting up state files (the files that tell Salt what to do on a minion).
There is a lot more to Salt than that, but it is a good start.

Answer 3

In Saltstack there are two types of machines :
Master : As the name suggests this is the controlling. You can use this to run tasks on multiple minions.
Minion : Minions are like slaves. You can run commands on minions, or install any packages, run scripts on minions through master. Basically any command or any task that you can run by logging into a minion machine you should be able to accomplish through the master machine.
You can write all the tasks you want to perform on minion in an sls file and run it.
Saltstack has functions which you should call along with the desired arguments. Every function performs a specific task. Saltstack has Execution modules and States modules
Execution modules:
They are designed to perform tasks on a minion. For example: mysql.query will query a specified database. The execution module does not check if the database needs to be queried or not. It just executes its task.
Have a look at the complete list of modules and you will see that they will just execute a task for you. https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/modules/all/index.html
States module:
It's called THE states module.
The states module is a module too. But it's a special one. With the states module you can create states (the sls files under /srv/salt ) for your Minions.
You could for example create a state that ensures the Minion has a web server configured for www.example.com.
After you have created your state you can apply it with the states module: salt state.apply example_webserver
The example_webserver state specifies what the Minion needs to have. If the Minion is already in the correct state, it does nothing. If the Minion is not in the correct state it will try to get there.
The states module can be found here: https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/states/all/salt.states.module.html
Sample sls file :
//This state is to make sure git is installed. If yes : no action will be taken if not it will be installed.
git_install:
pkg.installed:
- name: git
//This step makes sure the folder with the specified name is not present. If it is present it will be deleted. Here "delete_appname_old" is the step name and should not be duplicated in the same sls file
delete_appname_old:
file.absent:
- name: /home/user/folder_name
//This step is for cloning a git project
clone_project:
module.run:
- name: git.clone
- url: ssh://gitreposshclonelink
- cwd: /home/user/folder_name
- user: $username
- identity: $pathofsshkey