SaltStackImplementationNotes

About this page

Notes for the SaltStack implementation - a key component of the Migration_2016 project.

Some components of this page will be migrated into the Administrative_reference page, others may be removed as the system configuration documentation should become the SaltStack configuration (replete with in-line comments where appropriate). Part of this process will be to remove many of the historical build / config addenda described in each of the host-specific pages, as, again, history for these changes is described and defined within the SaltStack configuration repository (git or svn).

Base builds

This section describes a base Ubuntu 2016.04 (LTS) build.

A base build is everything that's done prior to being able to run the first SaltStack 'high state' command. Many of the configurations defined within the base (install) process are later confirmed & maintained by SaltStack, but are documented here for completeness.

Initial lab environment:

• 2GB RAM
• 1 x core CPU
• Single SCSI-emulated 20GB disk
• Ubuntu 16.04.1 AMD64 CD (iso)
• VMware ESXi

Initial installation from CD

1. Boot from CD
2. Language - Select English
3. Installation Option - Select Install Ubuntu Server
4. Langage - Select English
5. Country - Select Australia
6. Configure the Keyboard
   1. Do not auto-detect keyboard
   2. English (US)
   3. English (US) again
7. Network Configuration
   1. DHCP attempt - in lab environment this will fail
   2. Configure network manually
   3. IP address: 10.6.1.200
   4. NetMask: 255.255.255.0
   5. Gateway: 10.6.1.1
   6. DNS: 192.168.1.1
   7. Hostname: baseprogclub (Unique string useful to search for later)
   8. Domain name: .lab
8. Set up users and passwords
   1. Full name for new user: Jedd
   2. Username for your account: jedd
   3. Password created: redacted
   4. Encrypt home directory: No
9. Configure the clock
   1. Timezone autodetection successful (Australia / NSW) - Select Yes
10. Partition Disks
    1. Select - Guided - use entire disk
    2. Disk to partition - lab environment has only single disk - SCSI3 /dev/sda
    3. This defaults to sda1 (ext4) and sda5 (swap) with non-specified capacity
    4. @TODO Revisit this - ideally discard swap partitions in favour of swapfiles
    5. Write changes to disk
11. Installing the system
12. Configure the package manager
    1. Select no proxy for HTTP
13. Configure TaskSel
    1. Select No automatic updates
    2. Software selection - select standard system utilities and OpenSSH server
14. Install the GRUB boot loader
    1. Select 'Yes
    2. Nota bene: Finalising the installation takes a LONG time - notably building the initramfs on /target/boot
15. Finish the installation
    1. Eject the (logical) CDROM and select Continue

Initial configuration on first boot

Once the base build has installed and rebooted, we need to configure common items to let us bootstrap SaltStack

Login, and sudo bash (or sudo all these separately)

Run this to get the apt key installed for saltstack:

  wget -O - https://repo.saltstack.com/apt/ubuntu/16.04/amd64/latest/SALTSTACK-GPG-KEY.pub | sudo apt-key add -

Add this content to the file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/saltstack.list

  deb http://repo.saltstack.com/apt/ubuntu/16.04/amd64/latest xenial main

Run:

  apt-get update

Confirm by running:

  apt-cache show salt-minion | grep -i version

Should show 2016.3.3+ds-1 or later. (Raw xenial (Ubuntu 16.04) references only version 2015.8.8+ds-1)

For convenience we download, but to not install, Saltstack-minion and its dependencies as part of the base build.

Salt-minion will be installed on all hosts. (Later, on the admin host, we will also install salt-master.)

Run:

 apt-get install -d salt-minion

This downloads 45 new packages. We don't install at this stage as salt-minion will attempt to phone home to 'salt.domain.fqdn' when it is first launched.