Salt Engines

New in version 2015.8.0.

Salt Engines are long-running, external system processes that leverage Salt.

  • Engines have access to Salt configuration, execution modules, and runners (__opts__, __salt__, and __runners__).

  • Engines are executed in a separate process that is monitored by Salt. If a Salt engine stops, it is restarted automatically.

  • Engines can run on the Salt master and on Salt minions.

Salt engines enhance and replace the external processes functionality.

Configuration

Salt engines are configured under an engines top-level section in your Salt master or Salt minion configuration. Provide a list of engines and parameters under this section.

engines:
  - logstash:
      host: log.my_network.com
      port: 5959
      proto: tcp

New in version 3000.

Multiple copies of a particular Salt engine can be configured by including the engine_module parameter in the engine configuration.

engines:
  - production_logstash:
      host: production_log.my_network.com
      port: 5959
      proto: tcp
      engine_module: logstash
  - develop_logstash:
      host: develop_log.my_network.com
      port: 5959
      proto: tcp
      engine_module: logstash

Salt engines must be in the Salt path, or you can add the engines_dirs option in your Salt master configuration with a list of directories under which Salt attempts to find Salt engines. This option should be formatted as a list of directories to search, such as:

engines_dirs:
  - /home/bob/engines

Writing an Engine

An example Salt engine, https://github.com/saltstack/salt/blob/master/salt/engines/test.py, is available in the Salt source. To develop an engine, the only requirement is that your module implement the start() function.