Remote Execution

You'll learn how to:

Remotely execute shell commands on agentless systems
Remotely execute Salt execution modules on agentless systems

Estimated time: 5 minutes

Difficulty:

After your systems are added to the roster, you are immediately ready to run shell commands, update packages, and distribute files to all targeted systems simultaneously. As a bonus, all responses are returned in a consistent, configurable format so you can easily see what did and didn’t work.

Run a Shell Command

Salt lets you remotely execute shell commands across multiple systems using cmd.run:

salt-ssh '*' cmd.run 'ls -l /etc'

All targeted systems simultaneously and immediately execute this command and then return the output to the Salt master. Feeling the power?

Salt Execution Functions

While shelling out using cmd.run is certainly useful, the real power comes when you add Salt execution functions. The Salt community has put tremendous effort into creating hundreds of functions that simplify most management tasks. Even better, the same function can be used consistently across all supported platforms.

Resist the urge to shell out. Learn the ways of the Salt execution functions.

Show Disk Usage

salt-ssh '*' disk.usage

Install a Package

salt-ssh '*' pkg.install cowsay

List network interfaces

salt-ssh '*' network.interfaces

These are just a few examples of the many execution functions available.

Tutorial - Remote Execution

All of the remote execution commands in this section can be executed in your demo environment. These examples match all systems in your roster using the * glob, but you can substitute this with the ID you assigned in the roster file instead:

salt-ssh 'managed' network.interfaces

You can also pass a comma-delimited list of systems:

salt-ssh 'server1,server2,server3' network.interfaces

Agentless Salt

Get Started Tutorial