PKI Index Operations¶

Overview¶

By default, the Salt Master performs linear directory scans to find minion public keys during authentication and job publication. As the number of minions grows into the thousands, these disk I/O operations can become a significant bottleneck.

The PKI index replaces these linear scans with a constant-time O(1) lookup using a memory-mapped hash table. This substantially reduces disk I/O and improves Master responsiveness.

Enabling the Index¶

To enable the PKI index, add the following to your Master configuration file:

pki_index_enabled: True

Configuration¶

While the default settings work for most environments, you can tune the index using these options:

• pki_index_size: The number of slots in the hash table (default: 1,000,000).

• pki_index_slot_size: The size of each slot in bytes (default: 128).

Monitoring and Management¶

You can check the status of your PKI index or force a manual rebuild using the PKI runner:

# Check index status and load factor
salt-run pki.status

# Manually rebuild the index from the filesystem
salt-run pki.rebuild_index