Salt 0.9.7 Release Notes¶

Salt Jobs Interface¶

The new jobs interface makes the management of running executions much cleaner and more transparent. Building on the existing execution framework the jobs system allows clear introspection into the active running state of the running Salt interface.

The Jobs interface is centered in the new minion side proc system. The minions now store msgpack serialized files under /var/cache/salt/proc. These files keep track of the active state of processes on the minion.

The jobs Runner¶

A convenience runner front end and reporting system has been added as well. The jobs runner contains functions to make viewing data easier and cleaner.

The jobs runner contains a number of functions...

External Node Classification¶

Salt can now use external node classifiers like Cobbler's cobbler-ext-nodes.

Salt uses specific data from the external node classifier. In particular the classes value denotes which sls modules to run, and the environment value sets to another environment.

An external node classification can be set in the master configuration file via the external_nodes option: https://salt.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ref/configuration/master.html#external-nodes

External nodes are loaded in addition to the top files. If it is intended to only use external nodes, do not deploy any top files.

State Mod Init System¶

An issue arose with the pkg state. Every time a package was run Salt would need to refresh the package database. This made systems with slower package metadata refresh speeds much slower to work with. To alleviate this issue the mod_init interface has been added to salt states.

The mod_init interface is a function that can be added to a state file. This function is called with the first state called. In the case of the pkg state, the mod_init function sets up a tag which makes the package database only refresh on the first attempt to install a package.

In a nutshell, the mod_init interface allows a state to run any command that only needs to be run once, or can be used to set up an environment for working with the state.

Source File Search Path¶

The file state continues to be refined, adding speed and capabilities. This release adds the ability to pass a list to the source option. This list is then iterated over until the source file is found, and the first found file is used.

The new syntax looks like this:

/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:
  file:
    - managed
    - source:
      - salt://httpd/httpd.conf
      - http://myserver/httpd.conf: md5=8c1fe119e6f1fd96bc06614473509bf1

The source option can take sources in the list from the salt file server as well as an arbitrary web source. If using an arbitrary web source the checksum needs to be passed as well for file verification.

Refinements to the Requisite System¶

A few discrepancies were still lingering in the requisite system, in particular, it was not possible to have a require and a watch requisite declared in the same state declaration.

This issue has been alleviated, as well as making the requisite system run more quickly.

Initial Unit Testing Framework¶

Because of the module system, and the need to test real scenarios, the development of a viable unit testing system has been difficult, but unit testing has finally arrived. Only a small amount of unit testing coverage has been developed, much more coverage will be in place soon.

A huge thanks goes out to those who have helped with unit testing, and the contributions that have been made to get us where we are. Without these contributions unit tests would still be in the dark.

Compound Targets Expanded¶

Originally only support for and and or were available in the compound target. 0.9.7 adds the capability to negate compound targets with not.

Nodegroups in the Top File¶

Previously the nodegroups defined in the master configuration file could not be used to match nodes for states. The nodegroups support has been expanded and the nodegroups defined in the master configuration can now be used to match minions in the top file.