Book Image

Extending SaltStack

Book Image

Extending SaltStack

Overview of this book

Salt already ships with a very powerful set of tools, but that doesn't mean that they all suit your needs perfectly. By adding your own modules and enhancing existing ones, you can bring the functionality that you need to increase your productivity. Extending SaltStack follows a tutorial-based approach to explain different types of modules, from fundamentals to complete and full-functioning modules. Starting with the Loader system that drives Salt, this book will guide you through the most common types of modules. First you will learn how to write execution modules. Then you will extend the configuration using the grain, pillar, and SDB modules. Next up will be state modules and then the renderers that can be used with them. This will be followed with returner and output modules, which increase your options to manage return data. After that, there will be modules for external file servers, clouds, beacons, and finally external authentication and wheel modules to manage the master. With this guide in hand, you will be prepared to create, troubleshoot, and manage the most common types of Salt modules and take your infrastructure to new heights!
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Extending SaltStack
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Writing SDB modules


SDB is a relatively new type of module, and ripe for development. It stands for Simple Database, and it is designed to allow data to be simple to query, using a very short URI. Underlying configuration can be as complex as necessary, so long as the URI that is used to query it is as simple as possible.

Another design goal of SDB is that URIs can mask sensitive pieces of information from being stored directly inside a configuration file. For instance, passwords are often required for other types of modules, such as the mysql modules. But it is a poor practice to store passwords in files that are then stored inside a revision control system such as Git.

Using SDB to look up passwords on the fly allows references to the passwords to be stored, but not the passwords themselves. This makes it much safer to store files that reference sensitive data, inside revision control systems.

There is one supposed function that may be tempting to use SDB for: storing encrypted data on the...