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

Troubleshooting external authentication


Troubleshooting auth modules is a little different from other types of module, because what you're testing is the ability to access a command, not the functionality of the resulting command. This means that the command that you choose to execute should be one that is already known to work, such as test.ping.

Setting auth parameters

Before you can use an auth module, you need to enable it in the master configuration file. Multiple auth modules can be configured, using the external_auth directive:

external_auth:
  pam:
    moe:
      - .*
      - '@runner'
      - '@wheel'
    larry:
      - test.*
      - disk.*
      - network.*
      - '@runner'
      - '@wheel'
  webauth:
    shemp:
      - test.*
      - network.*
      - '@runner'
      - '@wheel'

In this example, we have three users set, between two different auth modules. The moe and larry users are set to use the pam module, and the shemp user is set to use the webauth module that we just created...