As it turns out, automating SSH commands is not as simple as it may look at first. In an environment where every server runs exactly the same version of exactly the same operating system and exactly the same pieces of software, executing remote commands can be greatly simplified. However, very few environments meet this requirement, and Salt was designed to handle multiple environments.

In order to accommodate these disparate configurations, the code that performs the tasks needs to be able to autodetect pieces of its environment and then execute the tasks required by the user. In short, a piece of software that behaves exactly like Salt is necessary. Fortunately, in the Salt environment, that software is already available.

The salt-thin agent was designed to be a lightweight version of Salt that could be quickly copied to a remote system by Salt SSH in order to perform tasks. It doesn't ship with Salt (not as such, at least). It is built as needed by Salt...