salt/doc/ref/configuration/minion.rst

Configuring the Salt Minion

The Salt system is amazingly simple and easy to configure, the two components of the Salt system each have a respective configuration file. The salt-master is configured via the master configuration file, and the salt-minion is configured via the minion configuration file.

example minion configuration file <configuration-examples-minion>

The Salt Minion configuration is very simple, typically the only value that needs to be set is the master value so the minion can find its master.

Minion Primary Configuration

master

Default: salt

The hostname or ipv4 of the master.

master: salt

master_port

Default: 4506

The port of the master ret server, this needs to coincide with the ret_port option on the salt master.

master_port: 4506

pki_dir

Default: /etc/salt/pki

The directory used to store the minion's public and private keys.

pki_dir: /etc/salt/pki

id

Default: hostname (as returned by the Python call: socket.getfqdn())

Explicitly declare the id for this minion to use, if left commented the id will be the hostname as returned by the python call: socket.getfqdn() Since salt uses detached ids it is possible to run multiple minions on the same machine but with different ids, this can be useful for salt compute clusters.

id: foo.bar.com

sub_timeout

The minion connection to the master may be inturupted, the minion will verify the connection every so many seconds, to disable connection verification set this value to 0

sub_timeout: 60

cachedir

Default: /var/cache/salt

The location for minion cache data.

cachedir: /var/cache/salt

cache_jobs

Default: False

The minion can locally cache the return data from jobs sent to it, this can be a good way to keep track minion side of the jobs the minion has executed. By default this feature is disabled, to enable set cache_jobs to True

cache_jobs: False

acceptance_wait_time

Default: 10

The number of seconds to wait until attempting to re-authenticate with the master.

acceptance_wait_time: 10

Minion Module Management

disable_modules

Default: [] (all modules are enabled by default)

The event may occur in which the administrator desires that a minion should not be able to execute a certain module. The sys module is built into the minion and cannot be disabled.

This setting can also tune the minion, as all modules are loaded into ram disabling modules will lover the minion's ram footprint.

disable_modules:
  - test
  - solr

disable_returners

Default: [] (all returners are enabled by default)

If certian returners should be disabled, this is the place

disable_returners:
  - mongo_return

module_dirs

Default: []

A list of extra directories to search for salt modules

module_dirs:
  - /var/lib/salt/modules

returner_dirs

Default: []

A list of extra directories to search for salt returners

returners_dirs:
  - /var/lib/salt/returners

states_dirs

Default: []

A list of extra directories to search for salt states

states_dirs:
  - /var/lib/salt/states

render_dirs

Default: []

A list of extra directories to search for salt renderers

render_dirs:
  - /var/lib/salt/renderers

cython_enable

Default: False

Set this value to true to enable auto loading and compiling of .pyx modules, This setting requires that gcc and cython are installed on the minion

cython_enable: False

State Management Settings

renderer

Default: yaml_jinja

The default renderer used for local state executions

renderer: yaml_jinja

state_verbose

Default: False

state_verbose allows for the data returned from the minion to be more verbose. Normaly only states that fail or states that have changes are returned, but setting state_verbose to True will return all states that were checked

state_verbose: True

autoload_dynamic_modules

Default: True

autoload_dynamic_modules Turns on automatic loading of modules found in the environments on the master. This is turned on by default, to turn of autoloading modules when states run set this value to False

autoload_dynamic_modules: True

Default: True

clean_dynamic_modules keeps the dynamic modules on the minion in sync with the dynamic modules on the master, this means that if a dynamic module is not on the master it will be deleted from the minion. By default this is enabled and can be disabled by changing this value to False

clean_dynamic_modules: True

Security Settings

open_mode

Default: False

Open mode can be used to clean out the pki key received from the salt master, turn on open mode, restart the minion, then turn off open mode and restart the minion to clean the keys.

open_mode: False

Thread Settings

Default: True

Disable multiprocessing support, by default when a minion receives a publication a new process is spawned and the command is executed therein.

multiprocessing: True

Minion Logging Settings

log_file

Default: /var/log/salt/minion

The location of the minion log file

log_file: /var/log/salt/minion

log_level

Default: warning

The level of messages to send to the log file. One of 'info', 'quiet', 'critical', 'error', 'debug', 'warning'.

log_level: warning

log_granular_levels

Default: {}

Logger levels can be used to tweak specific loggers logging levels. Imagine you want to have the salt library at the 'warning' level, but, you still wish to have 'salt.modules' at the 'debug' level:

log_granular_levels:
  'salt': 'warning',
  'salt.modules': 'debug'