This GitHub repository provides several different examples for the configuration and typical usage of the configuration management software 'salt' by SaltStack.

The SaltStack team provides a walkthrough here: http://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/tutorials/walkthrough.html

This example focuses on a more practical hands on approach. Using Vagrant and the provided Vagrantfile, you can quickly get start learning about salt. Currently the Vagrantfile in this repository will set up three systems (master, client1, client2) with salt. The vagrantfile will also configure virtualbox to sync the folders in this repository to the master.

• Vagrant, https://www.vagrantup.com/

To initialize the example:

• Clone to local disk. git clone https://github.com/666jfox777/vagrant-saltstack-example.git
• Browse to folder. `cd ~/vagrant-saltstack-example/
• vagrant up

Connect to the systems:

• vagrant ssh master
• vagrant ssh client1
• vagrant ssh client2

To remove the example:

• vagrant destroy
• rm -rf ~/vagrant-saltstack-example/

First up is a bit of an explanation about what Salt is, and why it's so awesome. Salt was originally designed for high-speed communication (aka remote execution) with large numbers of systems. It then took the next logical step and became a configuration management utility founded on the same principle of fast communication.

So at it's core Salt is a remote execution engine, that establishes a high-speed, secure and bi-directional communication grid for groups of systems. Then on top of that, Salt provides an extremely fast, flexible and easy-to-use configuration management system.

What I love most about Salt is how easy it is to use as a configuration management tool. The configuration files are written in yaml (you'll see examples soon) and Salt provides many options for templating with jinja (amongst other engines). It's relatively simple to look at your files and know exactly what's going on.

So this sort of tutorial is going to cover a few key concepts:

• Remote Execution
• Basic Configuration Management
• Better Configuration Management
• Advanced Configuration Management

All of the steps included in this tutorial should be executed on the included 'master' server. Aka, vagrant ssh master.

Configuring basic remote execution with a client-server architecture: here

Configuring basic configuration management with a client-server architecture: here

Easy client configuration management (no master required!): here

Create Salt Modules to tackle common tasks: here

Deploying a Node.js application as a service: here

Using Salt-Cloud in AWS EC2: here

Salt Reactor System: here

I use a lot of saltstack formula's I've written myself in this demo repository. You don't have to.