Bootstrapping Salt

Before Salt can be used for provisioning on the desired machine, the binaries need to be installed. Since Salt supports many different distributions and versions of operating systems, the Salt installation process is handled by this shell script bootstrap-salt.sh. This script runs through a series of checks to determine operating system type and version to then install the Salt binaries using the appropriate methods. For Windows, use the bootstrap-salt.ps1 script.

NOTE

This README file is not the absolute truth as to what the bootstrap script is capable of. For that, please read the generated help by passing -h to the script or even better, read the source.

Also, to secure your Salt installation, check out these instructions for hardening salt.

Bootstrap

In every two-step installation example, you would be well-served to verify against the SHA256 sum of the downloaded bootstrap-salt.sh file.

The SHA256 sum of the bootstrap-salt.sh file, per release, is:

2021.03.02: 91baa0073308f1be20c7be65238ef67e5733c75285314b302a5b2456e73a0758
2020.10.20: b47bfc8d63cccf22eb4cd94491d30cc1d571e184be25a5be7f775e7f2daaf6e2
2020.10.19: f6c3e2c52f98d115809044b09062219369957caf30228b594033f0543e202c52
2020.06.23: 1d07db867c195c864d0ae70664524f2099cc9a46872953293c67c3f239d4f4f5
2020.05.28: 6b3ea15c78f01060ab12fc01c0bb18480eaf36858c7ba188b200c0fb11aac173
2020.02.24: efc46700aca78b8e51d7af9b06293f52ad495f3a8179c6bfb21a8c97ee41f1b7
2020.02.04: ce877651b4938e3480f76b1629f582437f6ca8b73d7199fdb9e905e86fe85b34
2020.01.29: e9afdfa877998c1c7f0e141a6728b33d0d24348e197aab2b9bde4fe6bc6db1b2
2020.01.21: 53299aa0dfbf7ab381f3856bb7babfc04a1d6525be11db0b9466277b1e4d0c1a
2019.11.04: 905924fccd4ebf168d19ba598bf10af53efe02302b792aeb15433e73fd3ad1d2
2019.10.03: 34f196f06d586ce9e1b9907660ea6e67caf57abcecfea66e0343697e3fd0d17d
2019.05.20: 46fb5e4b7815efafd69fd703f033fe86e7b584b6770f7e0b936995bcae1cedd8
2019.02.27: 23728e4b5e54f564062070e3be53c5602b55c24c9a76671968abbf3d609258cb
2019.01.08: ab7f29b75711da4bb79aff98d46654f910d569ebe3e908753a3c5119017bb163
2018.08.15: 6d414a39439a7335af1b78203f9d37e11c972b3c49c519742c6405e2944c6c4b
2018.08.13: 98284bdc2b5ebaeb619b22090374e42a68e8fdefe6bff1e73bd1760db4407ed0
2018.04.25: e2e3397d6642ba6462174b4723f1b30d04229b75efc099a553e15ea727877dfb
2017.12.13: c127b3aa4a8422f6b81f5b4a40d31d13cec97bf3a39bca9c11a28f24910a6895
2017.08.17: 909b4d35696b9867b34b22ef4b60edbc5a0e9f8d1ed8d05f922acb79a02e46e3
2017.05.24: 8c42c2e5ad3d4384ddc557da5c214ba3e40c056ca1b758d14a392c1364650e89

If you're looking for a one-liner to install Salt, please scroll to the bottom and use the instructions for Installing via an Insecure One-Liner.

There are also .sha256 files for verifying against in the repo for the stable branch. You can also get the correct sha256 sum for the stable release from https://bootstrap.saltproject.io/sha256 and https://winbootstrap.saltproject.io/sha256

Contributing

The Salt Bootstrap project is open and encouraging to code contributions. Please review the Contributing Guidelines for information on filing issues, fixing bugs, and submitting features.

The Contributing Guidelines also contain information about the Bootstrap release cadence and process.

Examples

To view the latest options and descriptions for salt-bootstrap, use -h and the terminal:

./salt-bootstrap.sh -h

Usage :  bootstrap-salt.sh [options] <install-type> [install-type-args]

Installation types:
  - stable              Install latest stable release. This is the default
                        install type
  - stable [branch]     Install latest version on a branch. Only supported
                        for packages available at repo.saltproject.io
  - stable [version]    Install a specific version. Only supported for
                        packages available at repo.saltproject.io
                        To pin a 3xxx minor version, specify it as 3xxx.0
  - testing             RHEL-family specific: configure EPEL testing repo
  - git                 Install from the head of the master branch
  - git [ref]           Install from any git ref (such as a branch, tag, or
                        commit)

Examples:
  - bootstrap-salt.sh
  - bootstrap-salt.sh stable
  - bootstrap-salt.sh stable 2017.7
  - bootstrap-salt.sh stable 2017.7.2
  - bootstrap-salt.sh testing
  - bootstrap-salt.sh git
  - bootstrap-salt.sh git 2017.7
  - bootstrap-salt.sh git v2017.7.2
  - bootstrap-salt.sh git 06f249901a2e2f1ed310d58ea3921a129f214358

Options:
  -h  Display this message
  -v  Display script version
  -n  No colours
  -D  Show debug output
  -c  Temporary configuration directory
  -g  Salt Git repository URL. Default: https://github.com/saltstack/salt.git
  -w  Install packages from downstream package repository rather than
      upstream, saltstack package repository. This is currently only
      implemented for SUSE.
  -k  Temporary directory holding the minion keys which will pre-seed
      the master.
  -s  Sleep time used when waiting for daemons to start, restart and when
      checking for the services running. Default: 3
  -L  Also install salt-cloud and required python-libcloud package
  -M  Also install salt-master
  -S  Also install salt-syndic
  -N  Do not install salt-minion
  -X  Do not start daemons after installation
  -d  Disables checking if Salt services are enabled to start on system boot.
      You can also do this by touching /tmp/disable_salt_checks on the target
      host. Default: ${BS_FALSE}
  -P  Allow pip based installations. On some distributions the required salt
      packages or its dependencies are not available as a package for that
      distribution. Using this flag allows the script to use pip as a last
      resort method. NOTE: This only works for functions which actually
      implement pip based installations.
  -U  If set, fully upgrade the system prior to bootstrapping Salt
  -I  If set, allow insecure connections while downloading any files. For
      example, pass '--no-check-certificate' to 'wget' or '--insecure' to
      'curl'. On Debian and Ubuntu, using this option with -U allows obtaining
      GnuPG archive keys insecurely if distro has changed release signatures.
  -F  Allow copied files to overwrite existing (config, init.d, etc)
  -K  If set, keep the temporary files in the temporary directories specified
      with -c and -k
  -C  Only run the configuration function. Implies -F (forced overwrite).
      To overwrite Master or Syndic configs, -M or -S, respectively, must
      also be specified. Salt installation will be ommitted, but some of the
      dependencies could be installed to write configuration with -j or -J.
  -A  Pass the salt-master DNS name or IP. This will be stored under
      ${BS_SALT_ETC_DIR}/minion.d/99-master-address.conf
  -i  Pass the salt-minion id. This will be stored under
      ${BS_SALT_ETC_DIR}/minion_id
  -p  Extra-package to install while installing Salt dependencies. One package
      per -p flag. You are responsible for providing the proper package name.
  -H  Use the specified HTTP proxy for all download URLs (including https://).
      For example: http://myproxy.example.com:3128
  -b  Assume that dependencies are already installed and software sources are
      set up. If git is selected, git tree is still checked out as dependency
      step.
  -f  Force shallow cloning for git installations.
      This may result in an "n/a" in the version number.
  -l  Disable ssl checks. When passed, switches "https" calls to "http" where
      possible.
  -V  Install Salt into virtualenv
      (only available for Ubuntu based distributions)
  -a  Pip install all Python pkg dependencies for Salt. Requires -V to install
      all pip pkgs into the virtualenv.
      (Only available for Ubuntu based distributions)
  -r  Disable all repository configuration performed by this script. This
      option assumes all necessary repository configuration is already present
      on the system.
  -R  Specify a custom repository URL. Assumes the custom repository URL
      points to a repository that mirrors Salt packages located at
      repo.saltproject.io. The option passed with -R replaces the
      "repo.saltproject.io". If -R is passed, -r is also set. Currently only
      works on CentOS/RHEL and Debian based distributions.
  -J  Replace the Master config file with data passed in as a JSON string. If
      a Master config file is found, a reasonable effort will be made to save
      the file with a ".bak" extension. If used in conjunction with -C or -F,
      no ".bak" file will be created as either of those options will force
      a complete overwrite of the file.
  -j  Replace the Minion config file with data passed in as a JSON string. If
      a Minion config file is found, a reasonable effort will be made to save
      the file with a ".bak" extension. If used in conjunction with -C or -F,
      no ".bak" file will be created as either of those options will force
      a complete overwrite of the file.
  -q  Quiet salt installation from git (setup.py install -q)
  -x  Changes the Python version used to install Salt.
      For CentOS 6 git installations python2.7 is supported.
      Fedora git installation, CentOS 7, Debian 9, Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 support python3.
  -y  Installs a different python version on host. Currently this has only been
      tested with CentOS 6 and is considered experimental. This will install the
      ius repo on the box if disable repo is false. This must be used in conjunction
      with -x <pythonversion>.  For example:
          sh bootstrap.sh -P -y -x python2.7 git v2017.7.2
      The above will install python27 and install the git version of salt using the
      python2.7 executable. This only works for git and pip installations.

The Salt Bootstrap script has a wide variety of options that can be passed as well as several ways of obtaining the bootstrap script itself. Note that the use of sudo is not needed when running these commands as the root user.

NOTE

The examples below show how to bootstrap Salt directly from GitHub or another Git repository. Run the script without any parameters to get latest stable Salt packages for your system from SaltStack's corporate repository. See first example in the Install using wget section.

Install using curl

If you want to install a package of a specific release version, from the SaltStack repo:

curl -o bootstrap-salt.sh -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -P stable 3002.2

If you want to install a specific release version, based on the Git tags:

curl -o bootstrap-salt.sh -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh git v3002.2

Using curl to install latest development version from GitHub:

curl -o bootstrap-salt.sh -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh git master

To install a specific branch from a Git fork:

curl -o bootstrap-salt.sh -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -g https://github.com/myuser/salt.git git mybranch

If all you want is to install a salt-master using latest Git:

curl -o bootstrap-salt.sh -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -M -N git master

If your host has Internet access only via HTTP proxy, from the SaltStack repo:

PROXY='http://user:password@myproxy.example.com:3128'
curl -o bootstrap-salt.sh -L -x "$PROXY" https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -P -H "$PROXY" stable

If your host has Internet access only via HTTP proxy, installing via Git:

PROXY='http://user:password@myproxy.example.com:3128'
curl -o bootstrap-salt.sh -L -x "$PROXY" https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -H "$PROXY" git

Install using wget

Using wget to install your distribution's stable packages:

wget -O bootstrap-salt.sh https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh

Installing a specific version from git using wget:

wget -O bootstrap-salt.sh https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh git v3002.2

Installing a specific version package from the SaltStack repo using wget:

wget -O bootstrap-salt.sh https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -P stable 3002.2

NOTE

On the above examples we added -P which will allow PIP packages to be installed if required. However, the -P flag is not necessary for Git-based bootstraps.

Install using Python

If you already have Python installed, python 2.7, then it's as easy as:

python -m urllib "https://bootstrap.saltproject.io" > bootstrap-salt.sh
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -P stable 3002.2

With python version 2, the following in-line code should always work:

python -c 'import urllib; print urllib.urlopen("https://bootstrap.saltproject.io").read()' > bootstrap-salt.sh
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh git master

With python version 3:

python3 -c 'import urllib.request; print(urllib.request.urlopen("https://bootstrap.saltproject.io").read().decode("ascii"))' > bootstrap-salt.sh
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh git v3002.2

Install using fetch

On a FreeBSD-based system you usually don't have either of the above binaries available. You do have fetch available though:

fetch -o bootstrap-salt.sh https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh

If you have any SSL issues install ca_root_nss:

pkg install ca_root_nss

And either copy the certificates to the place where fetch can find them:

cp /usr/local/share/certs/ca-root-nss.crt /etc/ssl/cert.pem

Or link them to the right place:

ln -s /usr/local/share/certs/ca-root-nss.crt /etc/ssl/cert.pem

Installing via an Insecure One-Liner

The following examples illustrate how to install Salt via a one-liner.

NOTE

Warning! These methods do not involve a verification step and assume that the delivered file is trustworthy.

Any of the examples above which use two lines can be made to run in a single-line configuration with minor modifications.

Installing the latest stable release of Salt (default):

curl -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io | sudo sh

Using wget to install your distribution's stable packages:

wget -O - https://bootstrap.saltproject.io | sudo sh

Installing a target version package of Salt from the SaltStack repo:

curl -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io | sudo sh -s -- stable 3002.2

Installing the latest master branch of Salt from git:

curl -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io | sudo sh -s -- git master

Install on Windows

Using PowerShell to install latest stable version:

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://winbootstrap.saltproject.io -OutFile C:\Temp\bootstrap-salt.ps1
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope CurrentUser
C:\Temp\bootstrap-salt.ps1
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Undefined -Scope CurrentUser

Using cygwin to install latest stable version:

curl -o bootstrap-salt.ps1 -L https://winbootstrap.saltproject.io
"/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0/powershell.exe" -NoProfile -InputFormat None -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = 3072; iex ./bootstrap-salt.ps1"

Supported Operating Systems

The salt-bootstrap script officially supports the distributions outlined in Salt's Supported Operating Systems document, except for Solaris and AIX. The operating systems listed below should reflect this document but may become out of date. If an operating system is listed below, but is not listed on the official supported operating systems document, the level of support is "best-effort".

Since Salt is written in Python, the packages available from SaltStack's corporate repository are CPU architecture independent and could be installed on any hardware supported by Linux kernel. However, SaltStack does package Salt's binary dependencies only for x86_64 (amd64) and AArch32 (armhf). The latter is available only for Debian/Raspbian 8 platforms.

It is recommended to use git bootstrap mode as described above to install Salt on other architectures, such as x86 (i386), AArch64 (arm64) or ARM EABI (armel). You also may need to disable repository configuration and allow pip installations by providing -r and -P options to the bootstrap script, i.e.:

sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -r -P git master

NOTE

Bootstrap may fail to install Salt on the cutting-edge version of distributions with frequent release cycles such as: Amazon Linux, Fedora, openSUSE Tumbleweed, or Ubuntu non-LTS. Check the versions from the list below. Also, see the Unsupported Distro section.

Debian and derivatives

Cumulus Linux 2/3
Debian GNU/Linux 7/8/9/10
Devuan GNU/Linux 1/2
Kali Linux 1.0 (based on Debian 7)
Linux Mint Debian Edition 1 (based on Debian 8)
Raspbian 8 (armhf packages) and 9 (using git installation mode only)

Debian Best Effort Support: Testing Release

This script provides best-effort support for the upcoming Debian testing release. Package repositories are not provided on SaltStack's Debian repository for Debian testing releases. However, the bootstrap script will attempt to install the packages for the current stable version of Debian.

For example, when installing Salt on Debian 11 (Bullseye), the bootstrap script will setup the repository for Debian 10 (Buster) from SaltStack's Debian repository and install the Debian 10 packages.

Red Hat family

Amazon Linux 2012.3 and later
Amazon Linux 2
CentOS 6/7/8
Cloud Linux 6/7
Fedora 30/31 (install latest stable from standard repositories)
Oracle Linux 6/7
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6/7/8
Scientific Linux 6/7

SUSE family

openSUSE Leap 15 (see note below)
openSUSE Leap 42.3
openSUSE Tumbleweed 2015
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP4, 12 SP2

NOTE: Leap 15 installs Python 3 Salt packages by default. Salt is packaged by SUSE, and Leap 15 ships with Python 3. Salt with Python 2 can be installed using the the -x option in combination with the git installation method.

sh bootstrap-salt.sh -x python2 git v2018.3.2

Ubuntu and derivatives

KDE neon (based on Ubuntu 18.04)
Linux Mint 17/18
Ubuntu 14.04/16.04/18.04 and subsequent non-LTS releases (see below)

Ubuntu Best Effort Support: Non-LTS Releases

This script provides best-effort support for current, non-LTS Ubuntu releases. If package repositories are not provided on SaltStack's Ubuntu repository for the non-LTS release, the bootstrap script will attempt to install the packages for the most closely related LTS Ubuntu release instead.

For example, when installing Salt on Ubuntu 20.10, the bootstrap script will setup the repository for Ubuntu 20.04 from SaltStack's Ubuntu repository and install the 20.04 packages.

Non-LTS Ubuntu releases are not supported once the release reaches End-of-Life as defined by Ubuntu's release schedule.

Other Linux distributions

Alpine Linux 3.5/edge
Arch Linux
Gentoo

UNIX systems

BSD:

OpenBSD (pip installation)
FreeBSD 11/12

SunOS:

SmartOS (2015Q4 and later)

Unsupported Distributions

If you are running a Linux distribution that is not supported yet or is not correctly identified, please run the following commands and report their output when creating an issue:

sudo find /etc/ -name \*-release -print -exec cat {} \;
command lsb_release -a

For information on how to add support for a currently unsupported distribution, please refer to the Contributing Guidelines.

Python 3 Support

Some distributions support installing Salt to use Python 3 instead of Python 2. The availability of this offering, while limited, is as follows:

CentOS 7
Centos 8
Debian 9
Debian 10
Fedora (only git installations)
Ubuntu 16.04
Ubuntu 18.04

On Fedora, PIP installation must be allowed (-P) due to incompatibility with the shipped Tornado library.

Installing the Python 3 packages for Salt is done via the -x option:

sh bootstrap-salt.sh -x python3

See the -x option for more information.

The earliest release of Salt that supports Python3 is 2018.3.4.

Tornado 5/6 Workaround

Salt does not support tornado>=5.0 currently. This support will be included in an upcoming release. In order to work around this requirement on OSs that no longer have the tornado 4 package available in their repositories we are pip installing tornado<5.0 in the bootstrap script. This requires the user to pass -P to the bootstrap script if installing via git to ensure tornado is pip installed. If a user does not pass this argument they will be warned that it is required for the tornado 5 workaround. So far the OSs that are using this workaround are Debian 10, Centos 8 and Fedora 31.

Testing

There are a couple of ways to test the bootstrap script. Running the script on a fully-fledged VM is one way. Other options include using Vagrant or Docker.

Testing in Vagrant

Vagrant can be used to easily test changes on a clean machine. The Vagrantfile defaults to an Ubuntu box. First, install Vagrant, then:

vagrant up
vagrant ssh

Running in Docker

It is possible to run and use Salt inside a Docker container on Linux machines. Let's prepare the Docker image using the provided Dockerfile to install both a Salt Master and a Salt Minion with the bootstrap script:

docker build -t local/salt-bootstrap .

Start your new container with Salt services up and running:

docker run --detach --name salt --hostname salt local/salt-bootstrap

And finally "enter" the running container and make Salt fully operational:

docker exec -i -t salt /bin/bash
salt-key -A -y

Salt is ready and working in the Docker container with the Minion authenticated on the Master.

NOTE

The Dockerfile here inherits the Ubuntu 14.04 public image with Upstart configured as the init system. Use it as an example or starting point of how to make your own Docker images with suitable Salt components, custom configurations, and even pre-accepted Minion keys already installed.

Updating Drone Pipelines

You should install and configure the drone-cli as shown here: https://docs.drone.io/cli/install/

Make edits to .drone.jsonnet and then save them into the .drone.yml by doing the following:

drone jsonnet --format --stream
drone sign saltstack/salt-bootstrap --save

stikves/salt-bootstrap

Bootstrapping Salt

Bootstrap

Contributing

Examples

Install using curl

Install using wget

Install using Python

Install using fetch

Installing via an Insecure One-Liner

Install on Windows

Supported Operating Systems

Debian and derivatives

Debian Best Effort Support: Testing Release

Red Hat family

SUSE family

Ubuntu and derivatives

Ubuntu Best Effort Support: Non-LTS Releases

Other Linux distributions

UNIX systems

Unsupported Distributions

Python 3 Support

Tornado 5/6 Workaround

Testing

Testing in Vagrant

Running in Docker

Updating Drone Pipelines