Learning SaltStack

by Colton Myers

Learn how to manage your infrastructure by utilizing the power of SaltStackAbout This BookExecute commands and enforce the state of your entire infrastructure in seconds.Make managing your servers as easy as visualizing the end goal -- let SaltStack do the heavy lifting through the state system.Learn by doing in this step by step guide to getting started with SaltStack.Who This Book Is ForIf you are a system administrator who manages multiple servers, then you know how difficult it is to keep your infrastructure in line. If you've been searching for an easier way, this book is for you. No prior experience with SaltStack is required.

What You Will LearnInstall Salt on all of your serversRun commands on all or some of your minions instantly from a central managing serverWrite custom Salt modules to handle your infrastructure's unique needsDefine the state of your infrastructure and use Salt to enforce that stateCreate platform-agnostic state definitions for greater flexibility and powerManage virtual servers on public or private clouds using Salt CloudUse the event system in Salt to create a reactive and self-healing infrastructureIn DetailSaltStack is one of the best infrastructure management platforms available. It provides powerful tools for defining and enforcing the state of your infrastructure in a clear, concise way.

This book will start with the installation and setup of Salt along with your first commands, and will take you through all the tools you'll need to manage your infrastructure. You'll learn how to use SaltStack's remote execution system to run commands across your whole infrastructure in seconds. Then, with SaltStack's configuration management system, you'll be able to define the state of your infrastructure in a reproducible, stable manner. You'll also learn a number of other tools within SaltStack that will allow you to create an adaptive, reactive, and self-healing infrastructure. Finally, by the end of the book, you'll be able to build a reliable, scalable, secure, high-performance infrastructure and fully utilize the power of cloud computing.

Genres: Nonfiction

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 27, 2015

Reviews

[Kevin Lambert · Rating 5 out of 5]

We've been using Salt in Ops for almost two years now. It's reduced our new server deployment times from weeks to under 10 minutes, and we now can guarantee that every server is exactly the same. It's been absolutely game-changing for us. As the Network Engineer, I didn't have much to do with Salt during that time. That has been changing as I've been trying to apply DevOps principles into the network side of things (it's a brave new world!). Being two years behind, I needed to get up to speed quickly on Salt. This book was the perfect overview/primer on Salt for someone who didn't know a highstate from a topfile. It will walk you step-by-step through the deployment of your first salt master and your first few minions. It will give you examples and overviews of the largest features of Salt, including modules, states, topfiles, environments, Salt-cloud, maps, events, and reactors. It's not a long read, and you shouldn't expect too much depth out of the material, but it is perfect in what it is: a well-written and thought-out primer. I spent the weekend going through the book and examples with a couple of VMs and I now feel confident talking with our Ops team about Salt. I feel confident enough to start writing my own modules and reactors. I also feel confident in my ability to learn more and figure things out on my own through the Salt documentation that the text shows you how to use. If you're brand new to Salt, and you need to get up to speed quickly, this is definitely the way to go.

[Abhishek Jaisingh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short and decent book for introductory reading on learning Salt. It manages to cover a wide range of topics ranging from Salt basics, Infra as Code and Config Management in a concise manner.

Although it is a little dated and could use an updated version, most examples in the book work with small tweaks here and there as the core salt philosophy stays the same.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good introduction to configuration management concepts via Saltstack.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book to get you you familiar with SaltStack.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a so-so overview of SaltStack. It was short, but felt like it could have been shorter. The main recommendation I have is that it gathers an overview into one place.

[Raja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introductory book

Pretty good for beginners. Covers all the basic information about SaltStack. Explained in easy way and lots of practical examples.