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`_.
Older versions of Salt prior to 3006 are no longer supported by this bootstrap script as they have reached their End-Of-Life. Only onedir-based architecture versions of Salt are supported by this bootstrap script.
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:
- 2024.07.23:
7212b6b497b5c3d2bf15bfe5301625ec7bc1bf3e2949cd47d8e2073614935bf8
- 2024.07.18:
92a74e7ff8a9032a7713c2b3955991d66aaca08a4eb9494ce3dd66b5044f6bc3
- 2024.07.16:
4f76d1549c71d696a605f97645d8633b6269c4d9ae54b1fbdfedca1dcf893e7a
- 2024.07.12:
526f4a5383db308081a120e26988679238ca6add4bf7a82120cbe71d57ab826e
- 2024.04.03:
450ba5cde4af8d6cb5c56c66791f87b918bcda70ccdfb10abf3cc294143c8073
- 2024.01.04:
cebcbc67895e238d1cf0024922a7fe5c772b9aaba346490c8fa6193bb0d993d4
- 2023.11.16:
3757ed82161113fed4c711fd7332e922265eeeb54e6e4f657a08ea82d57cc3a2
- 2023.11.07:
91f8a3bfb8b14476f7793c7f20cec7bfc638c10c073786f9a8904a858a929784
- 2023.08.03:
963e559bdb85adecfbbec2c3b81190392bc59b24992e4491e919cd748eeafcb8
- 2023.07.25:
eaaaadaed40fe2e791d59a9e48f24449428a35ca61782d9139f1272c05524323
- 2023.06.28:
f45f5da8abee27ef385131f5cfa9382d3a15863d0a05688a0404d2f057b27776
- 2023.04.26:
516fa9cc2e258cb8484ff360b9674b46918f657985c21ca9301e42a3dd263d60
- 2023.04.21:
e364428aa7a25f8e2c5e18e36e222351724c6cf35a1d57158f3357cde1e0a0f0
- 2023.04.06:
994bf7e8bd92fe6d70d291c7562aff299f5651046b4e76dfa506cee0d9bb0843
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
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.
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 3006.7
- bootstrap-salt.sh stable v3006.8
- bootstrap-salt.sh testing
- bootstrap-salt.sh git
- bootstrap-salt.sh git 3007.1
- bootstrap-salt.sh git v3007.1
- 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
-W Also install salt-api
-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 (default: Python 3)
Python 2.7 is not longer supported.
-Q Quickstart, install the Salt master and the Salt minion.
And automatically accept the minion key.
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 the Salt Project's repository. See first example in the Install using wget section.
If you want to install a package of a specific release version, from the Salt Project repo:
curl -o bootstrap-salt.sh -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -P stable 3006.1
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 v3006.1
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 Salt Project 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
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 v3004.1
Installing a specific version package from the Salt Project repo using wget
:
wget -O bootstrap-salt.sh https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -P stable 3006.1
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.
If you already have Python installed, python 3.10
, then it's as easy as:
python -m urllib "https://bootstrap.saltproject.io" > bootstrap-salt.sh
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -P stable 3006.1
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 v3006.1
Note: Python 2.x is no longer supported given it reached it's End-Of-Life Jan. 1st, 2020
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 Salt Project repo:
curl -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io | sudo sh -s -- stable 3006.8
Installing the latest master branch of Salt from git:
curl -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io | sudo sh -s -- git master
Note: use of git is recommended for development environments, for example: testing new features of
Salt which have not yet been released.
It is recommended that production environments should use stable
.
Using PowerShell
to install latest stable version:
[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.SecurityProtocolType]'Tls12'
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://winbootstrap.saltproject.io -OutFile "$env:TEMP\bootstrap-salt.ps1"
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser
& "$env:TEMP\bootstrap-salt.ps1"
Display information about the install script parameters:
Get-Help $env:TEMP\bootstrap-salt.ps1 -Detailed
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"
The salt-bootstrap script officially supports the distributions outlined in Salt's Supported Operating Systems document, (BSD-based OSs, Solaris and AIX are no longer supported). 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 the Salt Project's repository are
CPU architecture independent and could be installed on any hardware supported by Linux kernel.
However, the Salt Project does package Salt's binary dependencies only for x86_64
(amd64
)
and AArch64
(arm64
).
It is recommended to use git
bootstrap mode as described above to install Salt on other
architectures, such as x86
(i386
) 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.
- Cumulus Linux 2/3
- Debian GNU/Linux 9/10/11/12
- Devuan GNU/Linux 1/2/3/4/5
- Kali Linux 1.0 (based on Debian 7)
- Linux Mint Debian Edition 1 (based on Debian 8)
- Raspbian 8 (
armhf
packages) and 9 (usinggit
installation mode only)
- Amazon Linux 2012.3 and later
- Amazon Linux 2
- Amazon Linux 2023
- CentOS 7/8/9
- Cloud Linux 6/7
- Fedora 38/39/40 (install latest stable from standard repositories)
- Oracle Linux 7/8/9
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7/8/9
- Scientific Linux 7/8/9
- 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.
sh bootstrap-salt.sh -x python3 git v3006.1
- KDE neon (based on Ubuntu 20.04/22.04/24.04)
- Linux Mint 17/18
This script provides best-effort support for current, non-LTS Ubuntu releases. If package repositories are not provided on the `Salt Project'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 21.10, the bootstrap script will setup the repository for Ubuntu 20.04 from the `Salt Project'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`_.
- Alpine Linux 3.5/edge
- Arch Linux
- Gentoo
BSD:
- No longer supported
SunOS:
- No longer supported
By default the salt-cloud -p
provisioning command will use the latest release from this
repository to bootstrap new minions. If
- your needs are not met by that script,
- you want to lock salt bootstrap to a specific release, or
- you want to use an unreleased development version of this script
you can add your bootstrap-salt script to your salt cloud configuration and point to it with the
script
attribute.
Read more: https://docs.saltproject.io/en/latest/topics/cloud/deploy.html
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`_.
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.
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
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 20.04 public image. 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.