# OverState System

Often servers need to be set up and configured in a specific order, and systems should only be set up if systems earlier in the sequence has been set up without any issues.

The 0.11.0 release of Salt addresses this problem with a new layer in the state system called the Over State. The concept of the Over State is managed on the master, a series of state executions is controlled from the master and executed in order. If an execution requires that another execution first run without problems then the state executions will stop.

The Over State system is used to orchestrate deployment in a smooth and reliable way across multiple systems in small to large environments.

## The Over State SLS

The overstate system is managed by an sls file located in the root of an environment. This file uses a data structure like all sls files.

The overstate sls file configures an unordered list of stages, each stage defines the minions to execute on and can define what sls files to run or to execute a state.highstate.

    mysql:
      match: 'db*'
      sls:
        - mysql.server
        - drbd
    webservers:
      match: 'web*'
      require:
        - mysql
    all:
      match: '*'
      require:
        - mysql
        - webservers

The above defined over state will execute the mysql stage first because it is required by the webservers stage. The webservers stage will then be executed only if the mysql stage executes without any issues. The webservers stage will execute state.highstate on the matched minions, while the mysql stage will execute state.sls with the named sls files.

Finally the all stage will execute state.highstate on all systems only if the mysql and webservers stages complete without failures. The overstate system checks for any states that return a result of False, if the run has any False returns then the overstate will quit.

## Adding Functions To Overstate

In 0.15.0 the ability to execute module functions directly in the overstate was added. Functions are called as a stage with the function key:

    http:
      function:
        pkg.install:
          - http

The list of function arguments are passed after the declared function. Requisites only functions properly if the given function supports returning a custom return code.

## Executing the Over State

The over state can be executed from the salt-run command, calling the state.over runner function. The function will by default look in the base environment for the overstate.sls file:

    salt-run state.over

To specify the location of the overstate file and the environment to pull from pass the arguments to the salt-run command:

    salt-run state.over base /root/overstate.sls

Remember, that these calls are made on the master.

Current Salt release: 0.17.1

### Table Of Contents

- OverState System
  - The Over State SLS
  - Adding Functions To Overstate
  - Executing the Over State

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