# Configuring the Salt Minion

The Salt system is amazingly simple and easy to configure, the two components of the Salt system each have a respective configuration file. The salt-master is configured via the master configuration file, and the salt-minion is configured via the minion configuration file.

See also

example minion configuration file

The Salt Minion configuration is very simple, typically the only value that needs to be set is the master value so the minion can find its master.

## Minion Primary Configuration

### `master`

Default: `salt`

The hostname or ipv4 of the master.

    master: salt

### `master_port`

Default: `4506`

The port of the master ret server, this needs to coincide with the ret_port option on the Salt master.

    master_port: 4506

### `user`

Default: `root`

The user to run the Salt processes

    user: root

### `pidfile`

Default: `/var/run/salt-minion.pid`

The location of the daemon's process ID file

    pidfile: /var/run/salt-minion.pid

### `root_dir`

Default: `/`

This directory is prepended to the following options: `pki_dir`, `cachedir`, `log_file`, `sock_dir`, and `pidfile`.

    root_dir: /

### `pki_dir`

Default: `/etc/salt/pki`

The directory used to store the minion's public and private keys.

    pki_dir: /etc/salt/pki

### `id`

Default: the system's hostname

See also

Salt Walkthrough

The Setting up a Salt Minion section contains detailed information on how the hostname is determined.

Explicitly declare the id for this minion to use. Since Salt uses detached ids it is possible to run multiple minions on the same machine but with different ids.

    id: foo.bar.com

### `append_domain`

Default: `None`

Append a domain to a hostname in the event that it does not exist. This is useful for systems where `socket.getfqdn()` does not actually result in a FQDN (for instance, Solaris).

    append_domain: foo.org

### `cachedir`

Default: `/var/cache/salt`

The location for minion cache data.

    cachedir: /var/cache/salt

### `verify_env`

Default: `True`

Verify and set permissions on configuration directories at startup.

    verify_env: True

Note

When marked as True the verify_env option requires WRITE access to the configuration directory (/etc/salt/). In certain situations such as mounting /etc/salt/ as read-only for templating this will create a stack trace when state.highstate is called.

### `cache_jobs`

Default: `False`

The minion can locally cache the return data from jobs sent to it, this can be a good way to keep track of the minion side of the jobs the minion has executed. By default this feature is disabled, to enable set cache_jobs to `True`.

    cache_jobs: False

### `sock_dir`

Default: `/var/run/salt/minion`

The directory where Unix sockets will be kept.

    sock_dir: /var/run/salt/minion

### `backup_mode`

Default: `[]`

Backup files replaced by file.managed and file.recurse under cachedir.

    backup_mode: minion

### `acceptance_wait_time`

Default: `10`

The number of seconds to wait until attempting to re-authenticate with the master.

    acceptance_wait_time: 10

### `random_reauth_delay`

When the master key changes, the minion will try to re-auth itself to receive the new master key. In larger environments this can cause a syn-flood on the master because all minions try to re-auth immediately. To prevent this and have a minion wait for a random amount of time, use this optional parameter. The wait-time will be a random number of seconds between 0 and the defined value.

    random_reauth_delay: 60

### `acceptance_wait_time_max`

Default: `None`

The maximum number of seconds to wait until attempting to re-authenticate with the master. If set, the wait will increase by acceptance_wait_time seconds each iteration.

    acceptance_wait_time_max: None

### `dns_check`

Default: `True`

When healing, a dns_check is run. This is to make sure that the originally resolved dns has not changed. If this is something that does not happen in your environment, set this value to `False`.

    dns_check: True

### `ipc_mode`

Default: `ipc`

Windows platforms lack POSIX IPC and must rely on slower TCP based inter- process communications. Set ipc_mode to `tcp` on such systems.

    ipc_mode: ipc

### `tcp_pub_port`

Default: `4510`

Publish port used when `ipc_mode` is set to `tcp`.

    tcp_pub_port: 4510

### `tcp_pull_port`

Default: `4511`

Pull port used when `ipc_mode` is set to `tcp`.

    tcp_pull_port: 4511

## Minion Module Management

### `disable_modules`

Default: `[]` (all modules are enabled by default)

The event may occur in which the administrator desires that a minion should not be able to execute a certain module. The sys module is built into the minion and cannot be disabled.

This setting can also tune the minion, as all modules are loaded into ram disabling modules will lover the minion's ram footprint.

    disable_modules:
      - test
      - solr

### `disable_returners`

Default: `[]` (all returners are enabled by default)

If certain returners should be disabled, this is the place

    disable_returners:
      - mongo_return

### `module_dirs`

Default: `[]`

A list of extra directories to search for Salt modules

    module_dirs:
      - /var/lib/salt/modules

### `returner_dirs`

Default: `[]`

A list of extra directories to search for Salt returners

    returners_dirs:
      - /var/lib/salt/returners

### `states_dirs`

Default: `[]`

A list of extra directories to search for Salt states

    states_dirs:
      - /var/lib/salt/states

### `render_dirs`

Default: `[]`

A list of extra directories to search for Salt renderers

    render_dirs:
      - /var/lib/salt/renderers

### `cython_enable`

Default: `False`

Set this value to true to enable auto-loading and compiling of `.pyx` modules, This setting requires that `gcc` and `cython` are installed on the minion

    cython_enable: False

### `providers`

Default: (empty)

A module provider can be statically overwritten or extended for the minion via the `providers` option. This can be done on an individual basis in an SLS file, or globally here in the minion config, like below.

    providers:
      pkg: yumpkg5
      service: systemd

## State Management Settings

### `renderer`

Default: `yaml_jinja`

The default renderer used for local state executions

    renderer: yaml_jinja

### `state_verbose`

Default: `False`

state_verbose allows for the data returned from the minion to be more verbose. Normally only states that fail or states that have changes are returned, but setting state_verbose to `True` will return all states that were checked

    state_verbose: True

### `state_output`

Default: `full`

The state_output setting changes if the output is the full multi line output for each changed state if set to 'full', but if set to 'terse' the output will be shortened to a single line.

    state_output: full

### `autoload_dynamic_modules`

Default: `True`

autoload_dynamic_modules Turns on automatic loading of modules found in the environments on the master. This is turned on by default, to turn of auto-loading modules when states run set this value to `False`

    autoload_dynamic_modules: True

Default: `True`

clean_dynamic_modules keeps the dynamic modules on the minion in sync with the dynamic modules on the master, this means that if a dynamic module is not on the master it will be deleted from the minion. By default this is enabled and can be disabled by changing this value to `False`

    clean_dynamic_modules: True

### `environment`

Default: `None`

Normally the minion is not isolated to any single environment on the master when running states, but the environment can be isolated on the minion side by statically setting it. Remember that the recommended way to manage environments is to isolate via the top file.

    environment: None

## File Directory Settings

### `file_client`

Default: `remote`

The client defaults to looking on the master server for files, but can be directed to look on the minion by setting this parameter to `local`.

    file_client: remote

### `file_roots`

Default:

    base:
      - /srv/salt

When using a local `file_client`, this parameter is used to setup the fileserver's environments. This parameter operates identically to the `master config parameter of the same name`.

    file_roots:
      base:
        - /srv/salt
      dev:
        - /srv/salt/dev/services
        - /srv/salt/dev/states
      prod:
        - /srv/salt/prod/services
        - /srv/salt/prod/states

### `hash_type`

Default: `md5`

The hash_type is the hash to use when discovering the hash of a file on the local fileserver. The default is md5, but sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384 and sha512 are also supported.

    hash_type: md5

### `pillar_roots`

Default:

    base:
      - /srv/pillar

When using a local `file_client`, this parameter is used to setup the pillar environments.

    pillar_roots:
      base:
        - /srv/pillar
      dev:
        - /srv/pillar/dev
      prod:
        - /srv/pillar/prod

## Security Settings

### `open_mode`

Default: `False`

Open mode can be used to clean out the PKI key received from the Salt master, turn on open mode, restart the minion, then turn off open mode and restart the minion to clean the keys.

    open_mode: False

## Thread Settings

Default: `True`

Disable multiprocessing support by default when a minion receives a publication a new process is spawned and the command is executed therein.

    multiprocessing: True

## Minion Logging Settings

### `log_file`

Default: `/var/log/salt/minion`

The minion log can be sent to a regular file, local path name, or network location. See also `log_file`.

Examples:

    log_file: /var/log/salt/minion

    log_file: file:///dev/log

    log_file: udp://loghost:10514

### `log_level`

Default: `warning`

The level of messages to send to the console. See also `log_level`.

    log_level: warning

### `log_level_logfile`

Default: `warning`

The level of messages to send to the log file. See also `log_level_logfile`.

    log_level_logfile: warning

### `log_datefmt`

Default: `%H:%M:%S`

The date and time format used in console log messages. See also `log_datefmt`.

    log_datefmt: '%H:%M:%S'

### `log_datefmt_logfile`

Default: `%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S`

The date and time format used in log file messages. See also `log_datefmt_logfile`.

    log_datefmt_logfile: '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'

### `log_fmt_console`

Default: `[%(levelname)-8s] %(message)s`

The format of the console logging messages. See also `log_fmt_console`.

    log_fmt_console: '[%(levelname)-8s] %(message)s'

### `log_fmt_logfile`

Default: `%(asctime)s,%(msecs)03.0f [%(name)-17s][%(levelname)-8s] %(message)s`

The format of the log file logging messages. See also `log_fmt_logfile`.

    log_fmt_logfile: '%(asctime)s,%(msecs)03.0f [%(name)-17s][%(levelname)-8s] %(message)s'

### `log_granular_levels`

Default: `{}`

This can be used to control logging levels more specifically. See also `log_granular_levels`.

## Include Configuration

### `default_include`

Default: `minion.d/*.conf`

The minion can include configuration from other files. Per default the minion will automatically include all config files from minion.d/*.conf where minion.d is relative to the directory of the minion configuration file.

### `include`

Default: `not defined`

The minion can include configuration from other files. To enable this, pass a list of paths to this option. The paths can be either relative or absolute; if relative, they are considered to be relative to the directory the main minion configuration file lives in. Paths can make use of shell-style globbing. If no files are matched by a path passed to this option then the minion will log a warning message.

    # Include files from a minion.d directory in the same
    # directory as the minion config file
    include: minion.d/*.conf

    # Include a single extra file into the configuration
    include: /etc/roles/webserver

    # Include several files and the minion.d directory
    include:
      - extra_config
      - minion.d/*
      - /etc/roles/webserver

## Frozen Build Update Settings

These options control how `salt.modules.saltutil.update()` works with esky frozen apps. For more information look at https://github.com/cloudmatrix/esky/.

### `update_url`

Default: `False` (Update feature is disabled)

The url to use when looking for application updates. Esky depends on directory listings to search for new versions. A webserver running on your Master is a good starting point for most setups.

    update_url: 'http://salt.example.com/minion-updates'

### `update_restart_services`

Default: `[]` (service restarting on update is disabled)

A list of services to restart when the minion software is updated. This would typically just be a list containing the minion's service name, but you may have other services that need to go with it.

    update_restart_services: ['salt-minion']

Current Salt release: 0.17.1

### Table Of Contents

- Configuring the Salt Minion
  - Minion Primary Configuration
    - `master`
    - `master_port`
    - `user`
    - `pidfile`
    - `root_dir`
    - `pki_dir`
    - `id`
    - `append_domain`
    - `cachedir`
    - `verify_env`
    - `cache_jobs`
    - `sock_dir`
    - `backup_mode`
    - `acceptance_wait_time`
    - `random_reauth_delay`
    - `acceptance_wait_time_max`
    - `dns_check`
    - `ipc_mode`
    - `tcp_pub_port`
    - `tcp_pull_port`
  - Minion Module Management
    - `disable_modules`
    - `disable_returners`
    - `module_dirs`
    - `returner_dirs`
    - `states_dirs`
    - `render_dirs`
    - `cython_enable`
    - `providers`
  - State Management Settings
    - `renderer`
    - `state_verbose`
    - `state_output`
    - `autoload_dynamic_modules`
    - `environment`
  - File Directory Settings
    - `file_client`
    - `file_roots`
    - `hash_type`
    - `pillar_roots`
  - Security Settings
    - `open_mode`
  - Thread Settings
  - Minion Logging Settings
    - `log_file`
    - `log_level`
    - `log_level_logfile`
    - `log_datefmt`
    - `log_datefmt_logfile`
    - `log_fmt_console`
    - `log_fmt_logfile`
    - `log_granular_levels`
  - Include Configuration
    - `default_include`
    - `include`
  - Frozen Build Update Settings
    - `update_url`
    - `update_restart_services`

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