Install Salt Minion on Linux or Windows VMs using the VM Extension

Article
03/01/2024

Prerequisites

A Microsoft Azure account with one (or more) Windows or Linux VMs
A Salt Master (either on-premises or in a cloud) that can accept connections from Salt minions hosted on Azure
The Salt Minion VM Extension requires that the target VM is connected to the internet in order to fetch Salt packages

Supported platforms

Azure VM running any of the following supported OS:

Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04 (x86_64)
Debian 10, 11 (x86_64)
Oracle Linux 7, 8, 9 (x86_64)
RHEL 7, 8, 9 (x86_64)
Microsoft Windows 10, 11 Pro (x86_64)
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, 2022 Datacenter (x86_64)

If you want another distro to be supported (assuming Salt supports it), an issue can be filed on GitLab.

Supported Salt Minion versions

3006 and up (onedir)

Extension details

Publisher name: turtletraction.oss
Linux extension name: salt-minion.linux
Windows extension name: salt-minion.windows

Salt Minion settings

master_address - Salt Master address to connect to (localhost by default)
minion_id - Minion ID (hostname by default)
salt_version - Salt Minion version to install, for example 3006.1 (latest by default)

Install Salt Minion using the Azure portal

Select one of your VMs.
In the left menu click Extensions + applications.
Click + Add.
In the gallery, type Salt Minion in the search bar.
Select the Salt Minion tile and click Next.
Enter configuration parameters in the provided form (see Salt Minion settings).
Click Review + create.

Install Salt Minion using the Azure CLI

az vm extension set --resource-group my-group --vm-name vm-ubuntu22 --name salt-minion.linux --publisher turtletraction.oss --settings '{"master_address": "10.x.x.x"}'
az vm extension set --resource-group my-group --vm-name vm-windows11 --name salt-minion.windows --publisher turtletraction.oss --settings '{"master_address": "10.x.x.x"}'

To uninstall it:

az vm extension delete --resource-group my-group --vm-name vm-ubuntu22 --name salt-minion.linux
az vm extension delete --resource-group my-group --vm-name vm-windows11 --name salt-minion.windows

Install Salt Minion using the Azure ARM template

{
    "$schema": "http://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
    "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
    "parameters": {
        "vmName": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "master_address": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "salt_version": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "minion_id": {
            "type": "string"
        }
    },
    "resources": [
        {
            "name": "[concat(parameters('vmName'),'/salt-minion.linux')]",
            "type": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/extensions",
            "location": "[resourceGroup().location]",
            "apiVersion": "2015-06-15",
            "properties": {
                "publisher": "turtletraction.oss",
                "type": "salt-minion.linux",
                "typeHandlerVersion": "1.0",
                "autoUpgradeMinorVersion": true,
                "settings": {
                    "master_address": "[parameters('master_address')]",
                    "salt_version": "[parameters('salt_version')]",
                    "minion_id": "[parameters('minion_id')]"
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

Install Salt Minion using Terraform

Assuming that you have defined a VM resource in TerraForm named vm_ubuntu, then use something like this to install the extension on it:

resource "azurerm_virtual_machine_extension" "vmext_ubuntu" {
  name                 = "vmext_ubuntu"
  virtual_machine_id   = azurerm_linux_virtual_machine.vm_ubuntu.id
  publisher            = "turtletraction.oss"
  type                 = "salt-minion.linux"
  type_handler_version = "1.0"

  settings = <<SETTINGS
{
  "salt_version": "3006.1",
  "master_address": "x.x.x.x",
  "minion_id": "ubuntu22"
}
SETTINGS
}

Support

For commercial support or assistance with Salt, you can visit the extension creator, TurtleTraction
The source code of this extension is available on GitLab
For Azure related issues, you can file an Azure support incident. Go to the Azure support site and select Get support

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