Setting up Salt agent on KVM templates, so each new VM is a unique Salt minion?

[Victor Hooi]

Hi,

We're setting up a test lab based on Proxmox. We have several KVM templates for different configurations (e.g. Windows 10, Windows 8 etc.).

My question is - is there any way to install the Salt minion agent on the template in such a way that each new VM based on that template becomes a new Salt minion, with a unique ID, and ready to go out of the box?

Thanks,

Victor

[Dirk Heinrichs]

Victor Hooi:

Did you look at tools like Packer([1]) or salt-cloud([2])?

We use Packer for example to create template Amazon Machine Images
(AMIs) on AWS for Linux and Windows, by installing the minion on them
and let it do the provisioning work.

HTH...

Dirk

[1]: https://www.packer.io/
[2]: https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/cloud/
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[Victor Hooi]

Hi Dirk,

Awesome - I had a look at Packer, looks like it might be what we want.

How do you handle approving the keys on the Salt-master, as well as generating unique names for each new machine spun up from an AMI template? (I assume KVM templates are somewhat similar in principle).

Regards,

Victor

[Dirk Heinrichs]

Victor Hooi:

> Awesome - I had a look at Packer, looks like it might be what we want.
>
> How do you handle approving the keys on the Salt-master, as well as

We use an autosign.conf file which allows the master to accept certain
keys automatically (by glob pattern). But you can also generate the keys
beforehand and copy them to the VM while provisioning.

> generating unique names for each new machine spun up from an AMI
> template? (I assume KVM templates are somewhat similar in principle).

The names follow a naming convention which includes the role each host
has and a counter for each role. Your mileage may vary, though. Note
that minion ID and hostname doesn't need to match (but it's quite handy
when they do).

HTH...

Dirk