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.

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:

• 2022.10.04: d0686c2daeed18bb726e58eef75a69afe9ee56a1a23b2c32cd4e87d6005638e2
• 2022.08.13: af922699c1a2bb3b89b6dac04397389999df1b3416b8d0b5c93766412f14c95c
• 2022.08.12: b46f018bbf02f45c6096ab96e9261a9adb3a78ff65092c3976f32ffde909afcb
• 2022.05.19: e92e1df6930285cf23eda188bee3cfa3dd6c577b4fb7aa91b29213ad820199b1
• 2022.03.15: 8f65952c3435f441e7f793941d5162d3ec2033a9ef82722ff1da67a2ef860a2f
• 2021.09.17: 090d652cd6290debce0e3a4eded65086a4272e69446e711eb26f87160593b6a2
• 2021.09.14: 30fdcba972f449630b4f13492cb5525e69e08fa2cdb66a6dc78f1536ad279e52
• 2021.08.19: ee40a9d8d057cce88a288fc1cb94b1d31408a61d262db6f77b34ad63d66f0806
• 2021.06.23: 35b397dd0a50f832af453c17f138fd29e3692e492d7f463c404a57e1fac10665
• 2021.03.02: 91baa0073308f1be20c7be65238ef67e5733c75285314b302a5b2456e73a0758
• 2020.10.20: b47bfc8d63cccf22eb4cd94491d30cc1d571e184be25a5be7f775e7f2daaf6e2
• 2020.10.19: f6c3e2c52f98d115809044b09062219369957caf30228b863033f0543e202c52
• 2020.06.23: 1d07db867c195c864d0ae70664524f2099cc9a46872953293c67c3f239d4f4f5
• 2020.05.28: 6b3ea15c78f01060ab12fc01c0bb18480eaf36858c7ba188b200c0fb11aac173
• 2020.02.24: efc46700aca78b8e51d7af9b06293f52ad495f3a8179c6bfb21a8c97ee41f1b7
• 2020.02.04: ce877651b4938e3480f76b1629f582437f6ca8b73d7199fdb9e905e86fe85b34
• 2020.01.29: e9afdfa877998c1c7f0e141a6728b33d0d24348e197aab2b9bde4fe6bc6db1b2
• 2020.01.21: 53299aa0dfbf7ab381f3856bb7babfc04a1d6525be11db0b9466277b1e4d0c1a
• 2019.11.04: 905924fccd4ebf168d19ba598bf10af53efe02302b792aeb15433e73fd3ad1d2
• 2019.10.03: 34f196f06d586ce9e1b9907660ea6e67caf57abcecfea66e0343697e3fd0d17d
• 2019.05.20: 46fb5e4b7815efafd69fd703f033fe86e7b584b6770f7e0b936995bcae1cedd8
• 2019.02.27: 23728e4b5e54f564062070e3be53c5602b55c24c9a76671968abbf3d609258cb
• 2019.01.08: ab7f29b75711da4bb79aff98d46654f910d569ebe3e908753a3c5119017bb163
• 2018.08.15: 6d414a39439a7335af1b78203f9d37e11c972b3c49c519742c6405e2944c6c4b
• 2018.08.13: 98284bdc2b5ebaeb619b22090374e42a68e8fdefe6bff1e73bd1760db4407ed0
• 2018.04.25: e2e3397d6642ba6462174b4723f1b30d04229b75efc099a553e15ea727877dfb
• 2017.12.13: c127b3aa4a8422f6b81f5b4a40d31d13cec97bf3a39bca9c11a28f24910a6895
• 2017.08.17: 909b4d35696b9867b34b22ef4b60edbc5a0e9f8d1ed8d05f922acb79a02e46e3
• 2017.05.24: 8c42c2e5ad3d4384ddc557da5c214ba3e40c056ca1b758d14a392c1364650e89

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 3004.1
  - bootstrap-salt.sh stable v3003.4
  - bootstrap-salt.sh testing
  - bootstrap-salt.sh git
  - bootstrap-salt.sh git 3004.1
  - bootstrap-salt.sh git v3003.4
  - 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
  -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.
      For CentOS 6 git installations python2.7 is supported.
      Fedora git installation, CentOS 7, Debian 9, Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 support python3.
  -y  Installs a different python version on host. Currently this has only been
      tested with CentOS 6 and is considered experimental. This will install the
      ius repo on the box if disable repo is false. This must be used in conjunction
      with -x <pythonversion>.  For example:
          sh bootstrap.sh -P -y -x python2.7 git v2017.7.2
      The above will install python27 and install the git version of salt using the
      python2.7 executable. This only works for git and pip installations.

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 SaltStack's corporate repository. See first example in the Install using wget section.

If you want to install a package of a specific release version, from the SaltStack repo:

curl -o bootstrap-salt.sh -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -P stable 3004.1

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 v3004.1

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 SaltStack repo:

PROXY='http://user:[email protected]: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:[email protected]: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 SaltStack repo using wget:

wget -O bootstrap-salt.sh https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -P stable 3004.1

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 2.7, then it's as easy as:

python -m urllib "https://bootstrap.saltproject.io" > bootstrap-salt.sh
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh -P stable 3004.1

With python version 2, the following in-line code should always work:

python -c 'import urllib; print urllib.urlopen("https://bootstrap.saltproject.io").read()' > bootstrap-salt.sh
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh git master

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 v3004.1

On a FreeBSD-based system you usually don't have either of the above binaries available. You do have fetch available though:

fetch -o bootstrap-salt.sh https://bootstrap.saltproject.io
sudo sh bootstrap-salt.sh

If you have any SSL issues install ca_root_nss:

pkg install ca_root_nss

And either copy the certificates to the place where fetch can find them:

cp /usr/local/share/certs/ca-root-nss.crt /etc/ssl/cert.pem

Or link them to the right place:

ln -s /usr/local/share/certs/ca-root-nss.crt /etc/ssl/cert.pem

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 SaltStack repo:

curl -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io | sudo sh -s -- stable 3004.1

Installing the latest master branch of Salt from git:

curl -L https://bootstrap.saltproject.io | sudo sh -s -- git master

Using PowerShell to install latest stable version:

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path C:\Temp
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://winbootstrap.saltproject.io -OutFile C:\Temp\bootstrap-salt.ps1
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope CurrentUser
C:\Temp\bootstrap-salt.ps1
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Undefined -Scope CurrentUser

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, except for Solaris and AIX. 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 SaltStack's corporate repository are CPU architecture independent and could be installed on any hardware supported by Linux kernel. However, SaltStack does package Salt's binary dependencies only for x86_64 (amd64) and AArch32 (armhf). The latter is available only for Debian/Raspbian 8 platforms.

It is recommended to use git bootstrap mode as described above to install Salt on other architectures, such as x86 (i386), AArch64 (arm64) 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
• Devuan GNU/Linux 1/2
• Kali Linux 1.0 (based on Debian 7)
• Linux Mint Debian Edition 1 (based on Debian 8)
• Raspbian 8 (armhf packages) and 9 (using git installation mode only)

• Amazon Linux 2012.3 and later
• Amazon Linux 2
• CentOS 6/7/8
• Cloud Linux 6/7
• Fedora 30/31 (install latest stable from standard repositories)
• Oracle Linux 6/7
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6/7/8
• Scientific Linux 6/7

• 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. Salt with Python 2 can be installed using the the -x option in combination with the git installation method.

sh bootstrap-salt.sh -x python2 git v2018.3.2

• KDE neon (based on Ubuntu 18.04)
• Linux Mint 17/18
• Ubuntu 14.04/16.04/18.04 and subsequent non-LTS releases (see below)

This script provides best-effort support for current, non-LTS Ubuntu releases. If package repositories are not provided on SaltStack'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 SaltStack'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:

• OpenBSD (pip installation)
• FreeBSD 11/12/13/14-CURRENT

SunOS:

• SmartOS (2015Q4 and later)

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.

Some distributions support installing Salt to use Python 3 instead of Python 2. The availability of this offering, while limited, is as follows:

• CentOS 7
• Centos 8
• Debian 9
• Debian 10
• Debian 11
• Fedora (only git installations)
• Ubuntu 16.04
• Ubuntu 18.04
• Ubuntu 20.04

On Fedora, PIP installation must be allowed (-P) due to incompatibility with the shipped Tornado library.

Installing the Python 3 packages for Salt is done via the -x option:

sh bootstrap-salt.sh -x python3

See the -x option for more information.

The earliest release of Salt that supports Python3 is 2018.3.4.

Salt does not support tornado>=5.0 currently. This support will be included in an upcoming release. In order to work around this requirement on OSs that no longer have the tornado 4 package available in their repositories we are pip installing tornado<5.0 in the bootstrap script. This requires the user to pass -P to the bootstrap script if installing via git to ensure tornado is pip installed. If a user does not pass this argument they will be warned that it is required for the tornado 5 workaround. So far the OSs that are using this workaround are Debian 10, Centos 8 and Fedora 31.

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 14.04 public image with Upstart configured as the init system. 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.

You should install and configure the drone-cli as shown here: https://docs.drone.io/cli/install/

Make edits to .drone.jsonnet and then save them into the .drone.yml by doing the following:

drone jsonnet --format --stream
drone sign saltstack/salt-bootstrap --save