Salt Minion msi installer

The installer offers properties for unattended/silent installations.

Example: install silently, set the master, don't start the service:

msiexec /i *.msi MASTER=salt2 START_MINION=""

Example: uninstall and remove configuration

MsiExec.exe /X *.msi REMOVE_CONFIG=1

Notes

• The installer requires a privileged user
• Properties must be upper case
• Values of properties are case sensitve
• Values must be quoted when they contain whitespace, or to unset a property, as in START_MINION=""
• Creates a verbose log file, by default %TEMP%\MSIxxxxx.LOG, where xxxxx is random. The name of the log can be specified with msiexec /log example.log
• extends the system PATH environment variable

Properties

Property	Default value	Comment
MASTER	salt	The master (name or IP). Separate multiple masters by comma.
MASTER_KEY		The master public key. See below.
MINION_ID	Hostname	The minion id.
MINION_CONFIG		Content to be written to the minion config file. See below.
START_MINION	1	Set to "" to prevent the start of the salt-minion service.
MOVE_CONF		Set to 1 to move configuration from C:\salt to %ProgramData%.
REMOVE_CONFIG		Set to 1 to remove configuration on uninstall. Implied by MINION_CONFIG.
CLEAN_INSTALL		Set to 1 to remove configuration and cache before install or upgrade.
CONFIG_TYPE	Existing	Set to Custom or Default for scenarios below.
CUSTOM_CONFIG		Name of a custom config file in the same path as the installer or full path. Requires CONFIG_TYPE=Custom. ONLY FROM COMMANDLINE
INSTALLDIR	Windows default	Where to install binaries.
ROOTDIR	C:\ProgramData\Salt Project\Salt	Where to install configuration.
ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT		Set to 1 to hide "Salt Minion" in "Programs and Features".

Master and id are read from file conf\minion

You can set a master with MASTER.

You can set a master public key with MASTER_KEY, after you converted it into one line like so:

• Remove the first and the last line (-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY----- and -----END PUBLIC KEY-----).
• Remove linebreaks.

Property MINION_CONFIG

If MINION_CONFIG is set:

• Its content is written to configuraton file conf\minion, with ^ replaced by line breaks
• All prior configuration is deleted:
  • all minion.d\*.conf files
  • the minion_id file
• Implies REMOVE_CONFIG=1: uninstall will remove all configuration.

Example MINION_CONFIG="master: Anna^id: Bob" results in:

master: Anna
id: Bob

Property CONFIG_TYPE

There are 3 scenarios the installer tries to account for:

1. existing-config
2. custom-config
3. default-config

Existing

This setting makes no changes to the existing config and just upgrades/downgrades salt. Makes for easy upgrades. Just run the installer with a silent option. If there is no existing config, then the default is used and master and minion id are applied if passed.

Custom

This setting will lay down a custom config passed via the command line. Since we want to make sure the custom config is applied correctly, we'll need to back up any existing config.

1. minion config renamed to minion-<timestamp>.bak
2. minion_id file renamed to minion_id-<timestamp>.bak
3. minion.d directory renamed to minion.d-<timestamp>.bak Then the custom config is laid down by the installer... and master and minion id should be applied to the custom config if passed.

Default

This setting will reset config to be the default config contained in the pkg. Therefore, all existing config files should be backed up

1. minion config renamed to minion-<timestamp>.bak
2. minion_id file renamed to minion_id-<timestamp>.bak
3. minion.d directory renamed to minion.d-<timestamp>.bak Then the default config file is laid down by the installer... settings for master and minion id should be applied to the default config if passed

Previous installation in C:\salt and how to install into C:\salt

A previous installation or configuration in C:\salt causes an upgrade into C:\salt, unless you set MOVE_CONF=1. Set the two properties INSTALLDIR=c:\salt ROOTDIR=c:\salt to install binaries and configuration into C:\salt.

Client requirements

• Windows 7 (for workstations), Server 2012 (for domain controllers), or higher.