ISalt
ISalt is an IPython style console to facilitate the debugging or even development of Salt code.
Salt code typically makes use of a number of dunder (i.e., _d_ouble _under_score) variables such as salt, opts, grains, proxy, or pillar, etc., which give you quick access to various resources and features. They also have a different meaning depending on the context - for example, opts on the Minion side is a different object than opts on the Master side; salt on the Minion side gives you access to the list of Execution Modules, while salt on the Master side provides the Runners, and so on.
The main difficulty when working with these variables is that they only make sense when actually running Salt and having a Master and eventually one or more Minions running. It often happens that you don't necessarily want to have these services running when writing a new function (that use these dunders), or just want to quickly debug something without pushing code to production.
With ISalt, you can easily get access to these variables, by simply executing isalt, e.g.,
$ isalt
>>> __salt__['test.ping']()
True
>>>
>>> __grains__['osfinger']
'Ubuntu-18.04'
In other words, ISalt is an enhanced IPython console which gives you access to the Salt global variables typically used in Salt code.
Install
ISalt is distributed via PyPI, and you can install it by executing:
$ pip install isalt
Dependencies:
salt
IPython
No specific version for either of these packages, so it doesn't mess up with your environment. It should normally work well with any version.
Usage
One of the most important details to keep in mind is the difference between
running the code on the Minion side, versus Master side (where we can further
distinguish between code to be executed as a Runner, vs. Execution Module for
an arbitrary Minion -- for the former you may need to provide the Minion ID
using the --minion-id CLI argument).
Typically, when you install ISalt where you have a Salt Minion running, it
should be sufficient to execute just $ isalt.
When you want to use ISalt on the Master side, but to test Execution Modules,
you can run $ isalt --on-master.
When you're looking into evaluating Runner code, you can only do this one the
Master side, therefore, you'd need to start the console as $ isalt --master.
You can check the complete list of CLI optional arguments by
.. code-block:: bash
$ isalt -h
usage: isalt [-h] [--saltenv SALTENV] [--pillarenv PILLARENV] [-c CFG_FILE]
[-e CFG_FILE_ENV_VAR] [--minion-cfg MINION_CFG_FILE]
[--master-cfg MASTER_CFG_FILE] [--minion] [--master]
[--minion-id MINION_ID] [--on-minion] [--on-master]
ISalt console
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--saltenv SALTENV Salt environment name.
--pillarenv PILLARENV
The Salt environment name to compile the Pillar from.
-c CFG_FILE, --cfg-file CFG_FILE
The absolute path to the ISalt config file.
-e CFG_FILE_ENV_VAR, --env-var CFG_FILE_ENV_VAR
The name of the environment variable pointing to the
ISalt config file.
--minion-cfg MINION_CFG_FILE
The absolute path to the Minion config file.
--master-cfg MASTER_CFG_FILE
The absolute path to the Master config file.
--minion Prepare the Salt dunders for the Minion side.
--master Prepare the Salt dunders for the Master side.
--minion-id MINION_ID
The Minion ID to compile the Salt dunders for. This
argument is optional, however it may fail when ISalt
is not able to determine the Minion ID, or take it
from the environment variable, etc.
--on-minion Whether should compile the dunders for the Minion
side, starting the ISalt console on the Minion
machine. The main difference is that the Pillar and
Grains are compiled locally, while when using --on-
master, it's using the local cached data.
--on-master Whether should compile the dunders for the Minion
side, starting the ISalt console on the Master
machine. This option is ignored when used in
conjunction with --master.
