SaltStack Fundamentals?

DoubleNNs · May 2015

Does anyone have any good resources to learn Salt fundamentals? Something that could get me up and running within a single [Satur]day?

I've used a little Chef CMS in the past and have skimmed thru some Puppet documentation. I have absolutely no Salt knowledge however.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Checked out docs.saltstack.com - seems to be plenty of documentation available straight from SaltStack, including a Getting Started guide. If I can't find anything else, I'll simply go thru the official documentation as my guide and then look thru blogs for sample code afterwards.

discount81 · May 2015

Hi,

in my new role they are utilizing salt stack, I've found it easier than Puppet or Chef to hit the ground running.

I've been working through this slowly - https://www.packtpub.com/networking-and-servers/learning-saltstack
It is written by one of the Salt main developers.

My CTO said learning Salt isn't a priority, he wants me working on other projects, so I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm sure you could get through it over a weekend if you needed.

DoubleNNs · May 2015

Thanks discount81 for the suggestion! I purchased the book and will try to get thru it tomorrow (Wed) thru Fri, time-permitting. Whenever I finish, I'll come back and give a quick review on whether it was useful or not.

Additionally, it seems like SaltStacks online official documentation is very, very well written out and easy to follow. I just wish they offered a downloadable PDF version of the documentation - lately I haven't always had Internet access when sitting down to study. I also don't like reading from screens and prefer to print out study material. However, if I end up using Salt frequently, I'll def end up going thru the official documentation later.

DoubleNNs · May 2015

Didn't get to finish Learning SaltStack last week due to interviews. However I'm currently on chapter 5 of 8.

I don't agree w/ the ordering of the book - some concepts should be moved around and I think the entirety of chapter 3 should be towards the end of the book instead.

SaltStack itself is a little confusing. The book seems to do a decent job of displaying how to use the tool, but I don't think I'd be able to fully follow along if I hadn't done some prior researching on my own and had some experience w/ Chef. The book seems to assume some things I don't think it should (probably stemming from the fact that it's written by one of SaltStack's developers). However, if you can follow the example code it seems to do a good job of showcasing Salt's uses and power.

I'll give another update once I've finished the 2nd half of the book.

DoubleNNs · May 2015

Finished going thru the book. Good 1st exposure to SaltStack, but I'm definitely hoping something better comes along later. Not enough depth to the topics discussed with plenty of prior knowledge assumed. However, the book did well to prepare me for mucking around and experimenting to learn the rest, and gave me a direction on what other technologies to learn, such as how Python programming helps if need to extend on Salt's default functionalities, Jinga2 templating and basic YAML/JSON formatting knowledge.
(A little frustrating realizing that YAML doesn't support tabs and needs actual spaces. And plenty of example code didn't work at first because I'd forget a trailing colon somewhere or wouldn't space lines properly. But eventually got the hang of it w/ repetition/practice)

I discovered SaltStack DOES actually have a pdf download of their official documentation, broken down into sequential chapters, which is awesome. I downloaded it and it's almost 2000 pages tho. So might make a better reference than tutorial.

SaltStack Fundamentals?

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