Windows Software Repository¶
The Salt Windows Software Repository provides a package manager and software repository similar to what is provided by yum and apt on Linux.
It permits the installation of software using the installers on remote windows machines. In many senses, the operation is similar to that of the other package managers salt is aware of:
- the
pkg.installed
and similar states work on Windows. - the
pkg.install
and similar module functions work on Windows. - each windows machine needs to have
pkg.refresh_db
executed against it to pick up the latest version of the package database.
High level differences to yum and apt are:
- The repository metadata (sls files) is hosted through either salt or git.
- Packages can be downloaded from within the salt repository, a git repository or from http(s) or ftp urls.
- No dependencies are managed. Dependencies between packages needs to be managed manually.
Operation¶
The install state/module function of the windows package manager works roughly as follows:
- Execute
pkg.list_pkgs
and store the result - Check if any action needs to be taken. (ie compare required package
and version against
pkg.list_pkgs
results) - If so, run the installer command.
- Execute
pkg.list_pkgs
and compare to the result stored from before installation. - Sucess/Failure/Changes will be reported based on the differences
between the original and final
pkg.list_pkgs
results.
If there are any problems in using the package manager it is likely to
be due to the data in your sls files not matching the difference
between the pre and post pkg.list_pkgs
results.
Usage¶
By default, the Windows software repository is found at /srv/salt/win/repo
This can be changed in the master config file (default location is
/etc/salt/master
) by modifying the win_repo
variable. Each piece of
software should have its own directory which contains the installers and a
package definition file. This package definition file is a YAML file named
init.sls
.
The package definition file should look similar to this example for Firefox:
/srv/salt/win/repo/firefox/init.sls
firefox:
17.0.1:
installer: 'salt://win/repo/firefox/English/Firefox Setup 17.0.1.exe'
full_name: Mozilla Firefox 17.0.1 (x86 en-US)
locale: en_US
reboot: False
install_flags: ' -ms'
uninstaller: '%ProgramFiles(x86)%/Mozilla Firefox/uninstall/helper.exe'
uninstall_flags: ' /S'
16.0.2:
installer: 'salt://win/repo/firefox/English/Firefox Setup 16.0.2.exe'
full_name: Mozilla Firefox 16.0.2 (x86 en-US)
locale: en_US
reboot: False
install_flags: ' -ms'
uninstaller: '%ProgramFiles(x86)%/Mozilla Firefox/uninstall/helper.exe'
uninstall_flags: ' /S'
15.0.1:
installer: 'salt://win/repo/firefox/English/Firefox Setup 15.0.1.exe'
full_name: Mozilla Firefox 15.0.1 (x86 en-US)
locale: en_US
reboot: False
install_flags: ' -ms'
uninstaller: '%ProgramFiles(x86)%/Mozilla Firefox/uninstall/helper.exe'
uninstall_flags: ' /S'
More examples can be found here: https://github.com/saltstack/salt-winrepo
The version number and full_name
need to match the output from pkg.list_pkgs
so that the status can be verfied when running highstate.
Note: It is still possible to successfully install packages using pkg.install
even if they don't match which can make this hard to troubleshoot.
salt 'test-2008' pkg.list_pkgs
test-2008
----------
7-Zip 9.20 (x64 edition):
9.20.00.0
Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile:
4.0.30319,4.0.30319
Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Extended:
4.0.30319,4.0.30319
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable - x64 9.0.21022:
9.0.21022
Mozilla Firefox 17.0.1 (x86 en-US):
17.0.1
Mozilla Maintenance Service:
17.0.1
NSClient++ (x64):
0.3.8.76
Notepad++:
6.4.2
Salt Minion 0.16.0:
0.16.0
If any of these preinstalled packages already exist in winrepo the full_name will be automatically renamed to their package name during the next update (running highstate or installing another package).
test-2008:
----------
7zip:
9.20.00.0
Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile:
4.0.30319,4.0.30319
Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Extended:
4.0.30319,4.0.30319
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable - x64 9.0.21022:
9.0.21022
Mozilla Maintenance Service:
17.0.1
Notepad++:
6.4.2
Salt Minion 0.16.0:
0.16.0
firefox:
17.0.1
nsclient:
0.3.9.328
Add msiexec: True
if using an MSI installer requiring the use of msiexec
/i
to install and msiexec /x
to uninstall.
The install_flags
and uninstall_flags
are flags passed to the software
installer to cause it to perform a silent install. These can often be found by
adding /?
or /h
when running the installer from the command line. A
great resource for finding these silent install flags can be found on the WPKG
project's wiki:
7zip:
9.20.00.0:
installer: salt://win/repo/7zip/7z920-x64.msi
full_name: 7-Zip 9.20 (x64 edition)
reboot: False
install_flags: ' /q '
msiexec: True
uninstaller: salt://win/repo/7zip/7z920-x64.msi
uninstall_flags: ' /qn'
Generate Repo Cache File¶
Once the sls file has been created, generate the repository cache file with the winrepo runner:
salt-run winrepo.genrepo
Then update the repository cache file on your minions, exactly how it's done for the Linux package managers:
salt '*' pkg.refresh_db
Install Windows Software¶
Now you can query the available version of Firefox using the Salt pkg module.
salt '*' pkg.available_version firefox
{'davewindows': {'15.0.1': 'Mozilla Firefox 15.0.1 (x86 en-US)',
'16.0.2': 'Mozilla Firefox 16.0.2 (x86 en-US)',
'17.0.1': 'Mozilla Firefox 17.0.1 (x86 en-US)'}}
As you can see, there are three versions of Firefox available for installation.
salt '*' pkg.install firefox
The above line will install the latest version of Firefox.
salt '*' pkg.install firefox version=16.0.2
The above line will install version 16.0.2 of Firefox.
If a different version of the package is already installed it will be replaced with the version in winrepo (only if the package itself supports live updating)
Uninstall Windows Software¶
Uninstall software using the pkg module:
salt '*' pkg.remove firefox
salt '*' pkg.purge firefox
pkg.purge
just executes pkg.remove
on Windows. At some point in the
future pkg.purge
may direct the installer to remove all configs and
settings for software packages that support that option.
Standalone Minion Salt Windows Repo Module¶
In order to facilitate managing a Salt Windows software repo with Salt on a
Standalone Minion on Windows, a new module named winrepo has been added to
Salt. wirepo matches what is available in the salt runner and allows you to
manage the Windows software repo contents. Example: salt '*'
winrepo.genrepo
Git Hosted Repo¶
Windows software package definitions can also be hosted in one or more git repositories. The default repo is one hosted on Github.com by SaltStack,Inc., which includes package definitions for open source software. This repo points to the HTTP or ftp locations of the installer files. Anyone is welcome to send a pull request to this repo to add new package definitions. Browse the repo here: https://github.com/saltstack/salt-winrepo .
Configure which git repos the master can search for package definitions by
modifying or extending the win_gitrepos
configuration option list in the
master config.
Checkout each git repo in win_gitrepos
, compile your package repository
cache and then refresh each minion's package cache:
salt-run winrepo.update_git_repos
salt-run winrepo.genrepo
salt '*' pkg.refresh_db
Troubleshooting¶
Incorrect name/version¶
If the package seems to install properly, but salt reports a failure
then it is likely you have a version or full_name
mismatch.
Check the exact full_name
and version used by the package. Use
pkg.list_pkgs
to check that the names and version exactly match
what is installed.
Changes to sls files not being picked up¶
Ensure you have (re)generated the repository cache file and then updated the repository cache on the relevant minions:
salt-run winrepo.genrepo
salt 'MINION' pkg.refresh_db
Packages management under Windows 2003¶
On windows server 2003, you need to install optional windows component "wmi windows installer provider" to have full list of installed packages. If you don't have this, salt-minion can't report some installed software.