salt-cloud install a specific version of salt-minion

This is a guide to install a specific version of salt-minion package on new minions being bootstrapped using salt-cloud.

This is not specific for any OS or destro but I was using Ubuntu 14.04.

salt-cloud uses salt-bootstrap.sh script (https://github.com/saltstack/salt-bootstrap) which installs every dependencies and salt-minion on the newly created instance. This file is usually located at /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/salt/cloud/deploy/bootstrap-salt.sh.

Version and/or Source can be specified in the cloud.profile configuration as below.

In /etc/salt/cloud.profiles.d/someprofile.conf

staging:

  provider: aws

  image: ami-xxxxxx

  size: m1.small

  securitygroup:

    - SG1

    - SG2

  tag:

      circle: staging

      type: app

  script_args: git v2015.5.2

The last property script_args value will be passed to the bootstrap script. The above values tells to install salt-minion version v2015.5.2 from github(not the Ubuntu repo).

The values can be any of the following.

Installation types:

- stable (default, It installs from OS Repository e.g Deb/RPM)

- stable [version] (ubuntu specific)

- daily  (ubuntu specific)

- testing (redhat specific)

- git (Installs from github repository)

Examples:

- stable

- stable 2015.5

- daily

- testing

- git

- git develop

- git v2015.5.3

- git 8c3fadf15ec183e5ce8c63739850d543617e4357

Custom/Edited script can also be used instead of the default bootstrap-salt.sh

Just copy the /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/salt/cloud/deploy/bootstrap-salt.sh or download https://github.com/saltstack/salt-bootstrap/blob/develop/bootstrap-salt.sh and put it under/etc/salt/cloud.deploy.d/. If the file is named bootstrap-salt.sh then no change required in the profile configuration. If the file name is something different like custom-bootstrap.sh then added the following in the configuration file.

In /etc/salt/cloud.profiles.d/someprofile.conf

staging:

  provider: aws

  image: ami-xxxxxx

  size: m1.small

  securitygroup:

    - SG1

    - SG2

  tag:

      circle: staging

      type: app

  script: custom-bootstrap.sh # This can also be an absolute path.

  script_args: git v2015.5.2

Hope it helps.

Any questions or suggestions are welcome.

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