packages-formula

A simple 'packages manager' formula, to install/remove packages without further ado.

Table of Contents

• General notes
• Contributing to this repo
• Special notes
• Available states
• Testing
• Testing with Vagrant

General notes

See the full SaltStack Formulas installation and usage instructions.

If you are interested in writing or contributing to formulas, please pay attention to the Writing Formula Section.

If you want to use this formula, please pay attention to the FORMULA file and/or git tag, which contains the currently released version. This formula is versioned according to Semantic Versioning.

See Formula Versioning Section for more details.

Contributing to this repo

Commit message formatting is significant!!

Please see How to contribute for more details.

Special notes

What this formula can do

Many times, in the process of setting up a host/vm, you need to install/remove packages with no extra configuration or setup. This formula tries to help with that. It can get a list of packages from a pillar, and it will try to install them.

It provides a few states to install/remove system packages (currently Debian/Redhat families), Python packages (using pip states) and Ruby gems (using gem states).

It can also provide basic dependency management on certain other states/packages.

What this formula can't do

This formula is not intended to configure packages, nor setup services or daemons. When you need to do that for a package, you should probably be using another formula.

Available states

• packages
• packages.pkgs
• packages.pips
• packages.gems
• packages.npms
• packages.archives
• packages.snaps
• packages.golang
• packages.remote_pkgs
• packages.chocolatey

packages

Meta-state (This is a state that includes other states).

Runs all the other states in the formula.

packages.pkgs

Allows you to manage system's packages. You can specify:

• held: either a list of packages or a dict of package: version, which will be installed and pinned to the installed version using SaltStack's hold/unhold capability.

  When upgrading a version, the package will be temporarily unheld, upgraded and then held again.

  In the RedHat family, helding packages depend on a yum plugin that you need to install. In order to do this, you can add it using this formula, adding to your pkgs.required.pkgs one of the following packages:

  • CentOS

    packages:
      pkgs:
        required:
          pkgs:
            - yum-plugin-versionlock

  • Fedora > 26 with Python3:

    packages:
      pkgs:
        required:
          pkgs:
            - python3-dnf-plugin-versionlock

  • Fedora > 26 with Python2:

    packages:
      pkgs:
        required:
          pkgs:
            - python2-dnf-plugin-versionlock

• wanted: a list of packages which will be installed. Packages in this list will be automatically unheld so, if you want to permanently unheld a package you were previously helding to a version, just move it from the held dict to this list.

• unwanted system packages, which will be uninstalled.

• required system packages on which any of the wanted packages depend for their correct installation.

• required states on which any of the wanted packages depend for their correct installation.

packages.pips

You can specify:

• wanted python packages, which will be installed using pip. Requires you specify the correct python-pip package for your distro, as a dependency (see the pillar.example)
• unwanted python packages, which will be uninstalled using pip.
• required system packages on which any of the wanted python packages depend for their correct installation. Usually, a python-pip package and/or some other compiler packages are required.
• required states on which any of the wanted packages depend for their correct installation (ie, epel for RedHat families).

packages.gems

You can specify:

• wanted ruby packages, which will be installed using gem. Requires you specify the correct ruby package for your distro, as a dependency (see the pillar.example)
• unwanted ruby packages, which will be uninstalled using gem.
• required system packages on which any of the wanted ruby packages depend for their correct installation. Usually, a ruby package and/or some other compiler packages are required.
• required states on which any of the wanted packages depend for their correct installation (ie, epel for RedHat families).

packages.npms

This formula DOES NOT install nodejs/npm, as it's outside of its scope: nodejs/npm that comes with the distros is usually outdated, so it's required to add a repo, run scripts, etc, and this formula manages packages :)

You can use the nodejs-formula and add a dependency for it in the pillar npms:required:sls (see the pillar.example)

You can specify:

• wanted npm packages, which will be installed using npm. Requires you specify the correct npm package for your distro, as a dependency (see the pillar.example)
• unwanted npm packages, which will be uninstalled using npm.
• required system packages on which any of the wanted npm packages depend for their correct installation. Usually, a npm package and/or some other compiler packages are required.
• required states on which any of the wanted packages depend for their correct installation (ie, epel for RedHat families).

packages.archives

'Archive file` handler for common 'download' and 'checksum' states. All formats recognized by salt.states.archive.extracted (tar, rar, zip, etc) will be extracted. Alternatively raw formats are supported (raw, bin,) for standard and binary executable files.

• wanted archive package software, which will be installed by extraction.
• unwanted archive package software, which are uninstalled by directory removal.
• required archive packages on which any of the wanted items depend on. Optional.

packages.snaps

You can specify:

• wanted snapd packages, which will be installed using snap.
• classic snapd packages, chich will be installed using snap with classic confinement.
• unwanted snapd packages, which will be uninstalled using snap.
• required system packages on which any of the wanted snapd packages depend for their correct installation.
• required states on which any of the wanted packages depend for their correct installation (ie, epel for RedHat families).

Note

Centos has no native snapd package at this time.

packages.golang

You can specify:

• clean golang packages, removed using go clean -i <item>....
• goget golang packages, installed using go get.

packages.remote_pkgs

You can specify a dictionary of remote system packages (deb/rpm) that you want to install, in the format:

name: url

packages.chocolatey

You can specify:

• wanted chocolatey packages, which will be installed using chocolatey. Requires you specify the correct chocolatey package (see the pillar.example)
• unwanted chocolatey packages, which will be uninstalled using chocolatey.
• required system packages on which any of the wanted system packages depend for their correct installation.
• required states on which any of the wanted packages depend for their correct installation (ie, regedit for configurations).

Note

You must configure winrepo-ng in order to install chocolatey required package

Testing

Linux testing is done with kitchen-salt.

Requirements

• Ruby
• Docker

$ gem install bundler
$ bundle install
$ bin/kitchen test [platform]

Where [platform] is the platform name defined in kitchen.yml, e.g. debian-9-2019-2-py3.

bin/kitchen converge

Creates the docker instance and runs the packages main states, ready for testing.

bin/kitchen verify

Runs the inspec tests on the actual instance.

bin/kitchen destroy

Removes the docker instance.

bin/kitchen test

Runs all of the stages above in one go: i.e. destroy + converge + verify + destroy.

bin/kitchen login

Gives you SSH access to the instance for manual testing.

Testing with Vagrant

Windows/FreeBSD/OpenBSD testing is done with kitchen-salt.

Requirements

• Ruby
• Virtualbox
• Vagrant

Setup

$ gem install bundler
$ bundle install --with=vagrant
$ bin/kitchen test [platform]

Where [platform] is the platform name defined in kitchen.vagrant.yml, e.g. windows-81-latest-py3.

Note

When testing using Vagrant you must set the environment variable KITCHEN_LOCAL_YAML to kitchen.vagrant.yml. For example:

$ KITCHEN_LOCAL_YAML=kitchen.vagrant.yml bin/kitchen test      # Alternatively,
$ export KITCHEN_LOCAL_YAML=kitchen.vagrant.yml
$ bin/kitchen test

Then run the following commands as needed.

bin/kitchen converge

Creates the Vagrant instance and runs the packages main states, ready for testing.

bin/kitchen verify

Runs the inspec tests on the actual instance.

bin/kitchen destroy

Removes the Vagrant instance.

bin/kitchen test

Runs all of the stages above in one go: i.e. destroy + converge + verify + destroy.

bin/kitchen login

Gives you RDP/SSH access to the instance for manual testing.