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Summary

This document describes how to configure a Salt master to serve pillar data from a remote Git repository using gitfs/git_pillar.

Create pillar config file

On the Salt master, create /etc/salt/master.d/pillar_gitfs.conf with:

pillar_roots: {}    # disable local pillar

git_pillar_provider: pygit2

ext_pillar:
  - git:
      - main git@github.com:<Username>/<Your repo name>.git:
          - env: base          # pillar env name to expose
          - root: /            # where in the repo your pillar tree starts
          - pubkey: <PATH TO PUBLIC KEY>
          - privkey: <PATH TO MATCHING PRIVATE KEY>

Restart salt master

The salt master must be restarted to load the new config file 

systemctl restart salt-master

Build the pillar Git repository:

This example repository for the base environment defines a fileserver pillar with base_url and artifact_root values used by the Software packaging example.

Create directory structure and initialize Git:

mkdir pillar-example
cd pillar-example
git init -b main

mkdir -p fileserver

Create a top.sls: 

base:
  '*':
    - fileserver

Create fileserver/init.sls: 

fileserver:
  base_url: http://192.168.50.21
  artifact_root: artifacts

Commit the changes to your local git and push to your remote:

git add .
git commit -m "initial example pillar repo"

git remote add origin <your remote repo URL>
git push -u origin main

Refresh data on the Salt master:

salt-run git_pillar.update

Test pillar data is visible to a minion:

[root@saltmaster1]# salt 'win-test' pillar.items
win-test:
    ----------
    fileserver:
        ----------
        artifact_root:
            artifacts
        base_url:
            http://192.168.50.21

Notes

  • If the master can’t reach the repo or the SSH host key isn’t trusted, git_pillar.update will fail.
  • git_pillar_provider: pygit2 requires pygit2/libgit2 installed on the master.