SaltStack – Event-Driven Infrastructure Automation

Module 1: Introduction to SaltStack

• SaltStack overview: remote execution and configuration management
• Salt architecture: Salt Master, Salt Minions, and ZeroMQ messaging
• Salt vs Puppet, Chef, and Ansible: comparison and positioning
• Installing Salt: master and minion setup on Linux

Module 2: Salt Remote Execution

• salt command: targeting minions and running execution modules
• Targeting: glob, grain, pillar, compound, and list targeting
• Built-in execution modules: cmd.run, pkg.install, and service.running
• Job management: salt-run jobs.list_jobs and job result retrieval

Module 3: Salt States

• State files: YAML-based desired state definitions (.sls files)
• State functions: pkg.installed, file.managed, and service.running
• Requisites: require, watch, onchanges, and unless
• Highstate: applying all states assigned to a minion

Module 4: Pillar and Grains

• Grains: static minion data for targeting and templating
• Custom grains: defining application-specific minion attributes
• Pillar: sensitive and node-specific data for state templates
• Pillar top file: assigning pillar data to minions by target

Module 5: Salt Formulas and Jinja

• Salt Formulas: community best-practice state collections
• Jinja2 templating: dynamic state files with variables and conditionals
• Loops and macros in Jinja Salt state files
• Importing and reusing Jinja macros across state files

Module 6: Salt Orchestration and Runners

• Orchestrate runner: multi-minion workflow coordination
• Salt reactor: event-driven automation triggered by Salt events
• Salt beacons: monitoring system events and triggering reactions
• Salt returners: sending job results to databases, Slack, or syslog

Module 7: Salt Cloud and SSH

• Salt Cloud: provisioning VMs on AWS, Azure, and GCP with Salt
• Cloud profiles and providers: defining VM configurations
• Salt SSH: agentless execution without minion installation
• Roster file: defining target hosts for Salt SSH

Module 8: Capstone Project and Assessment

• Salt state tree: web server configuration with pkg, file, and service
• Pillar and Jinja: environment-specific dynamic state configuration
• Salt reactor and beacon: event-driven auto-remediation project
• Final assessment and course certification

Experience in the Industry Learn from SaltStack engineers who have used Salt for remote execution, configuration management, and event-driven automation across large Linux server fleets in cloud and on-premises environments.

Backgrounds at the Top Our SaltStack trainers have worked at DevOps and infrastructure automation teams at technology companies and managed service providers managing thousands of servers with Salt.

Clear & Effective Teaching Salt architecture, remote execution, state files, requisites, grains, pillar, Jinja templating, orchestration, reactor, beacons, Salt Cloud, and Salt SSH are explained with real infrastructure automation examples.

Hands-On Learning Focus Students run remote execution commands, write Salt states, configure pillars and grains, use Jinja templating, build orchestrate runners, and create event-driven reactors through structured hands-on Salt lab exercises.

Up-to-Date Knowledge Trainers keep content current with the latest SaltStack Open releases, Salt Project community updates, and evolving event-driven infrastructure automation best practices.