The Salt Windows Software Repository provides a package manager and software repository similar to what is provided by yum and apt on Linux.
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 succesfully 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. /srv/salt/win/repo/7zip/init.sls
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'
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
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 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.
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