Windows Software Repository

The Salt Windows Software Repository provides a package manager and software repository similar to what is provided by yum and apt on Linux.

It permits the installation of software using the installers on remote windows machines. In many senses, the operation is similar to that of the other package managers salt is aware of:

  • the pkg.installed and similar states work on Windows.
  • the pkg.install and similar module functions work on Windows.
  • each windows machine needs to have pkg.refresh_db executed against it to pick up the latest version of the package database.

High level differences to yum and apt are:

  • The repository metadata (sls files) is hosted through either salt or git.
  • Packages can be downloaded from within the salt repository, a git repository or from http(s) or ftp urls.
  • No dependencies are managed. Dependencies between packages needs to be managed manually.

Operation

The install state/module function of the windows package manager works roughly as follows:

  1. Execute pkg.list_pkgs and store the result
  2. Check if any action needs to be taken. (i.e. compare required package and version against pkg.list_pkgs results)
  3. If so, run the installer command.
  4. Execute pkg.list_pkgs and compare to the result stored from before installation.
  5. Success/Failure/Changes will be reported based on the differences between the original and final pkg.list_pkgs results.

If there are any problems in using the package manager it is likely to be due to the data in your sls files not matching the difference between the pre and post pkg.list_pkgs results.

Usage

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, but this must reside somewhere inside the master's file_roots. 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 verified when running highstate. Note: It is still possible to successfully 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.

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'

Add cache_dir: True when the installer requires multiple source files. The directory containing the installer file will be recursively cached on the minion. Only applies to salt: installer URLs.

sqlexpress:
  12.0.2000.8:
    installer: 'salt://win/repo/sqlexpress/setup.exe'
    full_name: Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Setup (English)
    reboot: False
    install_flags: ' /ACTION=install /IACCEPTSQLSERVERLICENSETERMS /Q'
    cache_dir: True

Generate Repo Cache File

Once the sls file has been created, generate the repository cache file with the winrepo runner:

salt-run winrepo.genrepo

Beginning with the 2015.8.0 Salt release the repository cache is compiled on the Salt Minion. This allows for easy templating on the minion which allows for pillar, grains and other things to be available during compilation time. From 2015.8.0 forward the above salt-run winrepo.genrepo is only required for older minions. New minions should execute salt * pkg.refresh_db to update from the latest from the master's repo.

Then update the repository cache file on your minions, exactly how it's done for the Linux package managers:

salt '*' pkg.refresh_db

Install Windows Software

Now you can query the available version of Firefox using the Salt pkg module.

salt '*' pkg.available_version Firefox

{'Firefox': {'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. You can refer a software package by its name or its full_name surround by single quotes.

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).

You can also specify the full name:

salt '*' pkg.install 'Mozilla Firefox 17.0.1 (x86 en-US)'

Uninstall Windows Software

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.

Standalone Minion Salt Windows Repo Module

In order to facilitate managing a Salt Windows software repo with Salt on a Standalone Minion on Windows, a new module named winrepo has been added to Salt. winrepo matches what is available in the salt runner and allows you to manage the Windows software repo contents. Example: salt '*' winrepo.genrepo

Git Hosted Repo

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

Troubleshooting

Incorrect name/version

If the package seems to install properly, but salt reports a failure then it is likely you have a version or full_name mismatch.

Check the exact full_name and version used by the package. Use pkg.list_pkgs to check that the names and version exactly match what is installed.

Changes to sls files not being picked up

Ensure you have (re)generated the repository cache file and then updated the repository cache on the relevant minions:

salt-run winrepo.genrepo
salt 'MINION' pkg.refresh_db

Packages management under Windows 2003

On windows server 2003, you need to install optional windows component "wmi windows installer provider" to have full list of installed packages. If you don't have this, salt-minion can't report some installed software.