Fundamentals of Salt Administration

Training Syllabus
The SaltStack Administration training course provides an IT professional the fundamental skills
needed to manage Salt infrastructure.
OVERVIEW
The course begins with the installation, configuration, and use of remote execution modules for
basic salt management. The course then presents job management and the execution model in Salt
architecture.
Building on those concepts, the implementation of Salt states for configuration management is
discussed. The Salt states sections include defining the structure and format of SLS files and state
trees, setting requisites and declarations, and using the default YAML and Jinja renderers. There is
instruction on utilizing Salt grains, pillars, and best practices for defining state formulas.
Additional topics include Salt runners, returners, reactors, beacons, and orchestration. Salt
topology considerations will cover Salt-SSH, multi-masters, Salt syndic, and stand-alone minions.
Implementing external and master job caches to persistent storage will also be covered.
The course also introduces concepts of extending Salt through the Salt RESTful API, writing custom
execution and state modules.
OFFERING
All students are provided:

A course training manual

A Salt cloud environment for hands-on labs

FORMAT
This course is offered in the following instructor-led formats:

3 full days
5 half-day days

When offered onsite or at a regional location the training follows the 3-day format. Other
scheduled trainings such as our virtual instructor-led (vILT) offering follow the 5-day
format.

1 SALTSTACK ADMINISTRATION TRAINING COURSE

3 FULL DAY SCHEDULE

5 HALF DAY SCHEDULE

Day 1
Introduction
Salt Installation and Configuration
Salt Cloud
The "salt" Command-line
Salt Execution and Architecture
Basics of States
State Requisites and Declarations

Day 1
Introduction
Salt Installation and Configuration
Salt Cloud
The "salt" Command-line

Day 2
Renderers
State Formulas
Runners and Orchestration
Events and Reactors
Day 3
Salt Security
Alternative Topologies
Job Caches & File Backends
Optional - Salt Development

Day 2
Salt Execution and Architecture
Basics of States
State Requisites and Declarations
Day 3
Renderers
State Formulas
Day 4
Runners and Orchestration
Events and Reactors
Day 5
Salt Security
Alternative Topologies
Job Caches & File Backends
Optional - Salt Development

REQUIREMENTS
The technical requirements for SaltStack Training are:
Video Conference
We typically use Google Hangouts for remote virtual instructor-led attendees. It works best in a
Chrome browser with the Google Hangouts plugin. You can download it from
https://www.google.com/tools/dlpage/hangoutplugin
Labs
Each student will be given a group of Linux virtual machines hosted in the Amazon cloud. You will
need to be able to SSH (destination port 22) from your network to access them. A SSH private key
will be given to you for authentication.
Class Portal
The class portal is a website located at http://training.saltstack.com contains links to resources and
end of chapter knowledge checks. A login to this site will be given at the beginning of
class.

2 SALTSTACK ADMINISTRATION TRAINING COURSE

For additional information please contact:

SaltStack, Inc.
3400 N. Ashton Blvd,
Suite 110
Lehi, UT 84043
T +1 801.207.7440
Email:
training@saltstack.com
Web:
http://www.saltstack.com/training
http://www.saltstack.com/certification
http://www.saltstack.com/services

3 FUNDAMENTALS OF SALT ADMINISTRATION