Hello Salt users! I have been using SaltStack for a few years and I enjoy its power to do so many things. I am currently working on a SaaS platform to simplify infrastructure management for DevOps teams, SMBs, and developers. The idea is to use SaltStack’s automation power to deploy and manage workloads like Kubernetes, LAMP, Django, database clusters, and more with a user-friendly web GUI or API. I’d love your feedback to validate this idea and shape the MVP!

What’s the Idea?

The platform will automate provisioning and configuration of infrastructure on cloud providers (starting with DigitalOcean, later AWS/Azure). You select a workload, provide minimal inputs (e.g., instance name), and the platform handles the rest using SaltStack’s high-speed orchestration. The MVP will support:

• Kubernetes Cluster: Deploy a small cluster (1 master, 1–2 workers) with Calico networking and a sample NGINX pod.

• LAMP Stack: Set up Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP for web apps with a sample PHP page.

• Django Deployment: Deploy a Django app with Gunicorn and NGINX, pulling from a Git repo.

• Database Clusters: Configure MySQL/PostgreSQL with a primary and replica for high availability.

• Docker Environment: Run a WordPress container with MySQL integration.

• Node.js Application: Deploy an Express.js app with PM2 and NGINX.

• Redis Cache: Set up Redis for caching or session management.

• WordPress Hosting: Deploy WordPress with NGINX and MySQL for CMS needs.

• Elasticsearch: Configure a single-node Elasticsearch for search or analytics.

• Jenkins CI/CD: Set up a Jenkins server with a sample pipeline.

Why SaltStack?

SaltStack’s event-driven automation and scalability (handling thousands of nodes) make it perfect for rapid, consistent deployments. The platform will simplify Salt’s complexity with a clean GUI and pre-built templates, saving you time on setup and configuration.

Questions for You

1. Which workloads (e.g., Kubernetes, WordPress, Jenkins) are most valuable for your team or projects?

2. What pain points do you face with infrastructure management that this could solve?

3. Would you prefer a web GUI, API, or both for managing deployments?

4. Any other workloads (e.g., MongoDB, Kafka) you’d want in a tool like this?

5. Would you try a free tier for deploying 2–3 instances, with premium features like multi-cloud support?

Thanks for your thoughts! Feel free to comment or DM me with ideas or questions.

I inherited an old Salt setup with a 3005.1 master running on Ubuntu 18.04. Accepting minion keys works correctly. However, there are a few minions that were retired and removed from the network a few years ago and whose keys keep appearing in the Unaccepted Keys list when I run salt-key -L. I have tried rejecting and deleting them, but they reappear after about 20-30 seconds. If I re-accept them, they appear in the Accepted Keys list; and if I then delete them, they vanish for a short time and reappear in the Unaccepted Keys list. I can confirm that these machines are not present on the network, so is there perhaps a faulty cache somewhere that I should clear?

Hi all, I am in an educational project where I want to go from writing bash scripts to installing packages on more than 10 servers(so far). I started trying Ansible but I don't know why but I didn't like it, then I wanted to find a much more robust tool and I found Salt today. At the moment I need something that will update operating systems automatically, apply security rules, install packages, etc.

Is it worth to start with Salt nowadays, reading the reddit a lot of people who are just starting like me are complaining too much about the current state because of the purchase of Broadcom.

I am just starting in the devops world, and plan to start with local servers, learn Terraform/OpenTofu to create VMs and then automate tasks. Then I'll start with Kubernetes and Docker/Podman as needed, but I'm learning.

Leave your suggestions or comments if you can. Thank you very much.

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