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erwindon / SaltGUI

A web interface for managing SaltStack based infrastructure.
MIT License
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es6 eslint front-end frontend html html-css html5 javascript js minions pam salt salt-command webapp yarn

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SaltGUI

SaltGUI is an open source web interface for managing a SaltStack server and its minions. Built using vanilla ES6 and implemented as a wrapper around the rest_cherrypy server a.k.a. salt-api.

The version tagged release is the latest released version. The version master should be fine, but it may contain changes that are not yet in these release-notes.

See SaltGUI documentation for the complete documentation.

IMPORTANT: since Salt version 3006, it is needed to add the configuration option netapi_enable_clients to allow salt-api - and thus SaltGUI - to work. See also netapi-enable-clients.html. Additionally, any Python packages that the SaltStack installation also depends on, must be installed with salt-pip. This includes authentication plugins such as yubico_client, or execution modules such as boto3_sns.

CodeQL

Screenshots

overview

job

Features

Quick start using PAM as authentication method

external_auth:
    pam:
        saltuser1:
            - .*
            - '@runner'
            - '@wheel'
            - '@jobs'

# for SaltStack 3006 and higher
netapi_enable_clients:
    - local
    - local_async
    - runner
    - wheel
rest_cherrypy:
    port: 3333
    host: 0.0.0.0
    disable_ssl: true
    app: /srv/saltgui/index.html
    static: /srv/saltgui/static
    static_path: /static

Note: With this configuration, the user has access to all salt modules available, maybe this is not what you want

Please read Permissions for more information.

Authentication

SaltGUI supports the following authentication methods supported by salt:

Since pam by itself is already very powerfull, that one is mentionned as standard. By default, it provides access to the Linux password file. When other authentication methods need to be used, their names can be added to file saltgui/static/salt-auth.txt. There is one name per line in that file. Choose the authentication methods that are activated in the salt-master configuration wisely, as the integrity of the salt-master and all salt-minions depends on it.

When a line CLEAR is present in the configuration file, then only the methods listed in the configuration file are shown. When only one method is listed, the corresponding dropdown-box will not be visible on the login panel. In that case, that method will always be used.

Note that SaltGUI cannot inspect the master file to see which authentication methods are actually in use. This is because the salt-api can only read the file after login.

Note that adding the rest authentication method in configuration section external_auth forces the parameter keep_acl_in_token to become true. That again changes the behavior of the other authentication methods and may lead to unexpected authentication problems.

When the file is absent or empty, the defaults apply. Use an empty file to prevent the otherwise harmless 404 error.

See the EAUTH documentation and the Salt auth source code for more information.

Browser tabs

SaltGUI is a single page web-application. In cases where you would zoom in on details, it is possible to open a new browser tab with the requested details. Use CTRL-click to open the page in a new tab. Use ALT-click to open the page in a new tab and also make that the current tab. This works for clicks on table-rows and for clicks on popup-menu items. These functions are a bit browser-dependent, but all major browsers seem to follow this behavior. When a new tab is opened by SaltGUI, it does not contain the menu bar items, secondary panels or a close-button inside the page.

Command Box

SaltGUI supports entry of commands using the "command-box". Click on >_ in the top right corner to open it.

Enter salt-run commands with the prefix runners.. e.g. runners.jobs.last_run. The target field can remain empty in that case as it is not used.

Enter salt-call commands with the prefix wheel.. e.g. wheel.key.finger. The target field will be added as named parameter target. But note that that parameter may not actually be used depending on the command.

Enter regular commands without special prefix. e.g. test.ping. The command is sent to the minions specified in the target field.

The text ##connected in the target field will be immediatelly replaced by the list of connected minions, or with * when all minions are connected, or with an expression when that is shorter.

Commands can be run normally, in which case the command runs to completion and shows the results. Alternatively, it can be started asynchronously, in which case only a bit of progress information is shown. When variable state_events is set to true, then the progress is shown per state when applicable. Batch commands are not supported at this time.

When executing commands, the setting for api-flag full_return is taken from option saltgui_full_return in salt master configuration file /etc/salt/master. When set to true, this will result in some more information available in the execution result, e.g. the job-id. This flag may (or may not) be applied to the internal commands that SaltGUI uses to show information.

Output

SaltGUI shows the data that is returned by the Salt API. Some variation can be achieved by modifying salt master configuration file /etc/salt/master. e.g. (the default)

saltgui_output_formats: doc,saltguihighstate,json

doc allows reformatting of documentation output into more readable format. Also implies that only the result from one minion is used. saltguihighstate allows reformatting of highstate data in a sorted and more readable format. json, yaml and nested specify how all other output should be formatted. Only the first available of these formats is used.

Time representation

The time formats used by Salt are very detailed and by default have 6 decimal digits to specify as accurate as nano-seconds. For most uses that is not needed. The fraction can be truncated to less digits by modifying salt master configuration file /etc/salt/master. e.g.

saltgui_datetime_fraction_digits: 3

The value must be a number from 0 to 6. Note that the effect is achieved by string truncation only. This is equivalent to always rounding downwards.

How the date and times that are shown can also be changed. e.g.:

saltgui_datetime_representation: utc

The value must be utc, local, utc-localtime or local-utctime. With utc, only the UTC date and time are shown. With local, only the local date and time are shown. This includes an indication of the timezone. With utc-localtime, the UTC date and time are shown. Additionally, the local time (not the local date) is shown. With local-utctime, the local date and time are shown. Additionally, the UTC time (not the UTC date) is shown. In all cases, a tooltip is added to a date+time field that shows the full representation of the date and time in both the local timezone and in UTC.

When using very old browsers, the required date/time functions may not be present. In that case SaltGUI reverts to simply displaying the reported time from the Salt system. The tooltip is then not shown.

Templates

SaltGUI supports command templates for easier command entry into the command-box. The menu item for that becomes visible there when you define one or more templates in salt master configuration file /etc/salt/master. The field targettype supports the values glob, list, compound and nodegroup. Entries will be sorted in the GUI based on their key. You can leave out any detail field. e.g.:

saltgui_templates:
    template1:
        description: First template
        target: "*"
        command: test.fib num=10
        key: "f"
    template2:
        description: Second template
        targettype: glob
        target: dev*
        command: test.version

When there are a lot of templates, they can be organized into categories. e.g.:

saltgui_templates:
    template1:
        description: First template
        target: "*"
        command: test.fib num=10
        category: cat1
    template2:
        description: Second template
        targettype: glob
        target: dev*
        command: test.version
        categories:
            - cat1
            - cat2

When at least one template is assigned to a category, then you can select a template category before selecting the actual category. Otherwise that choice remains hidden. Templates can be in multiple categories when a list of categories is assigned.

When a key is assigned to a template, then you can activate a template by typing that key while using any screen in SaltGUI. Only keys that can be typed without shift/alt/ctrl are useable.

Jobs

SaltGUI shows a maximum of 7 jobs in on the right-hand-side of the screen. SaltGUI shows a maximum of 50 jobs on the dedicated jobs page. Commands that are used internally in SaltGUI are initially hidden.

On the Jobs page, more jobs can be made visible. Select Show eligible jobs to show all jobs that are not classified as internally-used jobs. Select Show all jobs to show all jobs that are known to salt.

Additional commands to hide can be configured in salt master configuration file /etc/salt/master. e.g.:

saltgui_hide_jobs:
    - test.ping

Commands that are normally hidden can be made visible using configuration in salt master configuration file /etc/salt/master. e.g.:

saltgui_show_jobs:
    - grains.items

Grains

Selected grains can be previewed on the Grains page. The names of these grains can be configured in salt master configuration file /etc/salt/master. e.g.:

saltgui_preview_grains:
    - "osrelease_info"

The names can be specified as simple names like the example above. Alternatively, the grains.get notation can be used to get more detailed information. The separator is always :. e.g. locale_info:timezone. Alternatively, the jsonpath notation can be used to allow even more freedom. Jsonpath is used when the text starts with a $. e.g. $.ip4_interfaces.eth0[0].

The configured value can be prefixed with a title and an '=' sign to specify the title to be used on the screen. e.g. IP-Number=$.ip4_interfaces.eth0[0] shows IP-Number as title, but uses the value $.ip4_interfaces.eth0[0] for each minion. Note that when the value somehow contains an '=' sign, then a title must be provided to prevent confusion.

In any table where the the minion status is shown and where the grain-values of the minion are also known, the minion status is replaced with the the best value from grain fqdn_ip4. The best value is chosen by first eliminating all values that appear for more than one minion. Then the first value that has the most specific network prefix is used. It is possible to chose a different grain by setting variable saltgui_ipnumber_field in salt master configuration file /etc/salt/master. It is possible to restrict the eligible IP-numbers by setting variable saltgui_ipnumber_prefix in salt master configuration file /etc/salt/master. Only values with that string-prefix are considered. You can specify several prefixes, for example:

saltgui_ipnumber_prefix:
    - 192.168
    - 10.10

The display of the IP-numbers can simply be disabled by choosing a non-existing grain or by choosing a non-existing prefix.

SaltGUI will retrieve cached grains information when variable saltgui_use_cache_for_grains is set to true. In that case, unreachable minions will appear without warnings for that. In all cases, the information may be less accurate. A warning for offline minions is only shown on the Minions panel.

Pillars

Pillars potentially contain security senstitive information. Therefore their values are initially hidden. Values become visible by clicking on them. This behavior can be changed by adjusting the values of the configuration in salt master configuration file /etc/salt/master. The values for the pillar whose name match one of these regular expressions are initially shown. e.g.:

saltgui_public_pillars:
    - pub_.*

SaltGUI will retrieve cached pillar information when variable saltgui_use_cache_for_pillar is set to true. In that case, unreachable minions will appear without warnings for that. In all cases, the information may be less accurate. A warning for offline minions is only shown on the Minions panel.

Nodegroups

The Nodegroups page shows all minions, but groups the minions by their nodegroup. Since the group membership can only (reliably) be determined by executing salt commands, the overview takes some time to build. When a minion happens to be a member of multiple nodegroups, then a row for that minion will appear mutiple times in the overview. When using targeting based on nodegroups, the salt-system does not filter out the non-accepted minions. Therefore also the rejected, denied and unaccepted minions will show up. Even the minion names that are in the nodegroup, but which do not actually exist, will show up as 'unknown'.

Highstate

The Highstate page provides an overview of the minions and their latest state information. At most saltgui_max_show_highstates (10 if not set) highstate jobs (state.apply or state.highstate) are considered.

More than saltgui_max_highstate_states (20 if not set) of states switches to summary from detailed view.

Individual low-states can be re-tried by clicking on their state symbol. Note that since the output of the state.sls_id commands is not considered in this overview, the result of such action has no effect on this screen. Use state.apply test=true to update the information without making changes on the minions.

For organisations where the 'saltenv' facility is used, it is possible to limit the jobs that are considered to include (or exclude) only specific saltenvs. e.g.:

saltgui_show_saltenvs:
    - base

or

saltgui_hide_saltenvs:
    - env2
    - env3

Typically only one of these variables should be set. Jobs that were started without the saltenv parameter are, for this purpose only, assumed to use the value default for this parameter. This allows these jobs to be hidden/showed using the same mechanism. SaltGUI does not replicate the internal logic of the salt-master and/or the salt-minion to determine which saltenv would actually have been used for such jobs.

Orchestrations

The Orchestrations page shows the available orchestrations with their steps. Name, target and function are listed in separate columns. All other details will be visible in the details column. The steps are listed in priority order. But note that additional dependencies may cause an alternative execution sequence.

In the configuration files, SaltStack does not clearly distingish between state-configuration and orchestration-configuration. SaltGUI only shows information that has the orchestration format.

An orchestration can be executed or tested. The output resembles the output of highstate commands, but now each step is a whole salt command instead of a state. Since the orchestration is run by the salt-master, the results are organized for only this host. Note that SaltStack uses a slightly different minion-name for that.

Note that each stage is started as a separate job. Neither SaltStack, nor SaltGUI, has information available to somehow group the results.

Unlike the highstate system, there are no events available in the SaltStack that can be used to track the progress of an orchestration.

Issues

The Issues page provides an overview of the system and reports any issues. When no issues are found, the list remains empty. The following issues may be reported:

Each issue has its own dropdown-menu, which typically contains:

Custom command documentation

A custom HTML help text can be shown from the "Manual Run" overlay.

To use it,

Message-of-the-day

A message-of-the-day (motd) can be added to the login screen. It can be used for any information, e.g.:

The text is stored in file saltgui/static/salt-motd.txt or saltgui/static/salt-motd.html. The first must be pre-formatted text only. The second one can contain full HTML text. Both are shown when they are present. When the files are absent or empty, no message is shown. Use empty files to prevent the otherwise harmless 404 error. Note that the message should not contain sensitive data, as its content is shown before logging in.

Alternatively, or additionally, the text can be retrieved from the master file entries saltgui_motd_txt and saltgui_motd_html. These entries can contain sensitive information because its content can only be retrieved after login. But it is still recommended to not let the text contain any sensitive data.

Multi master setup

When multiple salt-masters are in use in a multi-master setup, an installation of salt-api is needed per salt-master. And SaltGUI must have an installation per salt-api installation. No specific extra configuration is needed for SaltGUI in this scenario. But note that SaltGUI cannot bypass the restrictions that are implied by a multi-master setup. e.g. each salt-master only holds the job history of the jobs that are initiated from that salt-master. For multi-master setup, see also Multi Master tutorial.

Reduced menus

When apis are disabled using the native external_auth mechanism, SaltGUI may show menu-items that have become unuseable. In that case, it may be useful to reduce the menu-bar to less items. Variable saltgui_pages is read from salt master configuration file /etc/salt/master. It contains the list of accessible pages per user. The first page in the list also becomes the landing page. Users that are not listed still have the full menu. e.g.:

saltgui_pages:
    user1:
        - keys
        - grains

Note that this is NOT a security mechanism to reduce what a user can do. All pages are still accessible using their original deep-link. And also any command can still be issued using the command-box. For real security measures, use parameter external_auth.

Performance

SaltGUI does not have artificial restrictions. But displaying all data may be slow when there is a lot of data. Most notorious is the display of a highstate with hundreds of minions, each with douzens of states. SaltGUI can be forced to use a slightly simpler output by setting a parameter in salt master configuration file /etc/salt/master. e.g.:

saltgui_tooltip_mode: simple

This parameter forces SaltGUI to use a very simple tooltip representation. This is then the built-in version from the brower. Typical effect is that it is shown slightly delayed and that is looks a bit primitive. The only other allowed value is "none", with the effect that no tooltips are shown at all.

Settings and statistics

By using ctrl-click on the SaltGUI logo in the top-left corner, an otherwise hidden page is made visible. The page shows the relevant settings from 3 categories on the left side and the api statistics on the right side.

First category contains the "session" details, which are the result of the login. Second category contains the variables from the master file that are also relevant for SaltGUI. The final category contains the variables that are specific to SaltGUI. Simple variables with a limited range of values can be changed here for the duration of the current session. Permanent changes must be made in the master file.

The statistics panel is updated every 3 seconds. Numeric fields that are known to contain timestamps are reformatted as readable strings. Numeric fields that are known to contain durations are reformatted as readable strings. Statistics for most threads that did not handle any requests yet are replaced by an empty string. The amount of details shown depends on the parameter collect_stats in the rest_cherrypy block of the master file.

Key administration

In situations like cloud hosting, hosts may be deleted or shutdown frequently. But Salt remembers the key status from both. SaltGUI can compare the list of keys against a reference list. The reference list is maintained as a text file, one minion per line. First column is the minion name. Second column is false when the minion is known to be absent due to machine shutdown. It should be true otherwise. When the second column is missing, this validation is not performed. Lines starting with # are comment lines. The filename is saltgui/static/minions.txt. Differences with this file are highlighted on the Keys page. Minions that are unexpectedly down are highlighted on the Minions page. When the file is absent or empty, no such validation is done. Use an empty file to prevent the otherwise harmless 404 error. It is suggested that the file is generated from a central source, e.g. the Azure, AWS or similar cloud portals; or from a company asset management list.

Separate SaltGUI host

In some specific environments you might not be able to serve SaltGUI directly from salt-api. In that case you might want to configure a web server (for example NGINX) to serve SaltGui and use it as proxy to salt-api so that requests are answered from the same origin from the browser point of view.

Sample NGINX configuration might look like this:

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  _;
    root         /data/www;
    index        index.html;

    # handle internal api (proxy)
    location /api/ {
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true;
        proxy_pass http://saltmaster-local:3333/;
        proxy_ssl_session_reuse off;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_redirect off;
    }

    # handle saltgui web page
    location / {
        try_files $uri /index.html;
    }
}

The value of the API_URL in the config.js file must point to path where salt-api is exposed. The value of the NAV_URL in the config.js file must point to path where the SaltGUI application is exposed.

const config = {
    API_URL: '/api',
    NAV_URL: '/app'
};

Note that the main page of SaltGUI is then located at /app/. When you want /app to work as well, you should instruct an intermediate proxy server to translate /app into /app/.

Currently you can't use totally independent salt-api without proxy as support for CORS preflight request is not properly support.

Development environment with Docker

To make life a bit easier for testing SaltGUI or setting up a local development environment you can use the provided docker-compose setup in this repository to run a saltmaster with three minions, including SaltGUI:

cd docker
docker-compose up

Then browse to http://localhost:3333/, you can login with salt:salt.

Testing

We provide some functional tests and unit tests. They use the docker setup to run the functional tests. You will also need yarn and node.js to run them. When you have docker, yarn and node.js installed, you can run the tests from the root of the repository like this:

bash runtests.bash

To show the browser window + a debugger while running the functional tests you can run:

NIGHTMARE_DEBUG=1 bash runtests.bash

We use the following testing libraries:

You'll need at least:

Known issues

At least in Chrome 96 and Edge 96, the "pause" icon is shown in its "emoji" form and appears in its coloured form. This also happens for the looking-glass icon in the search field.

Contributing

Open a PR! Try to use no dependencies where possible, as vanilla JS is the aim. Any libraries will need to be heavily considered first. Please see the section above as PRs won't be reviewed if they don't pass the tests.

Credits

This excellent frontend is originally written by Oliver Dunk.
It was then further developed by Martijn Jacobs.
It is currently maintained by Erwin Dondorp.

SaltGUI includes these libraries (with possible modifications):