Salt: Feature Request: Template variable to explain source of a file

[guettli]

Description of Issue/Question

I want to know where config files on a minion come from.

Example

# /etc/postfix/main.cf
# source salt/mailserver/files/etc/postfix/main.cf.sls installed on 2016-10-18 12:42
....

I am lazy, and don't want to maintain above information myself.

There is a cool feature for ansible. The template system provides a variable {{ ansible_managed }}
This gets expanded to the source of the file and a time stamp.
See: http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/intro_configuration.html#ansible-managed

It would be great to have such a feature in salt, too.

Related StackO question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/39747351/saltstack-reverse-engineering-where-a-file-comes-from

What do you think?

[mostafahussein]

For a better following up I will add my comment in here.

First as a temporary solution you can create your own Pillar for example lets call it salt_managed and its value could be like this:

{% set managed_text = 'Salt managed: File modified on ' + salt.cmd.run('date "+DATE: %Y-%m-%d TIME: %H:%M:%S"') %}

salt_managed: {{ managed_text | yaml_dquote }}

Then on the minion you will get this result:

$ salt-call pillar.get salt_managed
local:
    Salt managed: File modified on DATE: 2016-10-18 TIME: 11:12:40

And you can use this by adding it on the top of your config files for example like this

{{ pillar.get('salt_managed') }}

The main problem with this solution that i cannot get the user who executed a state from the event bus, if there is a way to achieve that it would be very helpful then.

what do you think ?

[guettli]

@mostafahussein implementing this via pillar looks good. I don't understand why you want to get the user who executed a state. At least in my environment it will always be root. I would like to know the source of this file or snippet (file.blockreplace)

[Ch3LL]

I think this is a great idea. I'll approve as a feature request thanks

[mostafahussein]

@guettli my environment has multiple user and we are using ssh keys. so i will be able to know who have updated the file and when.
For the source of the file you might add as you said on stackoverflow, if i found another way i will let you know

Should I add the above implementation as answer to your question ?

[mostafahussein]

@Ch3LL Is there a way to access the event bus during state execution ? or even by creating a custom module ?

Update:

1- Can we get the file reference during execution ? (I can see it in state.show.sls results but i wish if it could be called inside the managed file itself)
2- Can we get the user who executed the formula ? (I know it could be done using returners but i mean during the execution)

[guettli]

@mostafahussein yes, please answer my StackO question with your sample implementation. It's a good starting point. I hope there is a way to figure out which file gets processed at the moment.

[mostafahussein]

@guettli I have added it to your question. and if there is any other solutions then i will keep you updated.

[lorengordon]

@mostafahussein, to answer your first question, maybe try {{ tplfile }}. There are a few context variables that may be useful here.

https://github.com/saltstack/salt/blob/develop/salt/utils/templates.py#L141-L145

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[andreasnuesslein]

I would like to see such a feature too.

@mostafahussein 's approach with the pillars is nice but has the downside that it always update the templates, even if nothing changes inside. That's not exactly what I would want in general.
Is there a solution to that?