Salt: Custom Grains not updating/persisting

[Amacelia]

Description of Issue/Question

Custom grains are not being recognized/persisting. We made a custom salt grain in the minion config ('/opt/local/etc/salt/minion') and performed saltutil.sync_grains which caused the grain to be updated but when we do run using cmd.run (which defaults to 'shell: /bin/sh'). It still performs our commands in /sh instead of /bash as we tried to set it.

Steps to Reproduce

• edited Solaris 10u8 (2016.11.6) minion's config file to set custom
  grains: shell: /bin/bash
• restarted minion with:
  Salt Master CLI entry --> salt 'target' minion.restart
  OR
  from minion './salt-minion -d' which reads 'salt minion shutdown' and then run again to start it up (verify if this is a correct alternative?)
• ran 'salt 'target' grains.item shell' and it still reads /bin/sh.

Is there a more definitive procedure to add a custom grain to define shell usage?

Bonus inquiry: how to have cmd.run calls in a state/sls file to use the same instance of a bash terminal?
Is the following a legitimate process to achieve the same instance for each cmd.run call? --->
install_software: cmd.run: - names: -'. /h/scripts/my_script_that_sets_env_vars.sh' -'/h/scripts/service stop' -'sleep 30' -'/var/tmp/software/installation.bin' - cwd: '/h'

---

Versions Report

Salt-master: CentOS 7
Salt Version:

• Salt: 2016.11.6

Dependency Versions:

• cffi: 0.8.6
• cherrypy: Not Installed
• dateutil: 1.5
• gitdb: Not Installed
• gitpython: Not Installed
• ioflo: Not Installed
• Jinja2: 2.8
• libgit2: Not Installed
• libnacl: Not Installed
• M2Crypto: Not Installed
• Mako: 0.8.1
• msgpack-pure: Not Installed
• msgpack-python: 0.4.6
• mysql-python: Not Installed
• pycparser: 2.14
• pycrypto: 2.6.1
• pygit2: Not Installed
• Python: 2.7.5 (default, )
• python-gnupg: Not Installed
• PyYAML: 3.11
• PyZMQ: 15.3.0
• RAET: Not Installed
• smmap: Not Installed
• timelib: Not Installed
• Tornado: 4.2.1
• ZMQ: 4.1.4

System Versions:

• dist: centos 7.2.1511 Core
• machine: x86_64
• release:
• system: Linux
• version: CentOS Linux 7.2.1511 Core

---

Salt-minion: Solaris 10
Salt Version:

• Salt: 2016.11.6

Dependency Versions:

• cffi: 1.9.1
• cherrypy: Not Installed
• dateutil: 2.6.0
• gitdb: 0.6.4
• gitpython: 0.3.2 RC1
• ioflo: 1.6.6
• Jinja2: 2.8
• libgit2: Not Installed
• libnacl: 1.5.0
• M2Crypto: 0.25.1
• Mako: 1.0.6
• msgpack-pure: Not Installed
• msgpack-python: 0.4.8
• mysql-python: Not Installed
• pycparser: 2.17
• pycrypto: 2.6.1
• pygit2: Not Installed
• Python: 2.7.12 (default, )
• python-gnupg: 2.0.2
• PyYAML: 3.12
• PyZMQ: 16.0.2
• RAET: 0.6.5
• smmap: 0.9.0
• timelib: Not Installed
• Tornado: 4.4.2
• ZMQ: 4.0.7

System Versions:

• dist:
• machine:
• release:
• system: SunOS
• version: Not Installed

[gtmanfred]

Are you doing Grains or grains? the correct key is grains.

Also, you can just put shell: /bin/bash in /etc/salt/grains, and then the minion doesn't have to be restarted to load the grains, you just have to call saltutil.refresh_grains

[Amacelia]

'grains', I changed the post to reflect proper capitalization.

Would that shell: /bin/bash be within a config file in /etc/salt/grains? Can you flesh out that method of defining grains?

Also, for my additional question, do you have a thought on it?

Thank you!

[gtmanfred]

/etc/salt/grains is just a yaml formatted file that gets converted to a dictionary and added to the grains dictionary.

so

/etc/salt/grains

shell: /bin/bash

Should work.
Daniel

[gtmanfred]

You can also use the grains.set module and it will put it in the /etc/salt/grains file.

https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/modules/all/salt.modules.grains.html#salt.modules.grains.set

salt 'minionid' grains.set shell /bin/bash

[Amacelia]

Thank you for the information! I hadn't used saltutil.refresh_grains and that was why it was not reflected in the minion's salt 'target' grains.items listing.