Salt: Specified SLS in environment 'base' is not available on the salt master

[mirceaulinic]

Description of Issue/Question

I'm sure this has been asked many many times (first page on Google provides already a couple of references). But I couldn't see an option to ignore missing pillars when running the state.

When retrieving the pillar, you can see the error, but the execution itself doesn't fail:

$ sudo salt edge01.bjm01 pillar.items
edge01.bjm01:
    ----------
    _errors:
        - Specified SLS 'edge01_bjm01.acl' in environment 'base' is not available on the salt master
        - Specified SLS 'edge01_bjm01.bgp' in environment 'base' is not available on the salt master
        - Specified SLS 'edge01_bjm01.probes' in environment 'base' is not available on the salt master
        - Specified SLS 'edge01_bjm01.prefixlist' in environment 'base' is not available on the salt master

But running a state, it fails:

$ sudo salt edge01.bjm01 state.sls ntp
edge01.bjm01:
    Data failed to compile:
----------
    Pillar failed to render with the following messages:
----------
    Specified SLS 'edge01_bjm01.acl' in environment 'base' is not available on the salt master
----------
    Specified SLS 'edge01_bjm01.bgp' in environment 'base' is not available on the salt master
----------
    Specified SLS 'edge01_bjm01.probes' in environment 'base' is not available on the salt master
----------
    Specified SLS 'edge01_bjm01.prefixlist' in environment 'base' is not available on the salt master

I was wondering if there would be any reasoning against adding an option, e.g. ignore_missing_pillar_on_highstate defaulting to False?

Thanks!

[garethgreenaway]

@mirceaulinic I think what you want is the jinja option - ignore_missing: True added to your pillar top.sls file.

[mirceaulinic]

Ooh, that's very nice. I've searched for this and now I see it, it looks like just what I need. Thanks a lot @garethgreenaway.
However, as I couldn't find it (or, at least, it wasn't immediately obvious where to look for this option), I am thinking that others may have the same questions. Where would be the right place to document this? It doesn't seem to be explained under https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/states/top.html (it is true that is for the state top), nor https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/tutorials/pillar.html.

Thanks!

[mirceaulinic]

Closing this, confirmed it is working. Thanks @garethgreenaway. Could you please mention what would be the best place to document this?

[garethgreenaway]

@mirceaulinic Good question. It's not a Salt specific thing but rather a Jinja thing, perhaps the Understanding Jinja page (https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/jinja/index.html).

[perfecto25]

btw, I had the same error, solved it by refreshing pillar data,

salt * saltutil.refresh_pillar