Salt: Merge the same file in different envs if one of them has no top file.

[aabouzaid]

Description of Issue/Question

There is no way to merge the same file in different envs if one of them has no top file.

Setup

with this config:

/etc/salt/master
top_file_merging_strategy: marge_all

pillar_roots:
  base:
    - /srv/pillar
    - /srv/pillar/base

  dev:
    - /srv/pillar/dev
    - /srv/pillar/base

pillar_source_merging_strategy: recurse

---

If we have something like this (please note, base has no top file):

pillar/base/any/init.sls
  key1: base_val1
  key2: val2

pillar/dev/any/init.sls
any:
  key1: dev_val1
  key3: val3



md5-4f02d0c232db7ccd73a3501f35783063



pillar/dev/top.sls
dev:
  '*':
    - any



md5-265e91391122f05ebc47ca2e4042ae80



any:
  key1: dev_val1
  key3: val3



md5-a0def8bd039ed28a8fbac0f7fe27e5ab



pillar/base/any1/init.sls
  key1: base_val1
  key2: val2



md5-4f02d0c232db7ccd73a3501f35783063



pillar/dev/any2/init.sls
any:
  key1: dev_val1
  key3: val3



md5-4f02d0c232db7ccd73a3501f35783063



pillar/dev/top.sls
dev:
  '*':
    - any1
    - any2



md5-265e91391122f05ebc47ca2e4042ae80



any:
  key1: dev_val1
  key2: val2
  key3: val3



md5-3e149c9ba7e313efa6813c6ee04dcf87



Salt Version:
           Salt: 2017.7.2

Dependency Versions:
           cffi: Not Installed
       cherrypy: Not Installed
       dateutil: 2.4.2
      docker-py: Not Installed
          gitdb: 0.6.4
      gitpython: 1.0.1
          ioflo: Not Installed
         Jinja2: 2.8
        libgit2: Not Installed
        libnacl: Not Installed
       M2Crypto: Not Installed
           Mako: 1.0.3
   msgpack-pure: Not Installed
 msgpack-python: 0.4.6
   mysql-python: Not Installed
      pycparser: Not Installed
       pycrypto: 2.6.1
   pycryptodome: Not Installed
         pygit2: Not Installed
         Python: 2.7.12 (default, Nov 19 2016, 06:48:10)
   python-gnupg: Not Installed
         PyYAML: 3.11
          PyZMQ: 15.2.0
           RAET: Not Installed
          smmap: 0.9.0
        timelib: Not Installed
        Tornado: 4.2.1
            ZMQ: 4.1.4

System Versions:
           dist: Ubuntu 16.04 xenial
         locale: UTF-8
        machine: x86_64
        release: 4.8.0-32-generic
         system: Linux
        version: Ubuntu 16.04 xenial

[gtmanfred]

So, this is a limitation, by design, of the fileserver.

What happens is we look through the fileserver from the top of the pillar roots down, as soon as we find the named file once, we stop. You will either have to have them named different files, or in the one top file that you have, you have to reference both environments and the any file.

base:
  '*':
    - any
dev:
  '*':
    - any

This will have the base environment do the search for any, which will find /srv/pillar/base/any/init.sls and then the dev environment, which will search its roots top down, and find /srv/pillar/dev/any/init.sls first, then they should be merged.

Thanks,
Daniel