Hands-on examples for using Tanzu Salt
These use cases demonstrate how IT system administrators and DevOps team members can use Tanzu Salt to collect information and make changes to those nodes.
These example use cases are written as short tutorials that you can complete to learn about some of the key features in Tanzu Salt. As you work through these examples, you’ll become more familiar with the user interface and learn more about the basic workflow for completing jobs in Tanzu Salt.
You’ll learn how to use Tanzu Salt to do four tasks:
- Example 1: Check the disk usage on one or more minions
- Example 2: List which software is installed on one or more minions
- Example 3: Set up a firewall configuration on a Windows minion
- Example 4: Configure a CentOS (Linux) minion to run as an Apache web server
Each example is designed to be modular and can be completed in any order or on their own.
Caution:
Examples 1 and 2 only use Tanzu Salt to gather information about your environment, which means you won’t do anything that changes your environment. However, you must first have appropriate system permissions in order to complete those tutorial tasks.
Examples 3 and 4 make actual changes to nodes in your environment. For that reason, only use nodes that are part of a testing and development environment.
What to read next
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To complete the hands-on examples for Tanzu Salt, first ensure that you have the necessary background information to complete them as explained in the following sections. Then, set up your environment by installing Tanzu Salt and ensuring you have access to the required resources.
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In this example, you’ll run a job that checks the current disk usage for your nodes (minions). In your role as an IT system administrator or DevOps team member, you often need to monitor the disk capacity of your nodes. When your nodes are close to reaching their full capacity, that usually signals the need to purchase new hardware or requisition new virtual machines to meet server capacity needs. You’ll learn how to use Tanzu Salt to check for disk usage in this kind of scenario.
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Example 2: List installed software
In this example, you’ll run a job that lists the installed software on your nodes (minions). In your role as an IT system administrator or DevOps team member, you sometimes need to get a snapshot of which software applications are installed on your nodes and which versions of the software they are running. For example, you might need this information in order to provide software reports to management or sometimes you need this information in order to determine whether you need to plan software upgrades. You’ll learn how to use Tanzu Salt to check for installed software packages in this kind of scenario.
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Example 3: Configure firewall settings on a Windows node
In this example, you’ll learn how to apply state files to quickly deploy and manage configuration settings using Tanzu Salt. In your role as an IT system administrator or DevOps team member, you know that it is time-consuming to manually add or update configuration settings on many nodes one-by-one, especially at scale. To make matters worse, you also introduce the possibility of configuration mistakes or configuration drift when you have to manage hundreds or thousands of nodes at the same time. The state file system can help you solve this problem. In this example, you’ll learn how to use state files with Tanzu Salt to consistently add and update configuration settings, such as firewall settings on a Windows server.
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Example 4: Configure an Apache web server on a CentOS (Linux) node
In this example, you’ll see another example of how to apply state files to quickly deploy and manage configuration settings using Tanzu Salt. This example shows a slightly more complex state file that handles three different tasks (installing a service, starting a service, and deploying a file to the node running the service).
