Hands-On DevOps with Vagrant

Syntax and example

A Salt state file can often be found in the roots directory. It employs the .sls file extension and uses the Yet Another Markup Language (YAML) format for its contents. There is a certain hierarchy within a salt state file and that can go quite deep, depending on your requirements and configuration.

Let's break down an example Salt state file:

lampstack:     pkg.installed:         - pkgs:         - mysql-server         - php5         - php-pear         - php5-mysql

We first set a name for this section, in this example it's called lampstack. We then call pkg.installed, which verifies that certain packages have been installed. We use the - pkgs option and set the - mysql-server, - php5, - php-pear, and - php5-mysql values.