About Salt
Salt is an open source automation framework. It runs commands on many machines from one control point, and it manages their configuration and orchestration.
What it does
Salt lets you send commands to large numbers of systems at once, describe the state each machine should be in, and coordinate multi-step changes across servers. Grains describe each machine, and pillars hold data that is sent only to the systems that need it. The project publishes install guides for many operating systems, and its reference docs cover the full module set.
Key features
- Remote execution across many systems
- States describe how machines should be configured
- Grains and pillars for machine data
- Orchestration of multi-step changes
- Community Discord and GitHub repository
Who it's for
System administrators and infrastructure teams that manage many servers and want one control plane for remote commands and configuration.
Pricing and good to know
Salt is free and released under the Apache License 2.0. You install and run it on your own servers, and community help is available through the project's Discord and GitHub pages. Its learning curve is real, since states, grains and pillars each take time to understand well.
Highlights
- Run commands on many systems at once
- Describe the configuration each machine should have
- Store machine facts in grains
- Send targeted data with pillars
- Coordinate multi-step changes across servers
