salt/doc/topics/troubleshooting/minion.rst

===============================
Troubleshooting the Salt Minion
===============================

Running in the Foreground
=========================

A great deal of information is available via the debug logging system, if you
are having issues with minions connecting or not starting run the minion in
the foreground:

.. code-block:: bash

    # salt-minion -l debug

Anyone wanting to run Salt daemons via a process supervisor such as `monit`_,
`runit`_, or `supervisord`_, should omit the ``-d`` argument to the daemons and
run them in the foreground.

.. _`monit`: http://mmonit.com/monit/
.. _`runit`: http://smarden.org/runit/
.. _`supervisord`: http://supervisord.org/


What Ports does the Minion Need Open?
=====================================

No ports need to be opened on the minion, as it makes outbound connections to
the master. If you've put both your Salt master and minion in debug mode and
don't see an acknowledgment that your minion has connected, it could very well
be a firewall interfering with the connection. See our :doc:`firewall
configuration </topics/tutorials/firewall>` page for help opening the firewall
on various platforms.

If you have netcat installed, you can check port connectivity from the minion
with the ``nc`` command:

.. code-block:: bash

    $ nc -v -z salt.master.ip.addr 4505
    Connection to salt.master.ip.addr 4505 port [tcp/unknown] succeeded!
    $ nc -v -z salt.master.ip.addr 4506
    Connection to salt.master.ip.addr 4506 port [tcp/unknown] succeeded!

The `Nmap`_ utility can also be used to check if these ports are open:

.. code-block:: bash

    # nmap -sS -q -p 4505-4506 salt.master.ip.addr

    Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2013-12-29 19:44 CST
    Nmap scan report for salt.master.ip.addr (10.0.0.10)
    Host is up (0.0026s latency).
    PORT     STATE  SERVICE
    4505/tcp open   unknown
    4506/tcp open   unknown
    MAC Address: 00:11:22:AA:BB:CC (Intel)

    Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 1.64 seconds

If you've opened the correct TCP ports and still aren't seeing connections,
check that no additional access control system such as `SELinux`_ or
`AppArmor`_ is blocking Salt.

.. _`Nmap`: http://nmap.org/
.. _`SELinux`: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security-Enhanced_Linux
.. _`AppArmor`: http://wiki.apparmor.net/index.php/Main_Page

Using salt-call
===============

The ``salt-call`` command was originally developed for aiding in the development
of new Salt modules. Since then, many applications have been developed for
running any Salt module locally on a minion. These range from the original
intent of salt-call, development assistance, to gathering more verbose output
from calls like :mod:`state.highstate <salt.modules.state.highstate>`.

When initially creating your state tree, it is generally recommended to invoke
:mod:`state.highstate <salt.modules.state.highstate>` from the minion with
``salt-call``. This displays far more information about the highstate execution
than calling it remotely. For even more verbosity, increase the loglevel with
the same argument as ``salt-minion``:

.. code-block:: bash

    # salt-call -l debug state.highstate

The main difference between using ``salt`` and using ``salt-call`` is that
``salt-call`` is run from the minion, and it only runs the selected function on
that minion. By contrast, ``salt`` is run from the master, and requires you to
specify the minions on which to run the command using salt's :doc:`targeting
system </topics/targeting/index>`.

Live Python Debug Output
========================

If the minion seems to be unresponsive, a SIGUSR1 can be passed to the process
to display what piece of code is executing. This debug information can be
invaluable in tracking down bugs.

To pass a SIGUSR1 to the minion, first make sure the minion is running in the
foreground. Stop the service if it is running as a daemon, and start it in the
foreground like so:

.. code-block:: bash

    # salt-minion -l debug

Then pass the signal to the minion when it seems to be unresponsive:

.. code-block:: bash

    # killall -SIGUSR1 salt-minion

When filing an issue or sending questions to the mailing list for a problem
with an unresponsive daemon, be sure to include this information if possible.

Multiprocessing in Execution Modules
====================================

As is outlined in github issue #6300, Salt cannot use python's multiprocessing
pipes and queues from execution modules. Multiprocessing from the execution
modules is perfectly viable, it is just necessary to use Salt's event system
to communicate back with the process.

The reason for this difficulty is that python attempts to pickle all objects in
memory when communicating, and it cannot pickle function objects. Since the
Salt loader system creates and manages function objects this causes the pickle
operation to fail.