salt-master

Start the Salt master daemon in the foreground

$ salt-master

$ salt-master -d

$ salt-master -c [/etc/salt]

$ salt-master -l debug

$ salt-master --log-file=[/var/log/salt/master]

salt-master [options]

salt-master is the central control daemon for SaltStack infrastructure. It manages minion keys, distributes configurations, executes remote commands, and serves files to connected minions.
The master listens on two ports: 4505 for publishing commands to minions via ZeroMQ, and 4506 for receiving returns and file server requests. Configuration is stored in /etc/salt/master.
Key components include the job cache for tracking command execution, the file server for distributing states and files, and the PKI infrastructure for secure minion authentication. The master supports worker threads for handling large numbers of minions.

-d, --daemon

Run the Salt master as a daemon in the background

Specify the configuration directory (default: /etc/salt)

Console log level: info, warning, error, debug, trace, garbage, none

Specify the log file path

Log file logging level

Specify the location of the pidfile

Specify user to run salt-master

Print help message and exit

Print version information

Firewall rules must allow ports 4505 and 4506 for master-minion communication. Large deployments may require tuning worker_threads in the configuration. The master must be running before minions can connect and have their keys accepted.

salt-master is part of SaltStack, created by Thomas Hatch in 2011. Originally developed at a startup, SaltStack grew into a major configuration management platform. VMware acquired SaltStack in 2020, and the project continues as the open-source Salt Project.

salt(1), salt-minion(8), salt-key(1), salt-call(1)