Pillar data in Vagrantfiles doesn't appear to be available on highstate run

[davepeck]

I'm seeing this with vagrant-salt == 0.4.0, salt == 0.16.3, and vagrant == 1.2.7.

I'm new here, so it's possible I'm misunderstanding something pretty basic about how pillar data is exposed, or when it should be available. But this does seem like a bug at the moment.

To reproduce:

In your Vagrantfile:

config.vm.provision :salt do |salt|
    salt.minion_config = "salt/minion"
    salt.verbose = true
    salt.pillar({"key" => "value"})
    salt.run_highstate = true
end

In some init.sls file:

{% for pillar_key in pillar.keys() %}
do-pillar-{{ pillar_key }}:
    cmd.run:
        - name: echo {{ pillar_key }}
{% endfor %}

Now run vagrant provision. You should see output for every available pillar key.

Expected result:

The key key is present in pillar

Actual result:

The key key is not present in pillar. (I only see one key, called master.)

Since this is annoying to reproduce, I've created a repository that should just reproduce it directly. git clone https://github.com/davepeck/salty-vagrant-pillar-question and then vagrant up.

[akoumjian]

HI Dave,
Sorry I haven't gotten to this yet (has to be after hours). I will have a couple hours tonight to look at it.

[davepeck]

@akoumjian Oh no worries man, I didn't expect a fast reply or anything -- just wanted to put it somewhere for the record.

[cmthornton]

I'm new here, so it's possible I'm misunderstanding something pretty basic about how pillar data is exposed, or when it should be available. But this does seem like a bug at the moment.

You're not misunderstanding how pillar data is supposed to work. You can invoke salt-call manually inside of the VM to verify that salt-call handles the pillar data properly. Therefore, the pillar data must not be getting passed from vagrant/vagrant-salt to salt-call. Using the salty-pillar-vagrant-question repository you created, this is what I did to verify the bug you reported:

$ vagrant up # using vagrant 1.2.7
...
(noticed that the pillar data in the Vagrantfile did not get echoed, as it should have been)
...

$ vagrant ssh
vagrant@precise64:~$ sudo salt-call state.highstate -l debug pillar='{"key": "value"}' 
...
(outputs all pillar keys, as expected)
...

Using Vagrant 1.3.0 fixes this issue. In case you are not aware, the salt provisioner plugin is builtin to Vagrant 1.3.0. Unfortunately, the transition from Vagrant 1.2.7 to Vagrant 1.3.0 for Salt users isn't as simple as uninstalling Vagrant 1.2.7 and installing 1.3.0. Here are the steps I took, after installing Vagrant 1.3.0 to get pillar data to work correctly. I'm running Debian 6 with Ruby 1.9, YMMV:

$ vagrant --version
vagrant v1.3.0

$ vagrant plugin list
vagrant-salt (0.4.0)

$ vagrant up
...
(does not work as expected because vagrant-salt overrides/interferes with the
builtin salt provisioner)
...

$ vagrant plugin uninstall vagrant-salt
Uninstalling the 'vagrant-salt' plugin...

$ vagrant up
...
(vagrant crashes, missing "deep_merge!")
...

$ vagrant plugin install deep_merge
Installing the 'deep_merge' plugin. This can take a few minutes...
Installed the plugin 'deep_merge (1.0.0)'!

$ vagrant up
...
(echos pillar data as expected)
...

[ianheggie]

Still a problem with vagrant 1.3.1, details below:

I had to comment out the salt.pillar line in Vagrant file to stop vagrant plugin install deep_merge crashing, and it did not fix vagrant plugin list from crashing when the pillar line is uncommented.

Removing vagrant-salt did fix vagrant up and vagrant provision showing the expected key value.

Note - tested with latest copy of ubunutu precise (from cloud-images.ubunutu.com) from two days ago.

$ vagrant --version
Vagrant 1.3.1

$ vagrant plugin list
/opt/vagrant/embedded/gems/gems/vagrant-1.3.1/plugins/provisioners/salt/config.rb:78:in `pillar': undefined method `deep_merge!' for {}:Hash (NoMethodError)
     ... etc ...
$ vi Vagrantfile   # commented out salt.pillar line
$ vagrant plugin list
deep_merge (1.0.0)
vagrant-digitalocean (0.3.0)
$ cat Vagrantfile 
# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# vi: set ft=ruby :

# Vagrantfile API/syntax version. Don't touch unless you know what you're doing!
VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = "2"

Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|
  #config.vm.box = "default_precise64"
  #config.vm.box_url = "http://files.vagrantup.com/precise64.box"
  config.vm.box = 'UbuntuCloud_12.04_32bit'
  config.vm.box_url = 'http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/precise/current/precise-server-cloudimg-vagrant-i386-disk1.box'

  config.vm.synced_folder "salt/roots/", "/srv/salt/"
  config.vm.provision :salt do |salt|
    salt.minion_config = "salt/minion"
    salt.verbose = true
    #salt.pillar({"key" => "value"})
    salt.run_highstate = true
  end
end

[bretep]

I am also having the same problem.

[hslewis]

Any updates on this?

[hslewis]

Any update on this?

[clintonb]

Is the correct workaround to simply uninstall the vagrant-salt plugin since it is built into Vagrant 1.3.0 and above? This seems to be working for me.

[gibsonje]

I never had the old salt plugin installed. I'm using a fresh install of vagrant 1.9.2

Pillar data was not being recognized. Nothing I did worked. I installed the deep_merge plugin, and BAM, magically everything is working right.

Seems that the built in salt provisioner is dependent on a plugin that is not installed by default?

[zwiebelspaetzle]

I'm having the same problem on Vagrant 2.2.0.