salt: T8973: remove package build due to feature removal - #1221

Additional Context for Salt Package Removal PR Review

Based on my research, here is the relevant context for reviewing this PR:

Deprecation Timeline and Rationale

Salt minion was marked deprecated in task T8056, which aligns with the PR's reference to this task. Integration with Salt (service salt-minion) is deprecated and set to be removed in future VyOS versions — interest in that feature from the community and customers has been consistently low.

While there was no set schedule for removal initially, it was expected that VyOS 1.5 would be the last release to support it. This PR appears to implement that removal for the rolling release branch.

Current Status in VyOS 1.5

The feature was still included in VyOS 1.5.0 GA release, where the integration with Salt (set service salt-minion) is marked as deprecated and will be removed in future VyOS versions due to very low customer demand. This indicates that the PR aligns with the planned roadmap to completely remove Salt support in post-1.5 rolling releases.

Scope of Changes

The PR removes:

• Workflow automation: Salt package rebuild triggers from GitHub Actions workflow
• Architecture configuration: Additional repositories configuration for armhf architecture
• System service configuration: The salt-minion.service disabling step from live build hooks
• Build infrastructure: The entire salt package build script (76 lines removed) and package configuration, affecting the build system's ability to create salt Debian packages

Related Changes

The PR references a related pull request (vyos/vyos-1x#5262) in the vyos-1x repository, which likely contains corresponding configuration code removals in the main VyOS system itself.

Linked repositories findings

ansible/ansible

• lib/ansible/config/ansible_builtin_runtime.yml — plugin routing contains a saltstack entry (plugin_routing.connection.saltstack). Context lines show mapping/redirect entries. [::ansible/ansible::lib/ansible/config/ansible_builtin_runtime.yml:1-40]

• lib/ansible/utils/encrypt.py — multiple uses of the identifier "salt" in password/vault/encryption logic (salt handling, PASSLIB/HAS_CRYPT detection). Relevant for crypt/salt string handling, not Salt the project. [::ansible/ansible::lib/ansible/utils/encrypt.py:1-200]

• lib/ansible/_internal/_encryption/_crypt.py — crypt library/salt generation error handling (crypt_gensalt failure). [::ansible/ansible::lib/ansible/_internal/_encryption/_crypt.py:1-200]

• lib/ansible/executor/playbook_executor.py — references variable named "salt" when getting vars (salt = var.get("salt", None)). [::ansible/ansible::lib/ansible/executor/playbook_executor.py:130-140]

• lib/ansible/parsing/vault/init.py — reads VAULT_ENCRYPT_SALT config (custom_salt). [::ansible/ansible::lib/ansible/parsing/vault/init.py:1100-1180]

• Tests/integration and unit tests:

  • test/integration/targets/cli/setup.yml and other integration tests use password_hash with explicit salt strings or test salt_size behavior. [::ansible/ansible::test/integration/targets/cli/setup.yml:1-40]
  • test/integration/targets/filter_core/tasks/password_hash.yml — tests behavior around salt_size and password_hash. [::ansible/ansible::test/integration/targets/filter_core/tasks/password_hash.yml:1-80]
  • test/integration/targets/lookup_password/tasks/main.yml — asserts that generated password files do not include " salt=" (ensures salt not present in lookup output). [::ansible/ansible::test/integration/targets/lookup_password/tasks/main.yml:1-120]
  • test/units/_internal/_encryption/test_crypt.py — unit tests for crypt and salt generation failure cases. [::ansible/ansible::test/units/_internal/_encryption/test_crypt.py:1-200]

Notes: Matches are mostly about "salt" as a cryptographic/value concept or the plugin name/key "saltstack", not the Salt stack package build removed in the vyos PR. No code referencing Salt package build artifacts or Salt services (e.g., salt-minion.service) was found in this repository search output.