Requisites

The Salt requisite system is used to create relationships between states. The core idea being, that when one state it dependent somehow on another that interdependency can be easily defined.

Requisites come in two types. Direct requisites, and requisite_ins. The relationships are directional, so a requisite statement makes the requiring state declaration depend on the required state declaration:

vim:
  pkg.installed

/etc/vimrc:
  file.managed:
    - source: salt://edit/vimrc
    - require:
      - pkg: vim

So in this example, the file /etc/vimrc depends on the vim package.

Requisite_in statements are the opposite, instead of saying "I depend on something", requisite_ins say "Someone depends on me":

vim:
  pkg.installed:
    - require_in:
      - file: /etc/vimrc

/etc/vimrc:
  file.managed:
    - source: salt://edit/vimrc

So here, with a requisite_in, the same thing is accomplished, but just from the other way around. The vim package is saying "/etc/vimrc depends on me".

In the end a single dependency map is created and everything is executed in a finite and predictable order.

Note

Requisite matching

Requisites match on both the ID Declaration and the name parameter. This means that in the example above, the require_in requisite would also have been matched if the /etc/vimrc state was written as follows:

vimrc:
  file.managed:
    - name: /etc/vimrc
    - source: salt://edit/vimrc

Requisite and Requisite in types

There are three requisite statements that can be used in Salt. the require, watch and use requisites. Each requisite also has a corresponding requisite_in: require_in, watch_in and use_in. All of the requisites define specific relationships and always work with the dependency logic defined above.

Require

The most basic requisite statement is require. The behavior of require is simple. Make sure that the dependent state is executed before the depending state, and it the dependent state fails, don't run the depending state. So in the above examples the file /etc/vimrc will only be applied after the vim package is installed and only if the vim package is installed successfully.

Watch

The watch statement does everything the require statement does, but with a little more. The watch statement looks into the state modules for a function called mod_watch. If this function is not available in the corresponding state module, then watch does the same thing as require. If the mod_watch function is in the state module, then the watched state is checked to see if it made any changes to the system, if it has, then mod_watch is called.

Perhaps the best example of using watch is with a service, when a service watches other states, then when the other states make changes on the system the service is reloaded or restarted.

Use

The use requisite is used to inherit the arguments passed in another id declaration. This is useful when many files need to have the same defaults.

The use statement was developed primarily for the networking states but can be used on any states in Salt. This made sense for the networking state because it can define a long list of options that need to be applied to multiple network interfaces.

Require In

The require_in requisite is the literal reverse of require. If a state declaration needs to be required by another state declaration then require_in can accommodate it, so these two sls files would be the same in the end:

Using require

httpd:
  pkg:
    - installed
  service:
    - running
    - require:
      - pkg: httpd

Using require_in

httpd:
  pkg:
    - installed
    - require_in:
      - service: httpd
  service:
    - running

The require_in statement is particularly useful when assigning a require in a sperate sls file. For instance it may be common for httpd to require components used to set up php or mod_python, but the http state does not need to be aware of the additional components that require it when it is set up:

http.sls

httpd:
  pkg:
    - installed
  service:
    - running
    - require:
      - pkg: httpd

php.sls

include:
  - http

php:
  pkg:
    - installed
    - require_in:
      - service: httpd

mod_python.sls

include:
  - http

mod_python:
  pkg:
    - installed
    - require_in:
      - service: httpd

Now the httpd server will only start if php or mod_python are first verified to be installed. Thus allowing for a requisite to be defined "after the fact".

Watch In

Watch in functions the same was as require in, but applies a watch statement rather than a require statement to the external state declaration.