Windows Software Repository

The Salt Windows Software Repository provides a package manager and software repository similar to what is provided by yum and apt on Linux.

By default, the Windows software repository is found at /srv/salt/win/repo Each piece of software should have its own directory which contains the installers and a package definition file. This package definition file is a yaml file named init.sls.

The package definition file should look similar to this example for Firefox: /srv/salt/win/repo/firefox/init.sls

firefox:
  17.0.1:
    installer: 'salt://win/repo/firefox/English/Firefox Setup 17.0.1.exe'
    full_name: Mozilla Firefox 17.0.1 (x86 en-US)
    locale: en_US
    reboot: False
    install_flags: ' -ms'
    uninstaller: '%ProgramFiles(x86)%/Mozilla Firefox/uninstall/helper.exe'
    uninstall_flags: ' /S'
  16.0.2:
    installer: 'salt://win/repo/firefox/English/Firefox Setup 16.0.2.exe'
    full_name: Mozilla Firefox 16.0.2 (x86 en-US)
    locale: en_US
    reboot: False
    install_flags: ' -ms'
    uninstaller: '%ProgramFiles(x86)%/Mozilla Firefox/uninstall/helper.exe'
    uninstall_flags: ' /S'
  15.0.1:
    installer: 'salt://win/repo/firefox/English/Firefox Setup 15.0.1.exe'
    full_name: Mozilla Firefox 15.0.1 (x86 en-US)
    locale: en_US
    reboot: False
    install_flags: ' -ms'
    uninstaller: '%ProgramFiles(x86)%/Mozilla Firefox/uninstall/helper.exe'
    uninstall_flags: ' /S'

Generate Repo Cache File

Once the sls file has been created, generate the repository cache file with the winrepo runner:

$ salt-run winrepo.genrepo

Then update the repository cache file on your minions, exactly how it's done for the Linux package managers:

$ salt \* pkg.refresh_db

Install Windows Software

Now you can query the available version of Firefox using the Salt pkg module.

$ salt \* pkg.available_version firefox

{'davewindows': {'15.0.1': 'Mozilla Firefox 15.0.1 (x86 en-US)',
                 '16.0.2': 'Mozilla Firefox 16.0.2 (x86 en-US)',
                 '17.0.1': 'Mozilla Firefox 17.0.1 (x86 en-US)'}}

As you can see, there are three versions of Firefox available for installation.

$ salt \* pkg.install firefox

The above line will install the latest version of firefox.

$ salt \* pkg.install firefox version=16.0.2

The above line will install version 16.0.2 of Firefox.

This first release requires you uninstall an application and then install a newer version in order to accomplish an upgrade. This will be fixed very soon.

Uninstall Windows Software

Uninstall software using the pkg module:

$ salt \* pkg.remove firefox

Git Hosted Repo

Windows software package definitions can also be hosted in one or more git repositories. The default repo is one hosted on Github.com by SaltStack, which includes package definitions for open source software. This repo points to the http or ftp locations of the installer files. Anyone is welcome to send a pull request to this repo to add new package definitions. Browse the repo here: https://github.com/saltstack/salt-winrepo .

Configure which git repos the master can search for package definitions by modifying or extending the win_gitrepos configuration option list in the master config.

Checkout each git repo in win_gitrepos, compile your package repository cache, and then refresh each minion's package cache:

$ salt-run winrepo.update_git_repos
$ salt-run winrepo.genrepo
$ salt \* pkg.refresh_db