These are slides from my Salt for Network Engineers talk given at SaltConf18 on Thursday, Sept 13, 2018.

1. Salt for Network Engineers
Andrew Dampf
Network Engineer
Linode

2. About Linode
• Cloud hosting provider
• 9 data centers
• Hundreds of network devices

3. Agenda
• Salt overview (from a networking perspective)
• The Linode netops salt journey
• Making salt accessible to all via chatops

4. NAPALM
• Network Automation and Programmability
Abstraction Layer with Multivendor support
• Abstracts away network vendors via a single
API

5. Same Configuration
Juniper
Arista

6. NAPALM

7. Fully Integrated

8. Salt Overview
salt-master
salt-minion
= server
text = process
salt-minionsalt-minion

9. Salt Overview
salt-master
salt-proxy
server
router
alt-proxy setup instructions: https://ripe74.ripe.net/presentations/18-RIPE-74-Network-automation-at-scale-up-and-running-in-60-minute
NAPALM

10. Salt Overview
salt-master
salt-proxy
salt-minion
router
server
server

11. Remote Execution
Full list of execution modules: https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/modules/all/index.html

12. Configuration Management
Full list of state modules: https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/states/all/index.html

13. Configuration Management

14. Data Cache

15. Orchestration

16. Key Benefits
• Remote execution
• Configuration management
• Data cache (salt mine)
• Orchestration via the event bus and reactors

17. Our Salt Journey
• Leverage your teammates!

18. Our Salt Journey
• Start small

19. Our Salt Journey
• Deploy by region
DC-US-west DC-US-east
= salt-proxy linode
= network gear

20. Sample systemd unit file: https://github.com/napalm-automation/napalm-salt/blob/master/salt-proxy%40.service
Our Salt Journey
• Managing your salt proxy processes to different network devices

21. Our Salt Journey
• External pillar modules

22. Our Salt Journey
• Making use of the event bus
• napalm-logs

23. router

24. Our Salt Journey
Router

25. Our salt journey
Router
Image credit: drpeering.net

26. Our Salt Journey
• http://peeringdb.com

27. Our Salt Journey
Router

28. Our Salt Journey
• Getting your team to use salt

29. Our Salt Journey
Router

30. How it Works
• Errbot - python chatbot - http://errbot.io
• Pepper - library for accessing the salt-api -
https://github.com/saltstack/pepper
• salthelpers - shortcuts for salt commands

33. Why not just use the Slack engine?

34. Salt adopted by our entire team

35. Get Involved!
• https://saltstackcommunity.herokuapp.com/ Channel: #networks
• http://slack.networktocode.com/ Channel: #saltstack

36. Thank you!
• Questions?
• @NetworkAndrew