Saltproject IO

Open Hour and Q&A 2025-MAY-15

by Salt Project Team — May 15, 2025

In the open hour this month, the Salt Project Team talked about the recent Salt 3007.2 STS release, the in-progress work to upgrade current Salt releases to use Python 3.11.x in relenv, and more.

Agenda

  • Salt 3007.2 STS released!
  • Upgrading to Python 3.11.x (WIP)
  • Salt Project Security Working Group
  • Salt Project Google Calendar Unavailable
  • Join our Discord Server
  • Q&A

Salt 3007.2 STS released!

  • The latest STS release includes bugfixes addressing 28 issues, in addition to over 60+ updates included from the 3006.10 release
  • Learn more: Salt 3007.2 STS is available

Upgrading to Python 3.11.x (WIP)

  • In order to increase the longevity of Salt v3006.x LTS, work is being done proactively upgrade Python to 3.11 prior to the eventual release of Salt v3008 LTS
  • This update would also be applied to Salt v3007.x STS
  • Salt v3008 LTS is planned to run on Python 3.13.x

Salt Project Google Calendar currently unavailable

  • The current Google calendar used for the Salt Project Community Calendar is borked: https://saltproject.io/calendar/
  • Users will only be able to see Busy blocks for events, without details!
  • Until this is resolved, the community should look at the Discord Events, and click the Interested button on each event that you’d like to be notified about when the event is coming up. Each event series also allows for an export as ics to make use of in calendars.
  • We will notify the community once this issue has been resolved.

Salt Project Security Working Group

The Security Working group is looking for community members to get involved. There’s work we want to do on:

  • Salt features and fixes to improve security
  • Packaging improvements
  • Documentation - updates to existing security docs and new documentation to help users secure Salt

Please join our monthly meeting if you are interested in helping or feel free to stop by if you have anything you want to discuss around Salt and security.

  • Visit the Security Working Group project board on GitHub for in-progress work
  • Visit the #security channel in the Discord for discussions
  • Checkout the monthly event in the Discord for monthly working group details (along with when the next one is currently scheduled for)

Join our Discord server

Join our Discord server at: https://discord.gg/J7b7EscrAs

Discord can also help you know about upcoming Salt events, such as Open Hour and working group meetings:

  • If you express interest, Discord will notify you when an event you are interested in is starting
  • Discord Events mirror the Salt Project Community google calendar
  • Discord Desktop app: Events can be accessed at the very top-left in the Discord server
  • Discord Mobile app: Events can be found by clicking the small calendar icon beneath the Discord Server name

Q&A

Includes questions from the Salt Project Open Hour call, in addition to some questions from the Discord.

Q: Bringing to the attention of core team: salt-runner issues: Since migrating to the non-root user, the salt-master receives a webhook call via the salt-api, salt event calls a reactor to call the salt runners, and the salt runner is not running as root.

Q: Ubuntu and RHEL OS systems have introduced newer ways of managing networking that the Salt team has not kept up with. Are they currently being looked at by the core team?

  • Ubuntu netplan issue: https://github.com/saltstack/salt/issues/62219
  • RHEL 8 (Rocky Linux 8) and newer issue: https://github.com/saltstack/salt/issues/54791
  • The Salt Project Core Team is open to PR contributions from the community. Since these have to do with supported operating systems, and their networking configurations/tooling, these issues are not meant to be resolved with extensions.
  • At the moment, these issues are not currently scheduled for work in upcoming milestones.

Q: Nightly packages - how can a community member install and test a package created by a nightly build?

  • This isn’t currently a straightforward process. The nightly packages are built and available as artifacts within the completed workflow on GitHub, but the packages are visibly hidden in the GitHub UI because the artifact listing for workflows is so large. The nightly packages are currently only available via the API, such as via the tools ts download subcommand of the tools scripts in the salt repository.
  • Issue for documenting nightly build downloads: Need to document the process for downloading/installing nightly package builds

Q: RHEL 10 / Rocky Linux 10 is scheduled for release sometime later this year. Has the current beta been tested with salt?

  • No, we are trying to keep up with Fedora testing though in order to be best prepared for new RHEL / Rocky Linux / AlmaLinux support
  • salt-ci-containers repository: Will update once Rocky Linux 10 is available as a GA container image

RHEL / dnf package management issues that might still be problems in newer Fedora, and potentially upcoming RHEL 10 / Rocky Linux 10:

Q: How can community members get more involved?

  • Join the Community Discord
  • Join the Working Groups (w/ their associated Discord channels: #salt-extensions, #salt-formulas, #security, #macos, #windows)
  • Join the GitHub discussion on Contributing Guide feedback
  • If you are a contributor with an open PR: Rebase all current PR submissions, due to passing CI nightly pipelines. Are your tests passing/green? You can post in the #develop-and-testing Discord channel to see if any other follow-up steps are needed, and if the team can review
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