Using grains in states

Grains are one of the most important features of Salt, based on which we can perform the configuration and orchestration tasks efficiently. Salt offers the flexibility to use the default grains and also to add custom grains as and when required. In this recipe, you will learn how to use grains in state configurations.

How to do it...

Configure a new minion with the hostname or minion ID as stgdc1app01 in the staging environment. In this naming convention, stg is the environment, dc1 is the location, app is the server type, and 01 is a numeric identifier for the host.

1. Run the following command to get a full list of available grains on the minion:

   [root@salt-master ~]# salt 'stgdc1app01' grains.items
   

2. Next, run the following command to get information about two specific grains that we will work with:

   [root@salt-master ~]# salt 'stgdc1app01' grains.item \ ip_interfaces fqdn
   stgdc1app01:
     fqdn: stgdc1app01
     ip_interfaces: {'lo': ['127.0...