Writing and retrieving pillar data

We already have a basic understanding of what pillars are and how to use them in Salt. In this section, we are going to learn more about writing pillars and how to retrieve them both from the master and the minion.

How to do it...

1. Create a new environment qa using the recipe Configuring the Salt environment and pillar paths in Chapter 1, Salt Architecture and Components. The state environment path should be /opt/salt-cookbook/qa, and the pillar path should be /opt/salt-cookbook/pillar/qa. Also, create the top files for the new environment in the base directory for state and the pillar, and populate them with the following entry:

   qa:
     '*':
       - user

2. Create a pillar directory user in the base pillar directory, and in it create the file init.sls. Edit /opt/salt-cookbook/pillar/qa/user/init.sls and enter the following:

   users:
     qa_user: qa-app
     qa_user_password: '$1$lhxadPoh$d5tZktsF/eI08tqiwmwBo0'

3. Configure the minion using the recipe Configuring environments...