Feature Request : Add synchronous refreshing methods to saltutil

[JeremieCharest]

Is it possible to add a sync method/parameter for ­­­saltutil:refresh_pillar, saltutil:refresh_grains and all others "refresh_xxx"? Currently the documentation doesn't mention the fact that they are async methods. That create us several mysterious bugs.

salt/saltutil.py

def refresh_pillar():
    try:
        ret = __salt__['event.fire']({}, 'pillar_refresh')
    except KeyError:
        log.error('Event module not available. Module refresh failed.')
        ret = False  # Effectively a no-op, since we can't really return without an event system
    return ret

We were having a few sls that modified pillars, refreshed them and worked on the "updated" values inside modules :

refresh_pillar:
  file.append:
    - name: /srv/salt/base/pillar/dummy.sls
    - text: |
        dummy:
          testProps: {{ [1, 45, 666, 9999, 24234, 45345345] | random }}
    - require:
      - file: write_dummy_pillar
  module.run:
    - name: saltutil.refresh_pillar
    - require:
      - file: refresh_pillar

# this module will print the previous pillar value, not the new one
broken_state_due_to_async_refresh:
  module.run:
    - name: print_pillar.test
    - require:
      - module: refresh_pillar

Do you know a workaround that we could use to obtain real updated values?

[cachedout]

This is an issue that does tend to bite people. I think that one approach here might be to make this pseduo-syncrhronous. Instead of blocking the entire minion during a refresh (which is why it's async to begin with), we could setup a poller inside the refresh call that spins until the refresh is complete before returning. We may need to add some singaling to the loader to facilitate this. It's going to require some further discussion and planning but I do agree this is an issue that needs to be resolved.

[JeremieCharest]

I tried to hack my way around that but I had difficulties to make the minion event listening working. I started from the http://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/event/index.html doc.

salt-call frima_saltutil.refresh_pillar

Exception AttributeError: "'MinionEvent' object has no attribute 'cpub'" in <bound method MinionEvent.__del__ of <salt.utils.event.MinionEvent object at 0x4838c10>> ignored
Passed invalid arguments: __init__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'ioflo_realtime'

frima_saltutil.py

import salt.utils.event

def refresh_pillar():
    minion_event = salt.utils.event.MinionEvent(**__opts__)

    __salt__['saltutil.refresh_pillar']()

    for job_event in minion_event.iter_events(tag='salt/job'):
        if job_event["data"]["func"] == "saltutil.refresh_pillar":
            return job_event["data"]["success"] or False

    return False

[cachedout]

It looks like we will be slating this feature for 2015.5, due out in mid-May.

[eliasp]

This could be the reason for #19417 to happen. No wait, in #19417 saltutil.sync_all is called after fileserver.update - most likely something else then.

[JeremieCharest]

I link #10304 for the event system exception

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

If this issue is closed prematurely, please leave a comment and we will gladly reopen the issue.

[Oloremo]

I really wish synchronous sync will be implemented. I struggling with async races with Salt.

[Oloremo]

@Ch3LL any chance to ressurect this request? Having a synchronous option to these modules will open many great possibilities and remove many race conditions like "I did pillars_refresh - can I already start things or they're not refreshed yet?" And so on

[Oloremo]

KInda related: #50105

[stale[bot]]

Thank you for updating this issue. It is no longer marked as stale.

[Ch3LL]

as you pointed out in that issue this functionality has been added to refreshing modules and pillar, but would be nice to add it across refreshing all different kinds of modules.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

If this issue is closed prematurely, please leave a comment and we will gladly reopen the issue.

[Oloremo]

not stale

[stale[bot]]

Thank you for updating this issue. It is no longer marked as stale.