A Salt Configuration for C++ Development

Give Me an Editor and a DVCS

Quite simple: I use the YAML file format used by Salt to describe what I want. To install these two editors, I just need to write:

vim-nox:
  pkg.installed

emacs23-nox:
  pkg.installed

For Mercurial, you'll guess:

mercurial:
 pkg.installed

You can write these lines in the same init.sls file, but you can also decide to split your configuration into different subdirectories: one place for each thing. I decided to create a dev and editor directories at the root of my salt config with two init.sls inside.

That's all for the editors. Next step: specific C++ development packages.

Install Several "C++" Packages

In a cpp folder, I write a file init.sls with this content:

gcc:
    pkg.installed

g++:
    pkg.installed

gdb:
    pkg.installed

cmake:
    pkg.installed

automake:
    pkg.installed

libtool:
    pkg.installed

pkg-config:
    pkg.installed

colorgcc:
    pkg.installed

The choice of these packages is arbitrary. You add or remove some as you need. There is not a unique right solution. But I want more. I want some LLVM packages. In a cpp/llvm.sls, I write:

llvm:
 pkg.installed

clang:
    pkg.installed

libclang-dev:
    pkg.installed

{% if not grains['oscodename'] == 'wheezy' %}
lldb-3.3:
    pkg.installed
{% endif %}

The last line specifies that you install the lldb package if your Debian release is not the stable one, i.e. jessie/testing or sid in my case. Now, just include this file in the init.sls one:

# ...
# at the end of 'cpp/init.sls'
include:
  - .llvm

Organize your sls files according to your needs. That's all for packages installation. You Salt configuration now looks like this:

.
|-- cpp
|   |-- init.sls
|   `-- llvm.sls
|-- dev
|   `-- init.sls
|-- edit
|   `-- init.sls
`-- top.sls

Launching Salt

Start your VM and install a masterless Salt on it (e.g. apt-get install salt-minion). For launching Salt locally on your naked VM, you need to copy your configuration (through scp or a DVCS) into /srv/salt/ directory and to write the file top.sls:

base:
  '*':
    - dev
    - edit
    - cpp

Then just launch:

> salt-call --local state.highstate

as root.

And What About Configuration Files?

You're right. At the beginning of the post, I talked about a "ready to use" Mercurial with some HG extensions. So I use and copy the default /etc/mercurial/hgrc.d/hgext.rc file into the dev directory of my Salt configuration. Then, I edit it to set some extensions such as color, rebase, pager. As I also need Evolve, I have to clone the source code from https://bitbucket.org/marmoute/mutable-history. With Salt, I can tell "clone this repo and copy this file" to specific places.

So, I add some lines to dev/init.sls.

https://bitbucket.org/marmoute/mutable-history:
    hg.latest:
      - rev: tip
      - target: /opt/local/mutable-history
      - require:
         - pkg: mercurial

/etc/mercurial/hgrc.d/hgext.rc:
    file.managed:
      - source: salt://dev/hgext.rc
      - user: root
      - group: root
      - mode: 644

The require keyword means "install (if necessary) this target before cloning". The other lines are quite self-explanatory.

In the end, you have just six files with a few lines. Your configuration now looks like:

.
|-- cpp
|   |-- init.sls
|   `-- llvm.sls
|-- dev
|   |-- hgext.rc
|   `-- init.sls
|-- edit
|   `-- init.sls
`-- top.sls

You can customize it and share it with your teammates. A step further would be to add some configuration files for your favorite editor. You can also imagine to install extra packages that your library depends on. Quite simply add a subdirectory amazing_lib and write your own init.sls. I know I often need Boost libraries for example. When your Salt configuration has changed, just type: salt-call --local state.highstate.

As you can see, setting up your environment on a fresh system will take you only a couple commands at the shell before you are ready to compile your C++ library, debug it, fix it and commit your modifications to your repository.