saltstack / saltstack/salt

Handling master's key change on minion - re-authentication to master

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Question
Dominant language
Python
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Description

Description of Issue/Question

What is the proper way to re-auth minion to upgraded master (master which got its keys changed)?
I have limited access to minions, some of them are Windows minions

Setup

Regular salt master - minion setup

Steps to Reproduce Issue
  1. stop salt-master
  2. generate new master keys salt-key --gen-keys master
  3. put keys to /etc/salt/pki/master
  4. start salt-master

It doesn't matter if you previously deleted minion from master via salt-key -d
As long the minion keeps master's key somewhere in salt/pki/minion/minion_master.pub it seems that changing keys on master is unsupported. Am I right?

This is a problem for me because I have salt master deployed in container
Sometimes I want to upgrade salt by simply replacing the container

Is the only solution to manually remove minion_master.pub from minion?
Maybe there is some configuration option on minion to relax this requirement?

Versions Report

any version afair

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the salt-key workflow and the minion handling of salt/pki/minion/minion_master.pub. Trace how a minion validates the master's key after the master keys are regenerated, including the Windows-minion path if covered. Done means the supported re-authentication behavior or configuration option is defined and verified for the described key-rotation sequence.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
authentication, infrastructure
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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