saltstack / saltstack/salt

[DOCS] Improve worker_threads documentation

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#60,965 4 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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documentation severity-low time-estimate-sprint
Dominant language
Python
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Description

Description
I'm struggling to get a feel for how to tune the worker_threads value for a multi-syndic/multi-master setup. I'm seeing issues with the syndic processes being able to call fire_master and also not being able to publish results to the master, however our monitoring does not indicate any excess load or CPU utilization on any of the masters. Currently this is set to 4 times the number of cores of the master host. Trying to figure this out be trial and error is quite difficult on a production cluster.

Suggested Fix
Some indication of how this parameter should scale with the number of cores and how to determine whether increasing the number of worker threads is appropriate would be really helpful, the worker_threads parameter isn't even mentioned on your Salt at Scale page.

Type of documentation
Salt documentation

Location or format of documentation
https://docs.saltproject.io/en/latest/ref/configuration/master.html#worker-threads

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 worker_threads section of ref/configuration/master.html and compare it with the Salt at Scale page linked in the issue. Investigate the requested multi-syndic/multi-master context and document how the setting relates to host cores and how operators can tell whether more threads are appropriate. Done means the configuration reference and scale guidance address these questions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

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

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