[BUG] mysql_user.present won't work on Debian12 with MariaDB 11.10 OOTB as installation of salt-pip's mysqlclient fails due to missing dependencies

Description
I have a Debian12 with salt installed by following this guide (but I also tried with bootstrap and it failed too) and MariaDB 10.11 installed using the following repo (in salt state language):

install MariaDB's 10.11 repo:
  pkgrepo.managed:
    - humanname: MariaDB 10.11
    - name: deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/mariadb.gpg]  http://mirror.mariadb.org/repo/10.11/debian/ bookworm main
    - dist: bookworm
    - file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mariadb.list
    - gpgcheck: 1
    - key_url: http://mirror.mariadb.org/PublicKey_v2
    - aptkey: False

Install MariaDB server and client:
  pkg.installed:
    - names:
      - mariadb-server
      - mariadb-client
    - require:
      - pkgrepo: install MariaDB's 10.11 repo

when I tried to use the mysql_present module like so:

add mysql test user:
  mysql_user.present:
    - name: test
    - host: localhost

it failed with:

# salt 'test2' state.apply states.mysql.test
test2:
----------
          ID: add mysql test user
    Function: mysql_user.present
        Name: test
      Result: False
     Comment: State 'mysql_user.present' was not found in SLS 'states.mysql.test'
              Reason: 'mysql_user' __virtual__ returned False: mysql module could not be loaded
     Changes:

After a lot of debugging/googling, I realised that salt minion pip's mysqlclient was missing. I tried to install it manually and got (removed most output to save space):

# salt-pip install mysqlclient
Collecting mysqlclient
...
    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-8g8j3ryq/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/build_meta.py", line 320, in run_setup
      exec(code, locals())
    File "<string>", line 156, in <module>
    File "<string>", line 49, in get_config_posix
    File "<string>", line 28, in find_package_name
  Exception: Can not find valid pkg-config name.
  Specify MYSQLCLIENT_CFLAGS and MYSQLCLIENT_LDFLAGS env vars manually
  [end of output]

  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
error: subprocess-exited-with-error

Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully.
exit code: 1

See above for output.

note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.

[notice] A new release of pip is available: 23.3.2 -> 25.0.1
[notice] To update, run: /opt/saltstack/salt/bin/python3.10 -m pip install --upgrade pip
root@test2:~#

After a lot of googling about potential missing dependencies, I had to first install the following:

• libmariadb-dev
• build-essential
• pkg-config

and then everything worked as expected.

Setup

• I've included everything in the description section, what I want to add (without affecting the result) is that the master is running on SmartOS and is running 3006.7nb1.
• as explained, both MariaDB and Salt on the minion are installed NOT with the default system's packages
• The minion is running on a Debian12 image within a Bhyve VM on a SmartOS host (image_uuid: 3089fa2a-ee6e-44e5-aeb2-2cb985f9eb61 , version: 20250123).

Please be as specific as possible and give set-up details.

• on-prem machine
• VM (Virtualbox, KVM, etc. please specify)
• VM running on a cloud service, please be explicit and add details
• container (Kubernetes, Docker, containerd, etc. please specify)
• or a combination, please be explicit
• jails if it is FreeBSD
• classic packaging
• onedir packaging
• used bootstrap to install

Steps to Reproduce the behavior
Everything is explained in the Description section. To summarise, install MariaDB 10.11 on the minion:

• sudo apt install dirmngr ca-certificates software-properties-common apt-transport-https curl –y
• curl -fsSL http://mirror.mariadb.org/PublicKey_v2 | gpg --dearmor | tee /usr/share/keyrings/mariadb.gpg > /dev/null
• echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/mariadb.gpg] http://mirror.mariadb.org/repo/10.11/debian/ $(lsb_release -cs) main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mariadb.list
• apt update
• apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client
• mysql_secure_installation
• mariadb-upgrade
• systemctl enable mariadb

Install salt on the minion (following [salt's guide](https://docs.saltproject.io/salt/install-guide/en/latest/topics/install-by-operating-system/linux-deb.html)):

• mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
• curl -fsSL https://packages.broadcom.com/artifactory/api/security/keypair/SaltProjectKey/public | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/salt-archive-keyring.pgp
• curl -fsSL https://github.com/saltstack/salt-install-guide/releases/latest/download/salt.sources | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/salt.sources
• apt update
• echo 'Package: salt-*
  Pin: version 3006.*
  Pin-Priority: 1001' | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/salt-pin-1001
• apt-get install salt-minion
• apt-mark hold salt-minion # not necessary
• systemctl enable salt-minion && systemctl start salt-minion

Then, configure your minion to communicate with the master and add the following state to the master:

add mysql test user:
  mysql_user.present:
    - name: test
    - host: localhost

and then send that state to the minion, to see this:

# salt 'test2' state.apply states.mysql.test
test2:
----------
          ID: add mysql test user
    Function: mysql_user.present
        Name: test
      Result: False
     Comment: State 'mysql_user.present' was not found in SLS 'states.mysql.test'
              Reason: 'mysql_user' __virtual__ returned False: mysql module could not be loaded
     Changes:

Summary for test2
------------
Succeeded: 0
Failed:    1
------------
Total states run:     1
Total run time:   0.000 ms
ERROR: Minions returned with non-zero exit code
[root@salt-master /var/salt/file-roots/states/mysql]#

Expected behavior
Ideally I would have expected the mysql_user state to have worked OOTB, but I understand that there's a dependency on MySQL, so I would have expected salt-docs to explain how/what to install as a dependency on some known distros. The docs are mentioning MySQLdb python module, I'm not even sure if I evntually installed that dependency for it to work. And as IIUC salt uses its own python env, some reference to some guide on installing dependencies with salt-pip would help too.

If it was for a less known service, I wouldn't have bothered writing this issue, but this is for MariaDB on a Debian system, so I think people expect this configuration to run smoothly.

Screenshots
If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

Versions Report
AFTER having installed mysqlclient

PASTE HERE

Start with the mysql_user state and its virtual dependency check, then review the salt-pip installation guidance and the salt.states.mysql_grants documentation mentioned in the report. Reproduce the failure on Debian 12 with MariaDB 10.11 using the supplied installation steps. Done means the dependency requirements and supported installation path are documented or the OOTB failure is resolved, with the mysql_user state loading successfully.