Managing Transactional Systems

Uyuni identifies transactional systems using the transactional grain reported by the Salt minion. For existing clients, Uyuni requests updated system information when the Salt minion starts. Restart the minion service to trigger this update, and allow time for the server to process the response.

1. Live and transactional operations

Package changes and other operations that run transactionally are staged in a snapshot. The changes become active only after the operating system boots into a snapshot that contains them. A live operation acts on the running system. Live execution does not make a read-only file system writable.

For explicit states and remote commands, select Use transactional update where the option is available to stage the operation transactionally. Leave it unselected to run the operation live. Highstate and formulas use their own transactional handling. For details, see States, Remote Command, and Formulas.

2. Reboot and action progress

Some transactional actions require a reboot to activate changes staged in a snapshot. The action’s progress indicates when a reboot is pending.

  • If the action only performs transactional operations, it can show as Completed while waiting for the reboot.

  • If the action includes subsequent live operations (such as highstate):

    • If a reboot is required, the action remains in progress until you reboot the system. After the system boots into the updated snapshot, Uyuni automatically resumes the live phase.

    • If no changes were made and no reboot is required, Uyuni runs the live phase immediately.

Reboot the operating system when the action indicates that a reboot is pending.

For snapshot information, see Btrfs Snapshots. For action progress, see Events.