Arch Linux

Can you provide the output of your /var/log/salt/master log file around the time when starting.

Be sure to sanitize anything that may be sensitive.

so I run systemctl start salt-master and it just hangs. While it hangs, in another terminal window, I run systemctl status salt-master, I see

[root@clamps ~]# systemctl status salt-master
● salt-master.service - The Salt Master Server
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/salt-master.service; enabled)
Active: activating (start) since Mon 2014-12-01 16:15:27 PST; 55s ago
Main PID: 9575 (salt-master)
CGroup: /system.slice/salt-master.service
├─9575 /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/salt-master
├─9578 /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/salt-master
├─9579 /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/salt-master
├─9580 /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/salt-master
├─9581 /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/salt-master
├─9582 /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/salt-master
└─9583 /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/salt-master
[root@clamps ~]#

Once finally fails with:
[root@clamps ~]# systemctl start salt-master
Job for salt-master.service failed. See "systemctl status salt-master.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

I run status, it shows

[root@clamps ~]# systemctl status salt-master
● salt-master.service - The Salt Master Server
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/salt-master.service; enabled)
Active: failed (Result: timeout) since Mon 2014-12-01 16:16:57 PST; 30s ago
Process: 9575 ExecStart=/usr/bin/salt-master (code=killed, signal=TERM)
Main PID: 9575 (code=killed, signal=TERM)

Dec 01 16:16:57 clamps systemd[1]: salt-master.service start operation time...g.
Dec 01 16:16:57 clamps systemd[1]: Failed to start The Salt Master Server.
Dec 01 16:16:57 clamps systemd[1]: Unit salt-master.service entered failed ...e.
Dec 01 16:16:57 clamps systemd[1]: salt-master.service failed.
Hint: Some lines were ellipsized, use -l to show in full.
[root@clamps ~]#

journalctl shows:
Dec 01 16:16:57 clamps systemd[1]: salt-master.service start operation timed out. Terminating.
Dec 01 16:16:57 clamps systemd[1]: Failed to start The Salt Master Server.
Dec 01 16:16:57 clamps systemd[1]: Unit salt-master.service entered failed state.
Dec 01 16:16:57 clamps systemd[1]: salt-master.service failed.

journalctl -xe shows:
Dec 01 16:16:57 clamps systemd[1]: salt-master.service start operation timed out
Dec 01 16:16:57 clamps systemd[1]: Failed to start The Salt Master Server.
-- Subject: Unit salt-master.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
--
-- Unit salt-master.service has failed.
--
-- The result is failed.
Dec 01 16:16:57 clamps systemd[1]: Unit salt-master.service entered failed state
Dec 01 16:16:57 clamps systemd[1]: salt-master.service failed.

Master log doesn't show anything at all when run via systemctl.

When run by hand via salt-master -l debug, it shows plenty of information, but nothing pertinent.

It sounds like it isn't sending the systemd.daemon.notify correctly.

We had a long discussion about this. I am going to have to follow up with how they changed the threading process system for the raet stuff, cause it was located elsewhere. But I bet that is what it is.

In the mean time, you can drop

/etc/systemd/system/salt-master.service.d/forking.conf
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/bin/salt-master -d
Type=forking
PIDFile=/var/run/salt-master.pid

I will have to follow up with Tom on why https://github.com/saltstack/salt/pull/16163 doesn't fix this.

This is a blocker for 2015.2
https://github.com/saltstack/salt/issues/20531