Saltstack for "configure make install"

I'm getting my feet wet with SaltStack. I've made my first state (a Vim installer with a static configuration) and I'm working on my second one.

Unfortunately, there isn't an Ubuntu package for the application I'd like my state to install. I will have to build the application myself. Is there a "best practice" for doing "configure-make-install" type installations with Salt? Or should I just use cmd?

In particular, if I was doing it by hand, I would do something along the lines of:

wget -c http://example.com/foo-3.4.3.tar.gz
tar xzf foo-3.4.3.tar.gz
cd foo-3.4.3
./configure --prefix=$PREFIX && make && make install

Solution

Let's assume foo-3.4.3.tar.gz is checked into GitHub. Here is an approach that you might pursue in your state file:

git:
  pkg.installed

https://github.com/nomen/foo.git:
  git.latest:
    - rev: master
    - target: /tmp/foo
    - user: nomen
    - require:
      - pkg: git

foo_deployed:
  cmd.run:
    - cwd: /tmp/foo
    - user: nomen
    - name: |
        ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
        make
        make install
    - require:
      - git: https://github.com/nomen/foo.git

Your configuration prefix location could be passed as a salt pillar. If the build process is more complicated, you may consider writing a custom state.