ansible/CHANGELOG.md

Ansible Changes By Release

1.3 "Top of the World" - Release pending!

Major new features:

• new /etc/ansible/facts.d allows JSON or INI style facts to be provided from the remote node, and supports executable fact programs in this dir. Files must end in *.fact.
• ability to make undefined template variables raise errors, see ansible.cfg

New modules:

• notifications: datadog_event -- send data to datadog
• cloud: digital_ocean -- module for digital ocean provisioning, also includes inventory module
• cloud: rds -- Amazon relational database service
• cloud: linode -- also included, an inventory module
• net_infrastructure: arista_
• system: stat -- reports on stat(istics) of remote files, for use with 'register'
• htpasswd -- manipulate htpasswd files

Misc changes:

• Added OpenRC support (Gentoo) to the service module
• ansible_ssh_user value is available to templates
• added placement_group parameter to ec2 module
• new sha256 parameter to get_url module for validation
• search for mount binaries in system path and sbin vs assuming path
• allowed inventory file to be read from a pipe
• added Solaris distribution facts
• fixed bug along error path in quantum_network module
• user password update mode is controllable in user module now (creation vs every time)
• added check mode support to the OpenBSD package module
• Fix for MySQL 5.6 compatibility
• HP UX virtualization facts
• fixed some executable bits in git
• made rhn_register module compatible with EL5
• fix for setup module epoch time in Solaris
• sudo_user is now expanded later allowing to be set at inventory scope
• mondodb_user module change to also support MongoDB 2.2
• new state=hard option to the file module for hardlinks vs softlinks
• fixes to apt module purging option behavior
• fixes for device facts with multiple PCI domains
• added "with_inventory_hostnames" lookup plugin, which can take a pattern and loop over hostnames matching the pattern and is great for use with delegate_to and so on.
• ec2 module supports adding to multiple security groups
• cloudformation module fix down the error path, removed 'wait_for' parameter
• added --only-if-changed to ansible-pull, which runs only if the repo has changes (not default)
• added 'mandatory', a Jinja2 filter that checks if a variable is defined: {{ foo|mandatory }}
• added support for multiple size formats to the lvol module
• timing reporting on wait_for module now includes the delay time
• IRC module can now send a server password
• "~" now expanded on each component of configured plugin paths
• fix for easy_install module when dealing with virtualenv
• rackspace module now explicitly indicates rackspace vs vanilla openstack
• add_host module does not report changed=True any longer
• explanatory error message when using fireball with sudo message has been improved

1.2 "Right Now" -- June 10, 2013

Core Features:

• capability to set 'all_errors_fatal: True' in a playbook to force any error to stop execution versus a whole group or serial block needing to fail usable, without breaking the ability to override in ansible
• ability to use variables from {{ }} syntax in mainline playbooks, new 'when' conditional, as detailed in documentation. Can disable old style replacements in ansible.cfg if so desired, but are still active by default.
• can set ansible_ssh_private_key_file as an inventory variable (similar to ansible_ssh_host, etc)
• 'when' statement can be affixed to task includes to auto-affix the conditional to each task therein
• cosmetic: "*****" banners in ansible-playbook output are now constant width
• --limit can now be given a filename (--limit @filename) to constrain a run to a host list on disk
• failed playbook runs will create a retry file in /var/tmp/ansible usable with --limit
• roles allow easy arrangement of reusable tasks/handlers/files/templates
• pre_tasks and post_tasks allow for separating tasks into blocks where handlers will fire around them automatically
• "meta: flush_handler" task capability added for when you really need to force handlers to run
• new --start-at-task option to ansible playbook allows starting at a specific task name in a long playbook
• added a log file for ansible/ansible-playbook, set 'log_path' in the configuration file or ANSIBLE_LOG_PATH in environment
• debug mode always outputs debug in playbooks, without needing to specify -v
• external inventory script added for Spacewalk / Red Hat Satellite servers
• It is now possible to feed JSON structures to --extra-vars. Pass in a JSON dictionary/hash to feed in complex data.
• group_vars/ and host_vars/ directories can now be kept alongside the playbook as well as inventory (or both!)
• more filters: ability to say {{ foo|success }} and {{ foo|failed }} and when: foo|success and when: foo|failed
• more filters: {{ path|basename }} and {{ path|dirname }}
• lookup plugins now use the basedir of the file they have included from, avoiding needs of ../../../ in places and increasing the ease at which things can be reorganized.

Modules added:

• cloud: rax: module for creating instances in the rackspace cloud (uses pyrax)
• packages: npm: node.js package management
• packages: pkgng: next-gen package manager for FreeBSD
• packages: redhat_subscription: manage Red Hat subscription usage
• packages: rhn_register: basic RHN registration
• packages: zypper (SuSE)
• database: postgresql_priv: manages postgresql priveledges
• networking: bigip_pool: load balancing with F5s
• networking: ec2_elb: add and remove machines from ec2 elastic load balancers
• notification: hipchat: send notification events to hipchat
• notification: flowdock: send messages to flowdock during playbook runs
• notification: campfire: send messages to campfire during playbook runs
• notification: mqtt: send messages to the Mosquitto message bus
• notification: irc: send messages to IRC channels
• notification: filesystem - a wrapper around mkfs
• notification: jabber: send jabber chat messages
• notification: osx_say: make OS X say things out loud
• openstack: keystone_user
• openstack: glance_image
• openstack: nova_compute
• openstack: nova_keypair
• openstack: quantum_floating_ip
• openstack: quantum_floating_ip_associate
• openstack: quantum_network
• openstack: quantum_router
• openstack: quantum_router_gateway
• openstack: quantum_router_interface
• openstack: quantum_subnet
• monitoring: newrelic_deployment: notifies newrelic of new deployments
• monitoring: airbrake_deployment - notify airbrake of new deployments
• monitoring: pingdom
• monitoring: pagerduty
• monitoring: monit
• utility: set_fact: sets a variable, which can be the result of a template evaluation

Modules removed

• vagrant -- can't be compatible with both versions at once, just run things though the vagrant provisioner in vagrant core

Bugfixes and Misc Changes:

• service module happier if only enabled=yes|no specified and no state
• mysql_db: use --password= instead of -p in dump/import so it doesn't go interactive if no pass set
• when using -c ssh and the ansible user is the current user, don't pass a -o to allow SSH config to be
• overwrite parameter added to the s3 module
• private_ip parameter added to the ec2 module
• $FILE and $PIPE now tolerate unicode
• various plugin loading operations have been made more efficient
• hostname now uses platform.node versus socket.gethostname to be more consistant with Unix 'hostname'
• fix for SELinux operations on Unicode path names
• inventory directory locations now ignore files with .ini extensions, making hybrid inventory easier
• copy module in check-mode now reports back correct changed status when used with force=no
• added avail. zone to ec2 module
• fixes to the hash variable merging logic if so enabled in the main settings file (default is to replace, not merge hashes)
• group_vars and host_vars files can now end in a .yaml or .yml extension, (previously required no extension, still favored)
• ec2vol module improvements
• if the user module is told to generate the ssh key, the key generated is now returned in the results
• misc fixes to the Riak module
• make template module slightly more efficient
• base64encode / decode filters are now available to templates
• libvirt module can now work with multiple different libvirt connecton URIs
• fix for postgresql password escaping
• unicode fix for shlex.split in some cases
• apt module upgrade logic improved
• URI module now can follow redirects
• yum module can now install off http URLs
• sudo password now defaults to ssh password if you ask for both and just hit enter on the second prompt
• validate feature on copy and template module, for example, running visudo prior to copying the file over
• network facts upgraded to return advanced configs (bonding, etc)
• region support added to ec2 module
• riak module gets a wait for ring option
• improved check mode support in the file module
• exception handling added to handle scenario when attempt to log to systemd journal fails
• fix for upstart handling when toggling the enablement and running bits at the same time
• when registering a task with a conditional attached, and the task is skipped by the conditional, the variable is still registered for the host, with the attribute skipped: True.
• delegate_to tasks can look up ansible_ssh_private_key_file variable from inventory correctly now
• s3 module takes a 'dest' parameter to change the destination for uploads
• apt module gets a cache_valid_time option to avoid redundant cache updates
• ec2 module better understands security groups
• fix for postgresql codec usage
• setup module now tolerant of OpenVZ interfaces
• check mode reporting improved for files and directories
• doc system now reports on module requirements
• group_by module can now also make use of globally scoped variables
• localhost and 127.0.0.1 are now fuzzy matched in inventory (are now more or less interchangeable)
• AIX improvements/fixes for users, groups, facts
• lineinfile now does atomic file replacements
• fix to not pass PasswordAuthentication=no in the config file unneccessarily for SSH connection type
• for for authorized_key on Debian Squeeze
• fixes for apt_repository module reporting changed incorrectly on certain repository types
• allow the virtualenv argument to the pip module to be a pathname
• service pattern argument now correctly read for BSD services
• fetch location can now be controlled more directly via the 'flat' parameter.
• added basename and dirname as Jinja2 filters available to all templates
• pip works better when sudoing from unpriveledged users
• fix for user creation with groups specification reporting 'changed' incorrectly in some cases
• fix for some unicode encoding errors in outputing some data in verbose mode
• improved FreeBSD, NetBSD and Solaris facts
• debug module always outputs data without having to specify -v
• fix for sysctl module creating new keys (must specify checks=none)
• NetBSD and OpenBSD support for the user and groups modules
• Add encrypted password support to password lookup

1.1 "Mean Street" -- 4/2/2013

Core Features

• added --check option for "dry run" mode
• added --diff option to show how templates or copied files change, or might change
• --list-tasks for the playbook will list the tasks without running them
• able to set the environment by setting "environment:" as a dictionary on any task (go proxy support!)
• added ansible_ssh_user and ansible_ssh_pass for per-host/group username and password
• jinja2 extensions can now be loaded from the config file
• support for complex arguments to modules (within reason)
• can specify ansible_connection=X to define the connection type in inventory variables
• a new chroot connection type
• module common code now has basic type checking (and casting) capability
• module common now supports a 'no_log' attribute to mark a field as not to be syslogged
• inventory can now point to a directory containing multiple scripts/hosts files, if using this, put group_vars/host_vars directories inside this directory
• added configurable crypt scheme for 'vars_prompt'
• password generating lookup plugin -- $PASSWORD(path/to/save/data/in)
• added --step option to ansible-playbook, works just like Linux interactive startup!

Modules Added:

• bzr (bazaar version control)
• cloudformation
• django-manage
• gem (ruby gems)
• homebrew
• lvg (logical volume groups)
• lvol (LVM logical volumes)
• macports
• mongodb_user
• netscaler
• okg
• openbsd_pkg
• rabbit_mq_plugin
• rabbit_mq_user
• rabbit_mq_vhost
• rabbit_mq_parameter
• rhn_channel
• s3 -- allows putting file contents in buckets for sharing over s3
• uri module -- can get/put/post/etc
• vagrant -- launching VMs with vagrant, this is different from existing vagrant plugin
• zfs

Bugfixes and Misc Changes:

• stderr shown when commands fail to parse
• uses yaml.safe_dump in filter plugins
• authentication Q&A no longer happens before --syntax-check, but after
• ability to get hostvars data for nodes not in the setup cache yet
• SSH timeout now correctly passed to native SSH connection plugin
• raise an error when multiple when_ statements are provided
• --list-hosts applies host limit selections better
• (internals) template engine specifications to use template_ds everywhere
• better error message when your host file can not be found
• end of line comments now work in the inventory file
• directory destinations now work better with remote md5 code
• lookup plugin macros like $FILE and $ENV now work without returning arrays in variable definitions/playbooks
• uses yaml.safe_load everywhere
• able to add EXAMPLES to documentation via EXAMPLES docstring, rather than just in main documentation YAML
• can set ANSIBLE_COW_SELECTION to pick other cowsay types (including random)
• to_nice_yaml and to_nice_json available as Jinja2 filters that indent and sort
• cowsay able to run out of macports (very important!)
• improved logging for fireball mode
• nicer error message when talking to an older system that needs a JSON module installed
• 'magic' variable 'inventory_basedir' now gives path to inventory file
• 'magic' variable 'vars' works like 'hostvars' but gives global scope variables, useful for debugging in templates mostly
• conditionals can be used on plugins like add_host
• developers: all callbacks now have access to a ".runner" and ".playbook", ".play", and ".task" object (use getattr, they may not always be set!)

Facts:

• block device facts for the setup module
• facts for AIX
• fact detection for OS type on Amazon Linux
• device fact gathering stability improvements
• ansible_os_family fact added
• user_id (remote user name)
• a whole series of current time information under the 'datetime' hash
• more OS X facts
• support for detecting Alpine Linux
• added facts for OpenBSD

Module Changes/Fixes:

• ansible module common code (and ONLY that) which is mixed in with modules, is now BSD licensed. App remains GPLv3.
• service code works better on platforms that mix upstart, systemd, and system-v
• service enablement idempotence fixes for systemd and upstart
• service status 4 is also 'not running'
• supervisorctl restart fix
• increased error handling for ec2 module
• can recursively set permissions on directories
• ec2: change to the way AMI tags are handled
• cron module can now also manipulate cron.d files
• virtualenv module can now inherit system site packages (or not)
• lineinfile module now has an insertbefore option
• NetBSD service module support
• fixes to sysctl module where item has multiple values
• AIX support for the user and group modules
• able to specify a different hg repo to pull from than the original set
• add_host module can set ports and other inventory variables
• add_host module can add modules to multiple groups (groups=a,b,c), groups now alias for groupname
• subnet ID can be set on EC2 module
• MySQL module password handling improvements
• added new virtualenv flags to pip and easy_install modules
• various improvements to lineinfile module, now accepts common arguments from file
• force= now replaces thirsty where used before, thirsty remains an alias
• setup module can take a 'filter=' parameter to just return a few facts (not used by playbooks)
• cron module works even if no crontab is present (for cron.d)
• security group ID settable on EC2 module
• misc fixes to sysctl module
• fix to apt module so packages not in cache are still removable
• charset fix to mail module
• postresql db module now does not try to create the 'PUBLIC' user
• SVN module now works correctly with self signed certs
• apt module now has an upgrade parameter (values=yes, no, or 'dist')
• nagios module gets new silence/unsilence commands
• ability to disable proxy usage in get_url (use_proxy=no)
• more OS X facts
• added a 'fail_on_missing' (default no) option to fetch
• added timeout to the uri module (default 30 seconds, adjustable)
• ec2 now has a 'wait' parameter to wait for the instance to be active, eliminates need for separate wait_for call.
• allow regex backreferences in lineinfile
• id attribute on ec2 module can be used to set idempotent-do-not-recreate launches
• icinga support for nagios module
• fix default logins when no my.conf for MySQL module
• option to create users with non-unique UIDs (user module)
• macports module can enable/disable packages
• quotes in my.cnf are stripped by the MySQL modules
• Solaris Service management added
• service module will attempt to auto-add unmanaged chkconfig services when needed
• service module supports systemd service unit files

Plugins:

• added 'with_random_choice' filter plugin
• fixed ~ expansion for fileglob
• with_nested allows for nested loops (see examples in examples/playbooks)

1.0 "Eruption" -- Feb 1 2013

New modules:

• new sysctl module
• new pacman module (Arch linux)
• new apt_key module
• hg module now in core
• new ec2_facts module
• added pkgin module for Joyent SmartOS

New config settings:

• sudo_exe parameter can be set in config to use sudo alternatives
• sudo_flags parameter can alter the flags used with sudo

New playbook/language features:

• added when_failed and when_changed
• task includes can now be of infinite depth
• when_set and when_unset can take more than one var (when_set: $a and $b and $c)
• added the with_sequence lookup plugin
• can override "connection:" on an indvidual task
• parameterized playbook includes can now define complex variables (not just all on one line)
• making inventory variables available for use in vars_files paths
• messages when skipping plays are now more clear
• --extra-vars now has maximum precedence (as intended)

Module fixes and new flags:

• ability to use raw module without python on remote system
• fix for service status checking on Ubuntu
• service module now responds to additional exit code for SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE
• fix for raw module with '-c local'
• various fixes to git module
• ec2 module now reports the public DNS name
• can pass executable= to the raw module to specify alternative shells
• fix for postgres module when user contains a "-"
• added additional template variables -- $template_fullpath and $template_run_date
• raise errors on invalid arguments used with a task include statement
• shell/command module takes a executable= parameter to specify a different shell than /bin/sh
• added return code and error output to the raw module
• added support for @reboot to the cron module
• misc fixes to the pip module
• nagios module can schedule downtime for all services on the host
• various subversion module improvements
• various mail module improvements
• SELinux fix for files created by authorized_key module
• "template override" ??
• get_url module can now send user/password authorization
• ec2 module can now deploy multiple simultaneous instances
• fix for apt_key modules stalling in some situations
• fix to enable Jinja2 {% include %} to work again in template
• ec2 module is now powered by Boto
• setup module can now detect if package manager is using pacman
• fix for yum module with enablerepo in use on EL 6

Core fixes and new behaviors:

• various fixes for variable resolution in playbooks
• fixes for handling of "~" in some paths
• various fixes to DWIM'ing of relative paths
• /bin/ansible now takes a --list-hosts just like ansible-playbook did
• various patterns can now take a regex vs a glob if they start with "~" (need docs on which!) - also /usr/bin/ansible
• allow intersecting host patterns by using "&" ("webservers:!debian:&datacenter1")
• handle tilde shell character for --private-key
• hash merging policy is now selectable in the config file, can choose to override or merge
• environment variables now available for setting all plugin paths (ANSIBLE_CALLBACK_PLUGINS, etc)
• added packaging file for macports (not upstreamed yet)
• hacking/test-module script now uses /usr/bin/env properly
• fixed error formatting for certain classes of playbook syntax errors
• fix for processing returns with large volumes of output

Inventory files/scripts:

• hostname patterns in the inventory file can now use alphabetic ranges
• whitespace is now allowed around group variables in the inventory file
• inventory scripts can now define groups of groups and group vars (need example for docs?)

0.9 "Dreams" -- Nov 30 2012

Highlighted core changes:

• various performance tweaks, ansible executes dramatically less SSH ops per unit of work
• close paramiko SFTP connections less often on copy/template operations (speed increase)
• change the way we use multiprocessing (speed/RAM usage improvements)
• able to set default for asking password & sudo password in config file
• ansible now installs nicely if running inside a virtualenv
• flag to allow SSH connection to move files by scp vs sftp (in config file)
• additional RPM subpackages for easily installing fireball mode deps (server and node)
• group_vars/host_vars now available to ansible, not just playbooks
• native ssh connection type (-c ssh) now supports passwords as well as keys
• ansible-doc program to show details

Other core changes:

• fix for template calls when last character is '$'
• if ansible_python_interpreter is set on a delegated host, it now works as intended
• --limit can now take "," as separator as well as ";" or ":"
• msg is now displaced with newlines when a task fails
• if any with_ plugin has no results in a list (empty list for with_items, etc), the task is now skipped
• various output formatting fixes/improvements
• fix for Xen dom0/domU detection in default facts
• 'ansible_domain' fact now available (ex value: example.com)
• configured remote temp file location is now always used even for root
• 'register'-ed variables are not recorded for skipped hosts (for example, using only_if/when)
• duplicate host records for the same host can no longer result when a host is listed in multiple groups
• ansible-pull now passes --limit to prevent running on multiple hosts when used with generic playbooks
• remote md5sum check fixes for Solaris 10
• ability to configure syslog facility used by remote module calls
• in templating, stray '$' characters are now handled more correctly

Playbook changes:

• relative paths now work for 'first_available_file'
• various templating engine fixes
• 'when' is an easier form of only if
• --list-hosts on the playbook command now supports multiple playbooks on the same command line
• playbook includes can now be parameterized

Module additions:

• (addhost) new module for adding a temporary host record (used for creating new guests)
• (group_by) module allows partitioning hosts based on group data
• (ec2) new module for creating ec2 hosts
• (script) added 'script' module for pushing and running self-deleting remote scripts
• (svr4pkg) solaris svr4pkg module

Module changes:

• (authorized key) module uses temp file now to prevent failure on full disk
• (fetch) now uses the 'slurp' internal code to work as you would expect under sudo'ed accounts
• (fetch) internal usage of md5 sums fixed for BSD
• (get_url) thirsty is no longer required for directory destinations
• (git) various git module improvements/tweaks
• (group) now subclassed for various platforms, includes SunOS support
• (lineinfile) create= option on lineinfile can create the file when it does not exist
• (mysql_db) module takes new grant options
• (postgresql_db) module now takes role_attr_flags
• (service) further upgrades to service module service status reporting
• (service) tweaks to get service module to play nice with BSD style service systems (rc.conf)
• (service) possible to pass additional arguments to services
• (shell) and command module now take an 'executable=' flag for specifying an alternate shell than /bin/sh
• (user) ability to create SSH keys for users when using user module to create users
• (user) atomic replacement of files preserves permissions of original file
• (user) module can create SSH keys
• (user) module now does Solaris and BSD
• (yum) module takes enablerepo= and disablerepo=
• (yum) misc yum module fixing for various corner cases

Plugin changes:

• EC2 inventory script now produces nicer failure message if AWS is down (or similar)
• plugin loading code now more streamlined
• lookup plugins for DNS text records, environment variables, and redis
• added a template lookup plugin $TEMPLATE('filename.j2')
• various tweaks to the EC2 inventory plugin
• jinja2 filters are now pluggable so it's easy to write your own (to_json/etc, are now impl. as such)

0.8 "Cathedral" -- Oct 19, 2012

Highlighted Core Changes:

• fireball mode -- ansible can bootstrap a ephemeral 0mq (zeromq) daemon that runs as a given user and expires after X period of time. It is very fast.
• playbooks with errors now return 2 on failure. 1 indicates a more fatal syntax error. Similar for /usr/bin/ansible
• server side action code (template, etc) are now fully pluggable
• ability to write lookup plugins, like the code powering "with_fileglob" (see below)

Other Core Changes:

• ansible config file can also go in 'ansible.cfg' in cwd in addition to ~/.ansible.cfg and /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
• fix for inventory hosts at API level when hosts spec is a list and not a colon delimited string
• ansible-pull example now sets up logrotate for the ansible-pull cron job log
• negative host matching (!hosts) fixed for external inventory script usage
• internals: os.executable check replaced with utils function so it plays nice on AIX
• Debian packaging now includes ansible-pull manpage
• magic variable 'ansible_ssh_host' can override the hostname (great for usage with tunnels)
• date command usage in build scripts fixed for OS X
• don't use SSH agent with paramiko if a password is specified
• make output be cleaner on multi-line command/shell errors
• /usr/bin/ansible now prints things when tasks are skipped, like when creates= is used with -m command and /usr/bin/ansible
• when trying to async a module that is not a 'normal' asyncable module, ansible will now let you know
• ability to access inventory variables via 'hostvars' for hosts not yet included in any play, using on demand lookups
• merged ansible-plugins, ansible-resources, and ansible-docs into the main project
• you can set ANSIBLE_NOCOWS=1 if you want to disable cowsay if it is installed. Though no one should ever want to do this! Cows are great!
• you can set ANSIBLE_FORCECOLOR=1 to force color mode even when running without a TTY
• fatal errors are now properly colored red.
• skipped messages are now cyan, to differentiate them from unchanged messages.
• extensive documentation upgrades
• delegate_action to localhost (aka local_action) will always use the local connection type

Highlighted playbook changes:

• is_set is available for use inside of an only_if expression: is_set('ansible_eth0'). We intend to further upgrade this with a 'when' keyword providing better options to 'only_if' in the next release. Also is_unset('ansible_eth0')
• playbooks can import playbooks in other directories and then be able to import tasks relative to them
• FILE($path) now allows access of contents of file in a path, very good for use with SSH keys
• similarly PIPE($command) will run a local command and return the results of executing this command
• if all hosts in a play fail, stop the playbook, rather than letting the console log spool on by
• only_if using register variables that are booleans now works in a boolean way like you'd expect
• task includes now work with with_items (such as: include: path/to/wordpress.yml user=$item)
• when using a $list variable with $var or ${var} syntax it will automatically join with commas
• setup is not run more than once when we know it is has already been run in a play that included another play, etc
• can set/override sudo and sudo_user on individual tasks in a play, defaults to what is set in the play if not present
• ability to use with_fileglob to iterate over local file patterns
• templates now use Jinja2's 'trim_blocks=True' to avoid stray newlines, small changes to templates may be required in rare cases.

Other playbook changes:

• to_yaml and from_yaml are available as Jinja2 filters
• $group and $group_names are now accessible in with_items
• where 'stdout' is provided a new 'stdout_lines' variable (type == list) is now generated and usable with with_items
• when local_action is used the transport is automatically overridden to the local type
• output on failed playbook commands is now nicely split for stderr/stdout and syntax errors
• if local_action is not used and delegate_to was 127.0.0.1 or localhost, use local connection regardless
• when running a playbook, and the statement has changed, prints 'changed:' now versus 'ok:' so it is obvious without colored mode
• variables now usable within vars_prompt (just not host/group vars)
• setup facts are now retained across plays (dictionary just gets updated as needed)
• --sudo-user now works with --extra-vars
• fix for multi_line strings with only_if

New Modules:

• ini_file module for manipulating INI files
• new LSB facts (release, distro, etc)
• pause module -- (pause seconds=10) (pause minutes=1) (pause prompt=foo) -- it's an action plugin
• a module for adding entries to the main crontab (though you may still wish to just drop template files into cron.d)
• debug module can be used for outputing messages without using 'shell echo'
• a fail module is now available for causing errors, you might want to use it with only_if to fail in certain conditions

Other module Changes, Upgrades, and Fixes:

• removes= exists on command just like creates=
• postgresql modules now take an optional port= parameter
• /proc/cmdline info is now available in Linux facts
• public host key detection for OS X
• lineinfile module now uses 'search' not exact 'match' in regexes, making it much more intuitive and not needing regex syntax most of the time
• added force=yes|no (default no) option for file module, which allows transition between files to directories and so on
• additional facts for SunOS virtualization
• copy module is now atomic when used across volumes
• url_get module now returns 'dest' with the location of the file saved
• fix for yum module when using local RPMs vs downloading
• cleaner error messages with copy if destination directory does not exist
• setup module now still works if PATH is not set
• service module status now correct for services with 'subsys locked' status
• misc fixes/upgrades to the wait_for module
• git module now expands any "~" in provided destination paths
• ignore stop error code failure for service module with state=restarted, always try to start
• inline documentation for modules allows documentation source to built without pull requests to the ansible-docs project, among other things
• variable '$ansible_managed' is now great to include at the top of your templates and includes useful information and a warning that it will be replaced
• "~" now expanded in command module when using creates/removes
• mysql module can do dumps and imports
• selinux policy is only required if setting to not disabled
• various fixes for yum module when working with packages not in any present repo

0.7 "Panama" -- Sept 6 2012

Module changes:

• login_unix_socket option for mysql user and database modules (see PR #781 for doc notes)
• new modules -- pip, easy_install, apt_repository, supervisorctl
• error handling for setup module when SELinux is in a weird state
• misc yum module fixes
• better changed=True/False detection in user module on older Linux distros
• nicer errors from modules when arguments are not key=value
• backup option on copy (backup=yes), as well as template, assemble, and lineinfile
• file module will not recurse on directory properties
• yum module now workable without having repoquery installed, but doesn't support comparisons or list= if so
• setup module now detects interfaces with aliases
• better handling of VM guest type detection in setup module
• new module boilerplate code to check for mutually required arguments, arguments required together, exclusive args
• add pattern= as a paramter to the service module (for init scripts that don't do status, or do poor status)
• various fixes to mysql & postresql modules
• added a thirsty= option (boolean, default no) to the get_url module to decide to download the file every time or not
• added a wait_for module to poll for ports being open
• added a nagios module for controlling outage windows and alert statuses
• added a seboolean module for getsebool/setsebool type operations
• added a selinux module for controlling overall SELinux policy
• added a subversion module
• added lineinfile for adding and removing lines from basic files
• added facts for ARM-based CPUs
• support for systemd in the service module
• git moduleforce reset behavior is now controllable
• file module can now operate on special files (block devices, etc)

Core changes:

• ansible --version will now give branch/SHA information if running from git
• better sudo permissions when encountering different umasks
• when using paramiko and SFTP is not accessible, do not traceback, but return a nice human readable msg
• use -vvv for extreme debug levels. -v gives more playbook output as before
• -vv shows module arguments to all module calls (and maybe some other things later)
• don not pass "--" to sudo to work on older EL5
• make remote_md5 internal function work with non-bash shells
• allow user to be passed in via --extra-vars (regression)
• add --limit option, which can be used to further confine the pattern given in ansible-playbooks
• adds ranged patterns like dbservers[0-49] for usage with patterns or --limit
• -u and user: defaults to current user, rather than root, override as before
• /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg and ~/ansible.cfg now available to set default values and other things
• (developers) ANSIBLE_KEEP_REMOTE_FILES=1 can be used in debugging (envrionment variable)
• (developers) connection types are now plugins
• (developers) callbacks can now be extended via plugins
• added FreeBSD ports packaging scripts
• check for terminal properties prior to engaging color modes
• explicitly disable password auth with -c ssh, as it is not used anyway

Playbooks:

• YAML syntax errors detected and show where the problem is
• if you ctrl+c a playbook it will not traceback (usually)
• vars_prompt now has encryption options (see examples/playbooks/prompts.yml)
• allow variables in parameterized task include parameters (regression)
• add ability to store the result of any command in a register (see examples/playbooks/register_logic.yml)
• --list-hosts to show what hosts are included in each play of a playbook
• fix a variable ordering issue that could affect vars_files with selective file source lists
• adds 'delegate_to' for a task, which can be used to signal outage windows and load balancers on behalf of hosts
• adds 'serial' to playbook, allowing you to specify how many hosts can be processing a playbook at one time (default 0=all)
• adds 'local_action: ' as an alias to 'delegate_to: 127.0.0.1'

0.6 "Cabo" -- August 6, 2012

playbooks:

• support to tag tasks and includes and use --tags in playbook CLI
• playbooks can now include other playbooks (example/playbooks/nested_playbooks.yml)
• vars_files now usable with with_items, provided file paths don't contain host specific facts
• error reporting if with_items value is unbound
• with_items no longer creates lots of tasks, creates one task that makes multiple calls
• can use host_specific facts inside with_items (see above)
• at the top level of a playbook, set 'gather_facts: no' to skip fact gathering
• first_available_file and with_items used together will now raise an error
• to catch typos, like 'var' for 'vars', playbooks and tasks now yell on invalid parameters
• automatically load (directory_of_inventory_file)/group_vars/groupname and /host_vars/hostname in vars_files
• playbook is now colorized, set ANSIBLE_NOCOLOR=1 if you do not like this, does not colorize if not a TTY
• hostvars now preserved between plays (regression in 0.5 from 0.4), useful for sharing vars in multinode configs
• ignore_errors: yes on a task can be used to allow a task to fail and not stop the play
• with_items with the apt/yum module will install/remove/update everything in a single command

inventory:

• groups variable available as a hash to return the hosts in each group name
• in YAML inventory, hosts can list their groups in inverted order now also (see tests/yaml_hosts)
• YAML inventory is deprecated and will be removed in 0.7
• ec2 inventory script
• support ranges of hosts in the host file, like www[001-100].example.com (supports leading zeros and also not)

modules:

• fetch module now does not fail a system when requesting file paths (ex: logs) that don't exist
• apt module now takes an optional install-recommends=yes|no (default yes)
• fixes to the return codes of the copy module
• copy module takes a remote md5sum to avoid large file transfer
• various user and group module fixes (error handling, etc)
• apt module now takes an optional force parameter
• slightly better psychic service status handling for the service module
• fetch module fixes for SSH connection type
• modules now consistently all take yes/no for boolean parameters (and DWIM on true/false/1/0/y/n/etc)
• setup module no longer saves to disk, template module now only used in playbooks
• setup module no longer needs to run twice per playbook
• apt module now passes DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
• mount module (manages active mounts + fstab)
• setup module fixes if no ipv6 support
• internals: template in common module boilerplate, also causes less SSH operations when used
• git module fixes
• setup module overhaul, more modular
• minor caching logic added to inventory to reduce hammering of inventory scripts.
• MySQL and PostgreSQL modules for user and db management
• vars_prompt now supports private password entry (see examples/playbooks/prompts.yml)
• yum module modified to be more tolerant of plugins spewing random console messages (ex: RHN)

internals:

• when sudoing to root, still use /etc/ansible/setup as the metadata path, as if root
• paramiko is now only imported if needed when running from source checkout
• cowsay support on Ubuntu
• various ssh connection fixes for old Ubuntu clients
• ./hacking/test-module now supports options like ansible takes and has a debugger mode
• sudoing to a user other than root now works more seamlessly (uses /tmp, avoids umask issues)

0.5 "Amsterdam" ------- July 04, 2012

• Service module gets more accurate service states when running with upstart
• Jinja2 usage in playbooks (not templates), reinstated, supports %include directive
• support for --connection ssh (supports Kerberos, bastion hosts, etc), requires ControlMaster
• misc tracebacks replaced with error messages
• various API/internals refactoring
• vars can be built from other variables
• support for exclusion of hosts/groups with "!groupname"
• various changes to support md5 tool differences for FreeBSD nodes & OS X clients
• "unparseable" command output shows in command output for easier debugging
• mktemp is no longer required on remotes (not available on BSD)
• support for older versions of python-apt in the apt module
• a new "assemble" module, for constructing files from pieces of files (inspired by Puppet "fragments" idiom)
• ability to override most default values with ANSIBLE_FOO environment variables
• --module-path parameter can support multiple directories separated with the OS path separator
• with_items can take a variable of type list
• ansible_python_interpreter variable available for systems with more than one Python
• BIOS and VMware "fact" upgrades
• cowsay is used by ansible-playbook if installed to improve output legibility (try installing it)
• authorized_key module
• SELinux facts now sourced from the python selinux library
• removed module debug option -D
• added --verbose, which shows output from successful playbook operations
• print the output of the raw command inside /usr/bin/ansible as with command/shell
• basic setup module support for Solaris
• ./library relative to the playbook is always in path so modules can be included in tarballs with playbooks

0.4 "Unchained" ------- May 23, 2012

Internals/Core

• internal inventory API now more object oriented, parsers decoupled
• async handling improvements
• misc fixes for running ansible on OS X (overlord only)
• sudo improvements, now works much more smoothly
• sudo to a particular user with -U/--sudo-user, or using 'sudo_user: foo' in a playbook
• --private-key CLI option to work with pem files

Inventory

• can use -i host1,host2,host3:port to specify hosts not in inventory (replaces --override-hosts)
• ansible INI style format can do groups of groups [groupname:children] and group vars [groupname:vars]
• groups and users module takes an optional system=yes|no on creation (default no)
• list of hosts in playbooks can be expressed as a YAML list in addition to ; delimited

Playbooks

• variables can be replaced like ${foo.nested_hash_key.nested_subkey[array_index]}
• unicode now ok in templates (assumes utf8)
• able to pass host specifier or group name in to "hosts:" with --extra-vars
• ansible-pull script and example playbook (extreme scaling, remediation)
• inventory_hostname variable available that contains the value of the host as ansible knows it
• variables in the 'all' section can be used to define other variables based on those values
• 'group_names' is now a variable made available to templates
• first_available_file feature, see selective_file_sources.yml in examples/playbooks for info
• --extra-vars="a=2 b=3" etc, now available to inject parameters into playbooks from CLI

Incompatible Changes

• jinja2 is only usable in templates, not playbooks, use $foo instead
• --override-hosts removed, can use -i with comma notation (-i "ahost,bhost")
• modules can no longer include stderr output (paramiko limitation from sudo)

Module Changes

• tweaks to SELinux implementation for file module
• fixes for yum module corner cases on EL5
• file module now correctly returns the mode in octal
• fix for symlink handling in the file module
• service takes an enable=yes|no which works with chkconfig or updates-rc.d as appropriate
• service module works better on Ubuntu
• git module now does resets and such to work more smoothly on updates
• modules all now log to syslog
• enabled=yes|no on a service can be used to toggle chkconfig & updates-rc.d states
• git module supports branch=
• service fixes to better detect status using return codes of the service script
• custom facts provided by the setup module mean no dependency on Ruby, facter, or ohai
• service now has a state=reloaded
• raw module for bootstrapping and talking to routers w/o Python, etc

Misc Bugfixes

• fixes for variable parsing in only_if lines
• misc fixes to key=value parsing
• variables with mixed case now legal
• fix to internals of hacking/test-module development script

0.3 "Baluchitherium" -- April 23, 2012

• Packaging for Debian, Gentoo, and Arch
• Improvements to the apt and yum modules
• A virt module
• SELinux support for the file module
• Ability to use facts from other systems in templates (aka exported resources like support)
• Built in Ansible facts so you don't need ohai, facter, or Ruby
• tempdir selections that work with noexec mounted /tmp
• templates happen locally, not remotely, so no dependency on python-jinja2 for remote computers
• advanced inventory format in YAML allows more control over variables per host and per group
• variables in playbooks can be structured/nested versus just a flat namespace
• manpage upgrades (docs)
• various bugfixes
• can specify a default --user for playbooks rather than specifying it in the playbook file
• able to specify ansible port in ansible host file (see docs)
• refactored Inventory API to make it easier to write scripts using Ansible
• looping capability for playbooks (with_items)
• support for using sudo with a password
• module arguments can be unicode
• A local connection type, --connection=local, for use with cron or in kickstarts
• better module debugging with -D
• fetch module for pulling in files from remote hosts
• command task supports creates=foo for idempotent semantics, won't run if file foo already exists

0.0.2 and 0.0.1

• Initial stages of project