ansible/CHANGELOG.md
Michael DeHaan 2bef84e666 Rebuild docs
2012-10-16 19:14:21 -04:00

19 KiB

Ansible Changes By Release

0.8 "Cathedral" -- release pending

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

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

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

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: False' 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: True 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 seperated with the OS path seperator
  • 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