1.2 "Right Now" -- release pending
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, see examples/playbooks/upgraded_vars.yml
- can set ansible_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
Modules added:
- rax: module for creating instances in the rackspace cloud (uses pyrax)
- npm: node.js package management
- postgresql_priv: manages postgresql priveledges
- 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.
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