Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Release Notes

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.3

New features, enhancements, and bug fix information

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Abstract

A summary of new features, enhancements, and bug fix information for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

Making open source more inclusive

Red Hat is committed to replacing problematic language in our code, documentation, and web properties. We are beginning with these four terms: master, slave, blacklist, and whitelist. Because of the enormity of this endeavor, these changes will be implemented gradually over several upcoming releases. For more details, see our CTO Chris Wright’s message.

Chapter 1. Overview

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform simplifies the development and operation of automation workloads for managing enterprise application infrastructure lifecycles. It works across multiple IT domains including operations, networking, security, and development, as well as across diverse hybrid environments. Simple to adopt, use, and understand, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform provides the tools needed to rapidly implement enterprise-wide automation, no matter where you are in your automation journey.

1.1. What’s included in Ansible Automation Platform

Ansible Automation PlatformAutomation controllerAutomation hubAutomation services catalogInsights for Ansible Automation Platform

2.3

4.3

  • 4.6
  • hosted service
  • 1.0 Private (Technology Preview)
  • hosted service (Retired)

hosted service

1.2. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform life cycle

Red Hat publishes a product life cycle page that identifies the levels of maintenance for each Ansible Automation Platform release. Refer to Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Life Cycle.

1.3. Upgrading Ansible Automation platform

Use installer to perform upgrades to maintenance versions of Ansible Automation Platform. The installer performs all necessary actions required to upgrade to the latest versions of Ansible Automation Platform, including Ansible Tower and Private Automation Hub.

Important

Do not use yum update to run upgrades. Use installer instead.

Additional resources

Chapter 2. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.3

This release includes a number of enhancements, additions, and fixes that have been implemented in the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

2.1. Ansible Automation Platform 2.3

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform simplifies the development and operation of automation workloads for managing enterprise application infrastructure lifecycles. It works across multiple IT domains including operations, networking, security, and development, as well as across diverse hybrid environments. Simple to adopt, use, and understand, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform provides the tools needed to rapidly implement enterprise-wide automation, no matter where you are in your automation journey.

2.1.1. Enhancements

  • Fixed a race condition where the UI would not properly populate upon launch.
  • Fixed an issue where puppet managed files are not handled properly by the set-up script.
  • Fixed an issue where self-signed certs were being recreated on every run of setup.sh.
  • Added an option for execution environment images to be pulled from Hub only.
  • Fixed an issue where the bundled installer was failing when DNF was trying to fetch gpg keys remotely.
  • Upgraded pulp_installer to 3.20.5+ .
  • Implemented sidecar documentation to allow easy documentation of filter and test plugins, as well as documentation for non-python modules without requiring a .py file for documentation.
  • Migrated display for stdout and stderr from the display class to proxy over the queue for dispatch in the main process to improve reliability of displaying information to the terminal.
  • Moved handler processing into the configured strategy, so that handlers operate within the configured strategy, instead of using a non-configurable linear like execution of handlers.
  • Updated internal FieldAttribute classes to act as Python data descriptors to reduce code complexity and use of metaclasses.
  • Fixed an issue when ansible-runner was not properly removed from hybrid nodes when upgrading to Ansible Automation Platform 2.2.

2.1.2. Technology preview features

Some features in this release are currently classified as Technology Preview. Technology Preview features provide early access to upcoming product features, enabling customers to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process. Note that Red Hat does not recommend using technology preview features for production, and Red Hat SLAs do not support technology preview functions.

The following are the technology preview features:

  • Added the ability to use external execution nodes when running Ansible Automation Platform as a managed service in Azure.
  • Added the ability to use external execution nodes when running the Ansible Automation Platform Operator in Openshift.

Other noteworthy developer tooling updates include the following:

  • Added new pre-flight checks to ansible-core CLI start up to enforce assumptions made about handling display and text encoding.
  • Added official support for Python 3.11 to ansible-core CLIs and target node execution.
  • Dropped Python 3.8 support for ansible-core CLIs and controller side code.
  • Added lint profile support for content pipelines.

Additional resources

2.2. Automation Hub

Automation Hub allows you to discover and utilize new certified automation content from Red Hat Ansible and Certified Partners. On Ansible Automation Hub, you can discover and manage Ansible Collections, which is supported automation content developed by both partners and Red Hat for use cases such as cloud automation, network automation, security automation, and more.

2.2.1. Enhancements

  • Adopted the new pulp RBAC system.
  • Added a configurable automatic logout time. Set a minimum password length for internal users.
  • Added the capability to configure LDAP with private automation hub.
  • Added visibility for execution environments created by ansible-builder in the automation hub UI.
  • Fixed an error when navigating to a non-existent group URL.
  • Fixed an issue where roles could not be created through the UI.
  • Fixed an issue with Hub installation during the collect static content task.
  • Fixed an issue when a 500 error would populate when listing roles on a group.
  • Fixed an issue when imports contained more than 100 namespaces.
  • Fixed an issue where filters were not working correctly when searching for execution environments.
  • Fixed an issue where certified content would display incorrectly in private automation hub when synced.
  • Fixed an issue where group_admin users could not view groups.
  • Fixed an issue where pressing the enter key would reload a form instead of submitting.
  • Fixed an issue with broken links on community collection dependencies.
  • Fixed an issue with roles not showing up on a group access page.
  • Fixed some issues with how roles were displayed on the groups page.
  • Updated so that only admins can change the superuser status on users.
  • Updated so that the screen no longer hangs when attempting to edit a group with unknown permissions.
  • Updated the installer to use a custom repo that automation hub will add to show validated content.
  • Updated the pulp_ansible package to 0.15.x.
  • Updated the pulp_container package to 2.14.
  • Upgraded pulpcore to 3.21.x.
  • Fixed problem in which the released date for collections in private automation hub was the same as the released date for that collection and its versions in the console.redhat.com automation hub.
  • Deprecated the pulp_firewalld_zone parameter, replacing it with the automationhub_firewalld_zone parameter.

2.3. Automation Controller

Automation controller replaces Ansible Tower. Automation controller introduces a distributed, modular architecture with a decoupled control and execution plane. The name change reflects these enhancements and the overall position within the Ansible Automation Platform suite.

Automation controller provides a standardized way to define, operate and delegate automation across the enterprise. It also introduces new, exciting technologies and an enhanced architecture that enables automation teams to scale and deliver automation rapidly to meet ever-growing business demand.

2.3.1. Enhancements

  • Fixed the Ansible Galaxy Credential to no longer be automatically created or added to organizations after removing it manually.
  • Fixed an issue where warnings were being unnecessarily displayed.
  • Included updates and enhancements to task manager for scaling jobs, mesh, and cluster size to improve performance.
  • Included reaper and periodic task improvements for scaling the mesh and jobs, which improve performance.
  • Fixed an issue with webhook notifications not triggering for some job template runs.
  • Fixed a race condition where the UI would not properly populate upon launch.
  • Added UI support for filtering single select survey question answers when configuring a job.
  • Fixed an issue where execution environments were failing to be pushed locally during installation.
  • Fixed an issue where inventory could not be selected in workflows even if the user has admin permissions on the workflow.
  • Introduced a content signing utility through the Command Line Interface called ansible-sign that provides options for the user to sign and verify whether the project is signed.
  • Added project or playbook signature verification functionality to controller, enabling users to supply a GPG key and add a content signing credential to a project. This automatically enables content signing for said project.

See Automation Controller Release Notes for 4.x for a full list of new features and enhancements.

2.4. Automation Platform Operator

Ansible Automation Platform Operator provides cloud-native, push-button deployment of new Ansible Automation Platform instances in your OpenShift environment.

2.4.1. Enhancements

  • Fixed an issue where the pulp resource manager was not removed on upgrade from Automation Platform Operator 2.1 to Automation Platform Operator 2.2.

2.5. Ansible Automation Platform Documentation

The documentation set for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.3 has been refactored to improve the experience for our customers and the Ansible community. These changes will make it easier for you to install, migrate, backup, recover and implement new features.

2.5.1. Enhancements

  • The Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Installation Guide has been restructured into three separate documents to include the following:

    Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Planning Guide
    Use this guide to understand requirements, options, and recommendations for installing Ansible Automation Platform.
    Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Installation Guide
    Use this guide to learn how to install Ansible Automation Platform based on supported installation scenarios.
    Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Operations Guide
    Use this guide for guidance on post installation activities for the Ansible Automation Platform.
  • The Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Operator Installation Guide has been renamed to Deploying the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform operator on OpenShift Container Platform. The document has also been updated to include the following:

    • Migration procedures, so you can migrate your existing Ansible Automation Platform deployment to Ansible Automation Platform Operator.
    • Upgrade procedures so you can upgrade to the latest available version of the Ansible Automation Platform Operator.
  • The Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Operator Backup and Recovery Guide has been added to the library to help you backup and recover installations of the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform operator on OpenShift Container Platform.
  • The Ansible Builder Guide has been renamed to Creating and Consuming Execution Environments to better reflect the information provided in the guide.

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