RHEA-2017:2806 - Product Enhancement Advisory

Topic

Updated ansible packages that fix several bugs and add various enhancements are now available.

Description

On behalf of the entire Ansible open source community, we are very
happy to announce that Ansible 2.4.0 has been released!

This release includes many new features and improvements, including
the following:

• New import/include keywords to replace the old bare `include` directive:
• Using `import_*` (`import_playbook`, `import_tasks`, `import_role`)

directives are static

• Using `include_*` (`include_tasks`, `include_role`) directives are dynamic
• For more information, see

http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbooks_reuse_includes.html

• New `order` play level keyword that allows the user to change the

order in which Ansible processes hosts when dispatching tasks

• New `ansible_group_priority` variable:
• Users can now set group merge priority for groups of the same depth

(parent child relationship), when values are the same or don't exist
it will fallback to the previous sorting by name'

• Updated inventory subsystem:
• There are now inventory plugins which can take the place of dynamic

inventory scripts. These plugins have access to more information from
Ansible itself, leading to cleaner code

• It is now possible to specify multiple inventory sources in the

command line (-i /etc/hosts1 -i /opt/hosts2)

• Inventory plugins can use Ansible cache plugins (i.e. virtualbox)

which responds to `meta: refresh_inventory` unlike inventory scripts
that have their own cache separate from Ansible

• Group variable precedence is now configurable via a new

'precedence' option in ansible.cfg

• ansible-inventory CLI for querying Ansible inventory directly
• Improved warnings and error messages across the board
• Vars plugins updated:
• Default host_vars/group_vars behaviour is now a plugin and ‘overridable’
• They can now deal with vaulted files again by using the DataLoader

object to read files

• Still backwards compatible with existing plugins
• Configuration has been changed from a hardcoded listing in the

constants module to dynamically loaded; this lets plugins add new
config options entirely from within the plugin code

• Added an ansible-config CLI listing config options and dumping

current config

• Windows modules now support the use of multiple shared module_utils

files in the form of Powershell modules (.psm1), via `#Requires

• Module Ansible.ModuleUtils.Whatever.psm1`
• Windows become_method: runas now works across all authtypes and will

auto-elevate under UAC if WinRM user has "Act as part of the operating
system" privilege

• Python module argument_spec now supports custom validation logic by

accepting a callable as the `type` argument

• Platform agnostic network modules to execute “show” commands and

push configuration to devices in vendor agnostic way

For more information, please see the Changelog
https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/stable-2.4/CHANGELOG.md

and Porting Guide https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/porting_guide_2.4.html

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

For details on how to apply this update, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Ansible Engine 2.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Ansible Engine 2.4 ppc64le
• Red Hat Ansible Engine 2 for RHEL 7 x86_64

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)