RHEA-2018:2385 - Product Enhancement Advisory

Topic

Updated rhel-system-roles package that fixes several bugs and adds various enhancements is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extras.

Description

The rhel-system-roles package includes a collection of Ansible roles and modules that provide a stable and consistent configuration interface for managing multiple versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The network, timesync, kdump, and selinux roles of the rhel-system-roles package have received multiple bug fixes and significant enhancements to improve interface consistency, usability, and conformance to Ansible best practices. For the timesync, kdump, and selinux roles, the changes are not backward compatible and it is necessary to update playbooks that use them.

Changes in the selinux role include:

• Variables have been renamed according to common conventions:

SELinux_type to selinux_policy
SELinux_mode to selinux_state
SELinux_booleans to selinux_booleans
SELinux_file_contexts to selinux_file_contexts
SELinux_restore_dirs to selinux_restore_dirs
SELinux_ports to selinux_ports
SELinux_logins to selinux_logins

• Local modifications to file contexts, ports, logins, and booleans are no longer dropped by default. The modifications specified in selinux_{booleans,file_contexts,ports,logins} are applied on top of pre-existing modifications. To obtain the previous behavior, set the new variables selinux_{booleans,fcontexts,ports,logins}_purge (or just "selinux_all_purge") to 'True'.
• Dictionaries that are passed to the "selinux_file_contexts" variable now provide the new "state" option, which is set to 'present' by default. Setting it to 'absent' drops individual modifications to file contexts.
• If the "selinux_state" or "selinux_policy" variables are not defined, the role preserves previous values.
• Behavior in cases when a reboot is needed to apply the settings has been redefined. The selinux role now fails with an explanatory error message and sets the "selinux_reboot_required" custom fact to 'True'. The role never reboots the managed host itself. An example is shown in the provided example-selinux-playbook.yml playbook.

Changes in the timesync role include:

• Variables have been renamed according to common conventions:

ntp_servers to timesync_ntp_servers
ptp_domains to timesync_ptp_domains
dhcp_ntp_servers to timesync_dhcp_ntp_servers
clock_step_threshold to timesync_step_threshold
min_time_sources to timesync_min_sources

• The NTP implementation can be chosen by setting the "timesync_ntp_provider" variable to either 'ntp' or 'chrony'. The timesync role detects the current provider and does not change it unless "timesync_ntp_provider" is set. The role also sets the "timesync_ntp_provider_os_default" variable to a value that conforms to the default choice for the OS release.

Changes in the kdump role include:

• Variables have been renamed according to common conventions:

dump_target to kdump_target
path to kdump_path
core_collector to kdump_core_collector
system_action to kdump_system_action
ssh_dump_user to kdump_ssh_user
ssh_dump_server to kdump_ssh_server
sshkey to kdump_sshkey

• The "dump_target.kind" option has been renamed to "kdump_target.type".

Changes in the network role include:

• MAC VLAN support has been added.
• Several bugs related to the initscripts provider have been fixed.
• The network role now allows to set the connection state to 'down' regardless of whether it is defined in the configuration.
• If the "interface_name" and "mac" options are not given, the value of the "name" option is used for "interface_name". Setting "interface_name" to an empty string ("") specifies that the profile is not restricted to a network interface.
• The role now detects the provider if the "network_provider" variable is not given. When NetworkManager is running, the provider is set to 'nm', otherwise to 'initscripts'. The role sets the "network_provider_os_default" variable based on the OS version.

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 Enterprise Linux Server 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 7 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian 7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power 9 7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM System z (Structure A) 7 s390x

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

• https://access.redhat.com/articles/3561071