1.4.0pre1

The first prerelease for Bcfg2 1.4.0 is now available at:

Bcfg2 1.4.0pre1 is a prerelease, and contains many new features, including some that are backwards-incompatible with Bcfg2 1.3.x and earlier. Please read the release notes thoroughly. This is a prerelease and as such is not likely suitable for general production deployment. That said, please help us test the release in non- and preproduction environments.

backwards-incompatible user-facing changes

  • Completely rewrote option parser

    Many single character options now have long equivalents. Some subcommand interfaces (bcfg2-info, bcfg2-admin) have been reorganized to some degree. bcfg2-reports syntax is completely different.

  • Added new ACL plugin

    Default ACLs only allow clients to perform bcfg2 client runs, and only permit bcfg2-admin xcmd calls from localhost. If you want to change this, you must enable the ACL plugin and configure your own ACLs.

  • Added genshi requirement for the server

  • Decisions

    • Switch plugin to use StructFile instead of host- or group-specific XML files (this allows a single e.g. whitelist.xml file with <Group> tags)

      You can convert your existing decisions using tools/upgrade/1.4/migrate_decisions.py.

deprecated features (will be removed in a future release, likely 1.5)

  • Bundler

    • Deprecated use of an explicit name attribute

      You can convert your existing bundles using tools/upgrade/1.4/convert_bundles.py.

    • Deprecated .genshi bundles (use .xml bundles and specify the genshi namespace instead)

  • SSLCA

deprecated plugins and features which have been removed

Plugins

  • PostInstall
  • TGenshi
  • TCheetah
  • Account
  • Hostbase
  • Snapshots
  • Statistics
  • Editor
  • Base

Client tools

  • RPMng
  • YUM24
  • YUMng

Other features

  • FAM filemonitor
  • Removed mode=”inherit” support
  • Removed support for .cat/.diff files
  • Removed support for info/:info files
  • Removed “magic” groups (for the Packages plugin)

other fixes and new features

  • Added inter-bundle dependencies

  • Added support for independent bundles (replaces the functionality of Base):

  • Added support for wildcard XIncludes

  • Add Solaris 11 IPS Package support

  • Add bcfg2-report-collector init script to debian package

  • Git VCS plugin enhancements

  • Removed deprecated plugins

  • Bundler

    • Deprecated use of an explicit name attribute
    • Deprecated .genshi bundles
    • Added path globbing
  • Metadata

    • Allow setting global default authentication type
  • Packages

    • Add yum group support to internal resolver
    • Change location of plugin-generated APT sources
    • Add new Pkgng plugin
    • Add ability for per-package recommended flag override
  • Reporting

    • Add support for POSIX user/group entries
    • Add support for Django > 1.4
    • Add support for separate reporting database
  • Added option to periodically dump performance stats to logs

  • Added option to force server to wait until all FAM events are processed

  • SSHbase

  • APT

  • SSLCA

    • Rewrote SSLCA as Cfg handler

      Existing SSLCA installations will need to migrate to the new format using tools/upgrade/1.4/migrate_sslca.py.

  • NagiosGen

    • Migrate configuration to conf.d
  • Probes

    • Rewritten to improve caching
    • Add probes.allowed_groups option to restrict group assignments: see Dynamic Group Assignment

Thanks

Special thanks to the following contributors for this release

  • Alexander Sulfrain
  • Chris Brinker
  • Duncan Hutty
  • Jason Kincl
  • John Morris
  • Matt Schwager
  • Michael Fenn
  • Stéphane Graber
  • Tim Laszlo