1.4.0pre1

The first prerelease for Bcfg2 1.4.0 is now available at:

ftp://ftp.mcs.anl.gov/pub/bcfg

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 plugin
  • SSLCA functionality has been added to the Cfg plugin: see SSL Keys and Certificates

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

  • Add support for IPv6 addresses in known_hosts file
  • Add support for encryption of generated ssh keys

• APT

  • Allow specification of deb-src lines (resolves http://trac.mcs.anl.gov/projects/bcfg2/ticket/1148)

• 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