Refer to the latest Product Documentation for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform for the complete Automation Platform documentation.
Introduced
Graphical visualization of the automation topology to show the types of nodes, the links between them and their statuses
Added
For VM-based installs, the controller will now automatically mount the system trust store in execution environments when jobs run
Log Format For API 4XX Errors field to the Logging settings form to allow customization of 4xx error messages that are produced when the API encounters an issue with a request
Ability to use labels with inventory
Ability to flag users as superusers and auditors in SAML integration
Support for expanding and collapsing plays and tasks in the job output UI
Filtering job output UI by multiple event types
Various default search filters to a number of list views
Top-level list of instances to now be visible in the UI
A pop-up message when a user copies a resource
Job Templates tab to Credentials and Inventories to view all the templates that use that particular credential or inventory
Updated
Controller to use Python 3.9
Django’s SESSION_COOKIE_NAME setting to a non-default value. Note, any external clients that previously used the sessionid cookie will need to change. Refer to Session Authentication for more detail.
Controller to support podman-style volume mount syntax in the Paths to expose to isolated jobs field of the Jobs Settings of the UI
Isolated path to be exposed in OCP/K8s as HostPath
Upgraded Django from version 2.2 to 3.2
Modified usage of ansible_facts on Advanced Search to add more flexibility to the usage of ansible_facts when creating a smart inventory
The controller node for a job running on an execution node now incurs a penalty of 1 unit of capacity to account for the system load that controlling a job incurs. This can be adjusted with the file-based setting AWX_CONTROL_NODE_TASK_IMPACT.
Project updates to always run in the controlplane instance group
Slack notifications to allow replying to a thread instead of just channels
UI performance to improve job output
Job status icons to be more accessible
Display of only usable inventories when launching a job
Browser tab to show more information about which page the user is currently viewing
Controller to now load variables after job template extra variables to prevent overriding the meta variables injected into each job run
Deprecated
The concept of “committed capacity” from Instance Groups due to the removal of RabbitMQ
Inventory source option to Update on project update - this field updates the inventory source if its project pulled a new revision. In the future, when updating an inventory source, the controller shall automatically run project updates if the project itself is set to Update on launch.
Removed
Case sensitivity around hostcount
Automation Controller fixes:
Receptor no longer fails in FIPS mode
Added the ability to exit gracefully and recover quickly when a service in the control plane crashes
The create_partition method will skip creating a table if it already exists
Having logging enabled no longer breaks migrations if the migration sends logs to an external aggregator
Fixed the metrics endpoint (/api/v2/metrics) to no longer produce erroneous 500 errors
Execution Environment fixes:
Enhanced the execution environment copy process to reduce required space in the /tmp directory
Allowed execution environment images to be pulled from automation controller only
Added the ansible-builder-rhel8 image to the setup bundle
Modified base execution environment images so that controller backups can run in the container
Automation Controller UI fixes:
Upon saving a schedule, the date chooser no longer changes to the day before the selected date
Fixed the ability to create manual projects in Japanese and other supported non-English languages
Forks information no longer missing in running job details
Project selected for deletion is now removed as expected when running a project sync
The Admin option in the Team Permissions is now disabled so that a user cannot select it when it is not applicable to the available organization(s)
Large workflow templates no longer cause browsers to crash when linking nodes near the end of the template
References to Ansible Tower are replaced with Automation Controller throughout the UI, including tooltips where documentation is referenced
Installation fixes specific to Automation Controller:
Updated the Receptor to 1.2.3 everywhere as needed
Automation Controller fixes:
Upgraded Django version to 3.2 LTS
System (management) jobs are now able to be canceled
Rsyslog no longer needs manual intervention to send out logs after hitting a 40x error
Credential lookup plugins now respect the AWX_TASK_ENV setting
Fixed the controller to list valid subscriptions from Satellite when having multiple quantities from the same SKU
Updated Receptor version to 1.2.1, which includes several fixes
Execution Environment fixes:
The host trusted cert store is now exposed to execution environments by default. See Isolation functionality and variables for detail.
Mounting the /etc/ssh or /etc/ to isolated jobs now works in podman
User customization of execution environment mount options and mount paths are now supported
Fixed SELinux context on /var/lib/awx/.local/share/containers and ensure awx as podman storage
Fixed failures to no longer occur when the semanage fcontext has been already set for the expected directory
Automation Controller UI fixes:
Fixed the ability to create manual projects in Japanese and other suppported non-English languages
Fixed the controller UI to list the roles for organizations when using non-English web browsers
Fixed the job output to display all job type events, including source control update events over websockets
Fixed the TypeError when running a command on a host in a smart inventory
Fixed the encrypted password in surveys to no longer show up as plaintext in the Edit Order page
Installation fixes specific to Automation Controller:
Fixed duplicate Galaxy credentials with no default organization
Running the ./setup.sh -b out of the installer directory no longer fails to load group vars
The installer no longer fails when IPV6 is disabled
Fixed unnecessary become_user:root entries in the installation
Modified database backup and restore logic to compress dump data
Creating default execution environments no longer fails when password has special characters
Fixed installations of execution environments when installing without internet access
Upgrading to AAP 2.1 no longer breaks when the Django superuser is missing
Rekey now allowed with existing key
Added the ability to specify additional nginx headers
Fixed analytics gathering to collect all the data the controller needed to collect
Fixed the controller to no longer break subsequent installer runs when deleting the demo organization
Introduced
Connected Receptor nodes to form a control plane and execution mesh configurations
The special controlplane instance group to allow for the task manager code to target an OpenShift Controller node to run the project update
The ability to render a configured mesh topology in a graph in the installer
Controller 4.1 execution nodes can be remote
Node types for Controller 4.1 (control, hybrid, execution, hop, control, hybrid, execution, hop) installed for different sets of services and provide different capabilities, allowing for scaling nodes that provide the desired capability such as job execution or serving of web requests to the API/UI.
Added
The ability for the platform installer to allow users to install execution nodes and express receptor mesh topology in the inventory file. The platform installer will also be responsible for deprovisioning nodes.
Work signing to the receptor mesh so that control plane nodes have the exclusive authority to submit receptor work to execution nodes over the mesh
Support for pre-population of execution environment name, description, and image from query parameters when adding a new execution environment in the Controller User Interface
Ability to trigger a reload of the topology configuration in Receptor without interrupting work execution
Using Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for securing the Receptor mesh
Added importing execution environments from Automation Hub into the controller to improve the platform experience
Updated
The controller to support new controller control plane and execution mesh
Task manager will only run project updates and system jobs on nodes with node_type of “control” or “hybrid”
Task manager will only run jobs, inventory updates, and ad hoc commands on nodes with node_type of “hybrid” or “execution”
Heartbeat and capacity check to work with Receptor execution nodes
Reaper to work with the addition of execution nodes
Controller User Interface to not show control instances as an option to associate with instance groups
The Associate pop-up screen to display host names when adding an existing host to a group
Validators for editing miscellaneous authentication parameters
Advanced search key options to be grouped
SAML variables default values
Survey validation on Prompt on Launch
Login redirect
Deprecated
None
Removed
The ability to delete the default instance group through the User Interface
Upgraded Django version to 3.2 LTS
Updated receptor to version 1.2.1
Introduced
Support for automation execution environments. All automation now runs in execution environments via containers, either directly via OpenShift, or locally via podman
New PatternFly 4 based user-interface for increased performance, security, and consistency with other Ansible Automation Platform components
Added
Added identity provider support for GitHub Enterprise
Support for RHEL system crypto profiles to nginx configuration
The ability to disable local system users and only pull users from configured identity providers
Additional Prometheus metrics for tracking job event processing performance
New awx-manage command for dumping host automation information
Red Hat Insights as an inventory source
Ability to set server-side password policies using Django’s AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS setting
Support for Centrify Vault as a credential lookup plugin
Support for namespaces in Hashicorp Vault credential plugin
Updated
OpenShift deployment to be done via an Operator instead of a playbook
Python used by application to Python 3.8
Nginx used to version 1.18
PostgreSQL used to PostgreSQL 12, and moved to partitioned databases for performance
The “container groups” feature to general availability from Tech Preview; now fully utilizes execution environments
Insights remediation to use new Red Hat Insights inventory source rather than utilizing scan playbooks with arbitrary inventory
Subscriptions display to count hosts automated on instead of hosts imported
Inventory source, credential, and Ansible content collection to reference controller instead of tower
Deprecated
None
Removed
Support for isolated nodes
Support for deploying on CentOS (any version) and RHEL 7
Support for Mercurial projects
Support for custom inventory scripts stored in controller (use awx-manage export_custom_scripts to export them)
Resource profiling code (AWX_RESOURCE_PROFILING_*)
Support for custom Python virtual environments for execution. Use new awx-manage tools for assisting in migration
Top-level /api/v2/job_events/ API endpoint
The ability to disable job isolation