Documentation

Release Notes

Refer to the latest Product Documentation for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform for the complete Automation Platform documentation.

Automation Controller Version 4.2.1

Automation Controller fixes:

  • Node alias is now saved when job template is changed in the workflow

  • Improved error messages in the API job_explanation field for specific error scenarios, (e.g., runner worker process is killed), or certain failure scenarios (e.g., shutdown)

  • Fixed the Task Manager to fully account for the job’s control process capacity for jobs running in container groups

  • Fixed a few bugs that caused delays in task processing by adding the following file-based settings:
    • JOB_WAITING_GRACE_PERIOD increases the threshold for marking jobs stuck in the “waiting” status as failed

    • CLUSTER_NODE_MISSED_HEARTBEAT_TOLERANCE to allow the heartbeat to be more tolerant to clock skew and other problems

    • K8S_POD_REAPER_GRACE_PERIOD to allow more time before pod cleanup executes its last attempt to delete pods used by jobs

    • TASK_MANAGER_TIMEOUT to allow more time in the unlikely event that the Task Manager fails to finish normally

  • Jobs no longer fail for nested submodules in an SCM (git) project and the .git folder will be omitted

  • Added more logs to help debug database connectivity problems and cluster resource limits

  • Removed the current_user cookie which was not used by the UI

  • Updated controller to send FQCN data for tasks to analytics

  • Fixed the metrics endpoint (/api/v2/metrics) to no longer produce erroneous 500 errors

  • Added remove_superuser and remove_system_auditors to the SAML user attribute map

  • Added the ability to allow multiple values in the SOCIAL_AUTH_SAML_USER_FLAGS_BY_ATTR.is_*_[value|role] settings

  • Unwanted Galaxy credentials are no longer added to the Organization while logging in through SAML

  • awx-cli now allows for multiple --extra_vars parameters

  • Receptor no longer fails in FIPS mode

  • If an OCP node’s record is deleted (either by the awx-manage command or by the heartbeat task), it will re-register itself

  • Upgrading and changing node_type from execution to control or hybrid no longer causes cleanup errors

Execution Environment fixes:

None for this release

Automation Controller UI fixes:

  • The controller UI properly displays job output when strategy: free is set in the playbook

  • Fixed the pagination displays within the main lists, i.e., Resources (Job Templates, Projects, Inventory), Access (Organization, Users, Teams, Notifications), and Administration (Instance Groups, Execution Environments)

  • Fixed the Job Output to properly follow and scroll; and improved the Page Up/Page Down button behavior

  • Fixed the controller UI to now be able to filter by multiple labels

  • Large workflow templates no longer cause browsers to crash when linking nodes near the end of the template

  • Fixed the approval node “Deny” to no longer run the subsequent workflow nodes

  • Forks information no longer missing in running job details

  • Upon saving a schedule, the date chooser no longer changes to the day before the selected date

  • References to Ansible Tower are replaced with Automation Controller throughout the UI, including tooltips where documentation is referenced

  • Corrected translations for the Japanese Subscription settings screen

Installation fixes specific to Automation Controller:

None for this release

Automation Controller Version 4.2.0

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 Version 4.1.3

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 Version 4.1.2

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

Automation Controller Version 4.1.1

  • 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

Automation Controller Version 4.1

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

Automation Controller Version 4.0.1

  • Upgraded Django version to 3.2 LTS

  • Updated receptor to version 1.2.1

Automation Controller Version 4.0

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