Hi all,
0.3 escapes!
Tarballs and uploaded source RPMs are coming shortly, though I've gone
ahead and updated the tags for the 0.3 release. We're stable and
widely used enough to not call this "0.0.3", so this release is a
whole 0.28 better than the last!
What is up with this release codename, you say? Perhaps Michael is
naming releases after gigantic hornless rhinoceros-like mammals! Or
perhaps he is naming things after Van Halen songs. Probably that.
Also, developers take note -- The integration branch is now named
"devel", which will be for working on 0.4. This means this branch is
no longer for just accepting pull requests and quickly rolling things
into master. Hotfixes for things like tracebacks, if any, can be
applied to master and I will work on merging those things over.
Please send pull requests for devel unless fixing a traceback or
something equivalent in master. This shouldn't be too confusing
because it's basically how most projects do it 
Now, time for the important part... thanks to everyone who has
contributed to the release! I should have done this last time so
please forgive me for the omissions!
Jeroen Hoekx (19 commits!)
Stephen Fromm (16 commits!),
Tim Bielawa (13 commits!),
Seth Vidal (7),
Henry Graham (5),
Daniel Neri (3),
Brad Olson (3),
Michel Blanc (2),
Matthew Williams (2),
Stefane Fermigier (1),
Rafal Lewczuk (1),
Martijn Koster (1),
John Eckersberg (1)
Also a huge thanks to everyone who has contributed ideas, helped test,
or told their friends about Ansible. Every bit helps!
What's new in 0.3 compared to 0.0.2? LOTS! I'll forget something,
but these include:
* Packaging for Debian, Gentoo, and Arch
* Improvements to the apt and yum modules
* A virt module
* SELinux support for the file module
* Ability to use facts from other systems in templates (aka exported
resources like support)
* Built in Ansible facts so you don't need ohai, facter, or Ruby
* tempdir selections that work with noexec mounted /tmp
* templates happen locally, not remotely, so no dependency on
python-jinja2 for remote computers
* advanced inventory format in YAML allows more control over variables
per host and per group
* variables in playbooks can be structured/nested versus just a flat namespace
* manpage upgrades (docs)
* various bugfixes
* can specify a default --user for playbooks rather than specifying it
in the playbook file
* able to specify ansible port in ansible host file (see docs)
* refactored Inventory API to make it easier to write scripts using Ansible
* looping capability for playbooks (with_items)
* support for using sudo with a password
* module arguments can be unicode
* A local connection type, --connection=local, for use with cron or
in kickstarts
* better module debugging with -D
* fetch module for pulling in files from remote hosts
* command task supports creates=foo for idempotent semantics, won't
run if file foo already exists
We also recieved some very good press for the release, which is
responsible for accelerating the pace of development CONSIDERABLY.
Here's a roundup:
High Scalability --
http://highscalability.com/blog/2012/4/18/ansible-a-simple-model-driven-configuration-management-and-c.html
Dzone -- http://server.dzone.com/articles/ansible-cm-deployment-and-ad
Colo And Cloud --
http://www.coloandcloud.com/editorial/an-interview-with-ansible-author-michael-dehaan/
I also put together a presentation on Speakerdeck, which some of you
may have seen:
http://speakerdeck.com/u/mpdehaan/p/ansible
I'd definitely encourage people to keep spreading the word, as that
can only bring more contributors, more modules, and more awesome
ideas. If folks would like to share Ansible at Unconferences,
Barcamps, CloudCamps, OpsCamps, LUGs, etc, please do! I'd be glad to
link up any of those presentations.
The documentation more or less already reflects 0.3 -- I have some
changes flagged that I still need to update, in particular, to remove
comments about the way things work in 0.0.2. I would definitely
encourage everyone to update.
I will be sending an email out shortly about what is slated for 0.4,
as well as another about recent features I just merged to the devel
branch that need some testing and/or discussion! These are very fun
times for Ansible, thank you all!
--Michael