# Ansible 2.4.0 FINAL has been released! **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Tags:** windows\ **Created:** [September 19, 2017, 5:19am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-2-4-0-final-has-been-released/25518 "2017-09-19T05:19:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tkuratom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@tkuratom](https://forum.ansible.com/u/tkuratom)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 5:19am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-2-4-0-final-has-been-released/25518/1 "2017-09-19T05:19:49Z")
Hi all, On behalf of the entire Ansible open source community, we are very happy to announce that Ansible 2.4.0 has been released! This release includes many new features and improvements, including the following: \* New import/include keywords to replace the old bare `include` directive: - Using `import_*` (`import_playbook`, `import_tasks`, `import_role`) directives are static. - Using `include_*` (`include_tasks`, `include_role`) directives are dynamic. - For more information, see    [http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbooks\_reuse\_includes.html](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbooks_reuse_includes.html) \* New `order` play level keyword that allows the user to change the order in which Ansible processes hosts when dispatching tasks. \* New `ansible_group_priority` variable: - Users can now set group merge priority for groups of the same depth (parent child relationship), when values are the same or don't exist it will fallback to the previous sorting by name'. \* Updated inventory subsystem: - There are now inventory plugins which can take the place of dynamic inventory scripts. These plugins have access to more information from Ansible itself, leading to cleaner code. - It is now possible to specify multiple inventory sources in the command line (-i /etc/hosts1 -i /opt/hosts2) - Inventory plugins can use Ansible cache plugins (i.e. virtualbox) which responds to `meta: refresh_inventory` unlike inventory scripts that have their own cache separate from Ansible. - Group variable precedence is now configurable via a new 'precedence' option in ansible.cfg - ansible-inventory CLI for querying Ansible inventory directly - Improved warnings and error messages across the board \* Vars plugins updated:   - Default host\_vars/group\_vars behaviour is now a plugin and ‘overridable’   - They can now deal with vaulted files again by using the DataLoader object to read files   - Still backwards compatible with existing plugins \* Configuration has been changed from a hardcoded listing in the constants module to dynamically loaded. This lets plugins add new config options entirely from within the plugin code. \* Added an ansible-config CLI listing config options and dumping current config \* Windows modules now support the use of multiple shared module\_utils files in the form of Powershell modules (.psm1), via `#Requires -Module Ansible.ModuleUtils.Whatever.psm1` \* Windows become\_method: runas now works across all authtypes and will auto-elevate under UAC if WinRM user has "Act as part of the operating system" privilege \* Python module argument\_spec now supports custom validation logic by accepting a callable as the `type` argument. \* Platform agnostic network modules to execute “show” commands and push configuration to devices in vendor agnostic way. For more information, please see the Changelog [https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/stable-2.4/CHANGELOG.md](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/stable-2.4/CHANGELOG.md) and Porting Guide [https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/porting\_guide\_2.4.html](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/porting_guide_2.4.html) As always, this update is available via PyPi and [https://releases.ansible.com/ansible/](https://releases.ansible.com/ansible/) now, and packages for distros will be available as soon as possible. Thanks and enjoy! - Toshio Kuratomi ---
**Author:** ![tkuratom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@tkuratom](https://forum.ansible.com/u/tkuratom)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 1:42pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-2-4-0-final-has-been-released/25518/2 "2017-09-19T13:42:13Z")
One other important piece of information ffor those that don't read changelogs 😉 is that Ansible-2.4 drops support for Python-2.4 and Python-2.5 on the managed machines. This means that users who want to manage machines that have Python-2.4 or Python-2.5 on them will need to install Python-2.6 and above there or stay on an older version of Ansible until they can update the machines. Ansible provides the raw module ( [https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/raw\_module.html](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/raw_module.html) ) which can be useful when bootstrapping such machines. -Toshio ---
**Author:** ![Patrik\_Ragnarsson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Patrik\_Ragnarsson](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Patrik_Ragnarsson)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 4:20pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-2-4-0-final-has-been-released/25518/3 "2017-10-10T16:20:32Z")
Isn’t it pretty aggressive to deprecate the use of ‘include’ in the same version that introduces the replacements? Also, the docs says the following about ‘import\_tasks’ and ‘include\_tasks’ making it an even more of aggressive move: “This module is flagged as preview which means that it is not guaranteed to have a backwards compatible interface.” ---
**Author:** ![Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kai_Stian_Olstad)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 4:51pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-2-4-0-final-has-been-released/25518/4 "2017-10-10T16:51:35Z")
> > Hi all, > > > > On behalf of the entire Ansible open source community, we are very > > happy to announce that Ansible 2.4.0 has been released! > > > > This release includes many new features and improvements, including > > the following: > > > > \* New import/include keywords to replace the old bare `include` directive: > >   - Using `import_*` (`import_playbook`, `import_tasks`, `import_role`) > > directives are static. > >   - Using `include_*` (`include_tasks`, `include_role`) directives are > > dynamic. > >   - For more information, see > >     [http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbooks\_reuse\_includes.html](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbooks_reuse_includes.html) > > Isn't it pretty aggressive to deprecate the use of 'include' in the same > version that introduces the replacements? Deprecate doesn't mean removed, it's a message to inform the user that it will be removed in the future (two major version after marked as deprecated). > Also, the docs says the following > about 'import\_tasks' and 'include\_tasks' making it an even more of > aggressive move: > > "This module is flagged as preview which means that it is not guaranteed to > have a backwards compatible interface." include in 2.3 was also flagged as preview [https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.3/include\_module.html](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.3/include_module.html) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/original/1X/1882d9a01da5d8996a862359b0913cc568a39b84.svg) [@system](https://forum.ansible.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 6:01pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-2-4-0-final-has-been-released/25518/5 "2017-10-10T18:01:01Z")
> Deprecate doesn't mean removed, it's a message to inform the user that it > will be removed in the future (two major version after marked as > deprecated). four versions, we changed the deprecation period before 2.3