RHEA-2017:2806 - ansible bug fix and enhancement update

Synopsis

ansible bug fix and enhancement update

Product Enhancement Advisory None

Updated ansible packages that fix several bugs and add various enhancements are now available.

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:

Using import_* (import_playbook, import_tasks, import_role) directives are static
Using include_* (include_tasks, include_role) directives are dynamic
For more information, see Content from docs.ansible.com is not included.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'

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

and Porting Guide https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/porting_guide_2.4.html

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

For details on how to apply this update, refer to:

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