MAAS 2.3.0 is here!

Andres Rodriguez andres.rodriguez at canonical.com
Tue Nov 21 15:47:25 UTC 2017 

Hello MAASters!
I'm happy to announce that MAAS 2.3.0 (final) is now available!

This new MAAS release introduces a set of exciting features and
improvements to the overall user experience. It now becomes the focus of
maintenance, as it fully replaces MAAS 2.2

In order to provide with sufficient notice, please be aware that 2.3.0 will
replace MAAS 2.2 in the Ubuntu Archive in the coming weeks. In the
meantime, MAAS 2.3 is available in PPA and as a Snap.

*PPA's Availability*
MAAS 2.3.0 is currently available in *ppa:maas/next *for the coming week.



*sudo add-apt-repository ppa:maas/nextsudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get
install maas*

Please be aware that MAAS 2.3 will replace MAAS 2.2 in *ppa:maas/stable**
within a week.*

*Snap Availability*
For those wanting to use the snap, you can obtain it from the *stable*
channel:

sudo snap install maas --devmode --stable

MAAS 2.3.0 (final)Important announcementsMachine network configuration now
deferred to cloud-init.

Starting from MAAS 2.3, machine network configuration is now handled by
cloud-init. In previous MAAS (and curtin) releases, the network
configuration was performed by curtin during the installation process. In
an effort to improve robustness, network configuration has now been
consolidated in cloud-init. MAAS will continue to pass network
configuration to curtin, which in turn, will delegate the configuration to
cloud-init.
Ephemeral images over HTTP

As part of the effort to reduce dependencies and improve reliability, MAAS
ephemeral (network boot) images are no longer loaded using iSCSI (tgt). By
default, the ephemeral images are now obtained using HTTP requests to the
rack controller.

After upgrading to MAAS 2.3, please ensure you have the latest available
images. For more information please refer to the section below (New
features & improvements).
Advanced network configuration for CentOS & Windows

MAAS 2.3 now supports the ability to perform network configuration for
CentOS and Windows. The network configuration is performed via cloud-init.
MAAS CentOS images now use the latest available version of cloud-init that
includes these features.
New features & improvementsCentOS network configuration

MAAS can now perform machine network configuration for CentOS 6 and 7,
providing networking feature parity with Ubuntu for those operating
systems. The following can now be configured for MAAS deployed CentOS
images:

   - Bonds, VLAN and bridge interfaces.
   - Static network configuration.

Our thanks to the cloud-init team for improving the network configuration
support for CentOS.
Windows network configuration

MAAS can now configure NIC teaming (bonding) and VLAN interfaces for
Windows deployments. This uses the native NetLBFO in Windows 2008+. Contact
us for more information (https://maas.io/contact-us).
Improved Hardware Testing

MAAS 2.3 introduces a new and improved hardware testing framework that
significantly improves the granularity and provision of hardware testing
feedback. These improvements include:

   - An improved testing framework that allows MAAS to run each component
   individually. This allows MAAS to run tests against storage devices for
   example, and capture results individually.
   - The ability to describe custom hardware tests with a YAML definition:
      - This provides MAAS with information about the tests themselves,
      such as script name, description, required packages, and other metadata
      about what information the script will gather. All of which will
be used by
      MAAS to render in the UI.
      - Determines whether the test supports a parameter, such as storage,
      allowing the test to be run against individual storage devices.
      - Provides the ability to run tests in parallel by setting this in
      the YAML definition.
   - Capture performance metrics for tests that can provide it.
      - CPU performance tests now offer a new ‘7z’ test, providing metrics.
      - Storage performance tests now include a new ‘fio’ test providing
      metrics.
      - Storage test ‘badblocks’ has been improved to provide the number of
      badblocks found as a metric.
   - The ability to override a machine that has been marked ‘Failed
   testing’. This allows administrators to acknowledge that a machine is
   usable despite it having failed testing.

Hardware testing improvements include the following UI changes:

   - Machine Listing page
      - Displays whether a test is pending, running or failed for the
      machine components (CPU, Memory or Storage.)
      - Displays whether a test not related to CPU, Memory or Storage has
      failed.
      - Displays a warning when the machine has been overridden and has
      failed tests, but is in a ‘Ready’ or ‘Deployed’ state.
   - Machine Details page
      - Summary tab - Provides hardware testing information about the
      different components (CPU, Memory, Storage).
      - Hardware Tests /Commission tab - Provides an improved view of the
      latest test run, its runtime as well as an improved view of previous
      results. It also adds more detailed information about specific
tests, such
      as status, exit code, tags, runtime and logs/output (such as stdout and
      stderr).
      - Storage tab - Displays the status of specific disks, including
      whether a test is OK or failed after running hardware tests.

For more information please refer to https://docs.ubuntu.com/maas/
2.3/en/nodes-hw-testing.
Network discovery & beaconing

In order to confirm network connectivity and aide with the discovery of
VLANs, fabrics and subnets, MAAS 2.3 introduces network beaconing.

MAAS now sends out encrypted beacons, facilitating network discovery and
monitoring. Beacons are sent using IPv4 and IPv6 multicast (and unicast) to
UDP port 5240. When registering a new controller, MAAS uses the information
gathered from the beaconing protocol to ensure that newly registered
interfaces on each controller are associated with existing known networks
in MAAS. This aids MAAS by providing better information on determining the
network topology.

Using network beaconing, MAAS can better correlate which networks are
connected to its controllers, even if interfaces on those controller are
not configured with IP addresses. Future uses for beaconing could include
validation of networks from commissioning nodes, MTU verification, and a
better user experience for registering new controllers.
Upstream Proxy

MAAS 2.3 now enables an upstream HTTP proxy to be used while allowing MAAS
deployed machines to continue to use the caching proxy for the
repositories. Doing so provides greater flexibility for closed
environments, including:

   - Enabling MAAS itself to use a corporate proxy while allowing machines
   to continue to use the MAAS proxy.
   - Allowing machines that don’t have access to a corporate proxy to gain
   network access using the MAAS proxy.

Adding upstream proxy support also includes an improved configuration on
the settings page. Please refer to Settings > Proxy for more details.
Ephemeral Images over HTTP

Historically, MAAS has used ‘tgt’ to provide images over iSCSI for the
ephemeral environments (e.g commissioning, deployment environment, rescue
mode, etc). MAAS 2.3 changes the default behaviour by now providing images
over HTTP.

These images are now downloaded directly by the initrd. The change means
that the initrd loaded on PXE will contact the rack controller to download
the image to load in the ephemeral environment. Support for using 'tgt' is
being phased out in MAAS 2.3, and will no longer be supported from MAAS 2.4
onwards.

For users who would like to continue to use & load their ephemeral images
via ‘tgt’, they can disable http boot with the following command.

  maas <user> maas set-config name=http_boot value=False
UI ImprovementsMachines, Devices, Controllers

MAAS 2.3 introduces an improved design for the machines, devices and
controllers detail pages that include the following changes.

   - “Summary” tab now only provides information about the specific node
   (machine, device or controller), organised across cards.
   - “Configuration” has been introduced, which includes all editable
   settings for the specific node (machine, device or controllers).
   - “Logs” consolidates the commissioning output and the installation log
   output.

Other UI improvements

Other UI improvements that have been made for MAAS 2.3 include:

   - Added DHCP status column on the ‘Subnet’s tab.
   - Added architecture filters
   - Updated VLAN and Space details page to no longer allow inline editing.
   - Updated VLAN page to include the IP ranges tables.
   - Zones page converted to AngularJS (away from YUI).
   - Added warnings when changing a Subnet’s mode (Unmanaged or Managed).
   - Renamed “Device Discovery” to “Network Discovery”.
   - Discovered devices where MAAS cannot determine the hostname now show
   the hostname as “unknown” and greyed out instead of using the MAC address
   manufacturer as the hostname.

Rack Controller Deployment

MAAS 2.3 can now automatically deploy rack controllers when deploying a
machine. This is done by providing cloud-init user data, and once a machine
is deployed, cloud-init will install and configure the rack controller.
Upon rack controller registration, MAAS will automatically detect the
machine is now a rack controller and it will be transitioned automatically.
To deploy a rack controller, users can do so via the API (or CLI), e.g:

maas <user> machine deploy <system_id> install_rackd=True

Please note that this features makes use of the MAAS snap to configure the
rack controller on the deployed machine. Since snap store mirrors are not
yet available, this will require the machine to have access to the internet
to be able to install the MAAS snap.
Controller Versions & Notifications

MAAS now surfaces the version of each running controller and notifies the
users of any version mismatch between the region and rack controllers. This
helps administrators identify mismatches when upgrading their MAAS on a
multi-node MAAS cluster, such as within a HA setup.
Improved DNS Reloading

This new release introduces various improvements to the DNS reload
mechanism. This allows MAAS to be smarter about when to reload DNS after
changes have been automatically detected or made.
API Improvements

The machines API endpoint now provides more information on the configured
storage and provides additional output that includes volume_groups, raids,
cache_sets, and bcaches fields.
Django 1.11 support

MAAS 2.3 now supports the latest Django LTS version, Django 1.11. This
allows MAAS to work with the newer Django version in Ubuntu Artful, which
serves as a preparation for the next Ubuntu LTS release.

   - Users running MAAS in Ubuntu Artful will use Django 1.11.
   - Users running MAAS in Ubuntu Xenial will continue to use Django 1.9.


-- 
Andres Rodriguez
Engineering Manager, MAAS
Canonical USA, Inc.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/maas-devel/attachments/20171121/1bfc0bf6/attachment.html>

More information about the Maas-devel mailing list