What's New in CloudBolt 9.2.1 - Shah

Enhancements

• Added the use of template tags in the "Extra vars" section of Ansible configs. DEV-12104

Bug Fixes

• Servers with tags which were manually set to Historical would revert back to Active. DEV-14640
• Updating Global Access Roles of LDAP User Profiles resulted in an error. DEV-14554

What's New in CloudBolt 9.2 - Shah

Remote Source Blueprint Configuration: If you have Remote Source Blueprints configured that contain secrets, you will need to reconfigure them. Follow the Secrets Stored in Remote Source Blueprints documentation to set up a password that encrypts and decrypts secrets when exporting and importing Blueprints. Without following these steps, any secrets in your Remote Source Blueprint will become blank on its next refresh post-9.2.

CloudBolt is upgrading Django to version 2.2 in CloudBolt version 9.3. If you have written Plugins or UI Extensions for CloudBolt, you may need to update them to ensure they continue to work in versions 9.3+. Check Django’s list of backwards incompatible changes for more details.

Major Improvements

Enhancements

• Global IDs are now supported for Environments when submitting Server modification and decommission orders through the API. DEV-13540
• Allow users to set a constraint on the minimum value for datetime type Parameters. DEV-11720
• Removed the “Clone Template Timeout” field and the associated timeout from the VCenter and QEMU-KVM Resource Handlers. DEV-13142
• The rke and kubectl Kubernetes packages now ship with CloudBolt. DEV-12906
• Added support for longer access keys for the Alibaba Resource Handler. DEV-13838
• Updated fields on the Puppet Enterprise Connection forms to reflect the connection requirements. DEV-13915
• Orchestration Actions now support Python 3.x type annotations. DEV-12707
• Added history events for many changes to base Actions, Orchestration Actions, Server Actions, and Resource Actions, which are shown on a new History tab on the base Action’s details page. DEV-12981
• Konami code activated on the Admin page. DEV-14038
• Change the upgrade prefix to select a different version when CloudBolt servers check for compatible upgraders. DEV-13897
• Out-of-the-box Compute Server Rate hooks for public cloud servers now include Admin rates. DEV-14025
• Increased Node Size coverage when calculating rates using rate hooks. DEV-14025
• Updated the version of Terraform packaged with CloudBolt to 0.12.18. DEV-14113
• Added support for OpenStack to quota impact on pending orders. DEV-14016
• Updated name references for the IBM Resource Handler from IBM SoftLayer to IBM Cloud. DEV-14047
• Added the OpenShift Blueprint that allows users to create OpenShift projects. DEV-13157
• Added the VMWare on AWS Resource Handler. DEV-14039
• Added the IBM Cloud and IBM Cloud for Government Resource Handlers. DEV-13608
• Upgraded mrest for Azure from 0.6.0 to 0.6.10. DEV-14226
• Added a Rate Hook for GCP. Rate previews should show for orders which include GCP servers. DEV-14210
• UI extension tabs can now be added to User Profiles. DEV-13009

Security Improvements

Bug Fixes

• The tooltip for Blueprint parameters on the Order Details page was not rendering correctly. DEV-12726
• Deprecated and removed the Tag spelling corrections feature. DEV-13139
• The tooltip for Blueprint parameters on the Order Details page was not rendering correctly. DEV-12726
• Dialog forms sometimes included two identical middleware tokens. DEV-13127
• Deleting a Resource with a sub-Resource would fail when the “Delete” Resource Action was set to require approval. DEV-13479
• Multiple users adding labels to a Connection Info caused errors. DEV-12849
• Changing the OS Family on parameter global defaults was duplicating the value instead of editing it. DEV-13639
• The API sample script for deleting a Resource failed when the “Delete” Resource Action was set to require approval. DEV-13477
• The ‘profile’ kwarg was not being passed in to generated parameter options methods defined in actions when run as a server action. DEV-13733
• Validation messages were disappearing from the Edit Parameter form. DEV-12302
• The Group Server Cost reports included servers that were not relevant. DEV-13483
• A disk could not be added to a VMWare server with a datastore set. DEV-13471
• Blueprint-level Preconfiguration values were not populating correctly when editing an Order. DEV-13269
• Some Connection Info creation forms had required fields which should have been optional. DEV-14085
• Viewing certain types of servers in the API resulted in an error. DEV-13975
• Clicking the clipboard icon next to some information would not copy the associated information. DEV-13835
• Importing templates for VMWare Resource Handlers via the API resulted in unexpected behavior. DEV-14282

What's New in CloudBolt 9.1 - Liechty

Major Improvements

What's New in 9.0.1 - Cumulus

MINOR IMPROVEMENTS

• Improved the Admin > History view, including a new column for “Rate Change” and a new “Object Type” filter. DEV-13357
• Upgraded boto3 to the latest version (1.9.245). Upgrading CloudBolt UpgraDEV-13334
• Added currency handling improvements. DEV-13358, DEV-13428

What's New in 9.0 - Cumulus

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.8 - Sharief

8.8 UPGRADE NOTES

When upgrading CloudBolt, please review all Upgrade Notes between the version of CloudBolt that you are presently running and the target version that you are upgrading to.

• If you are upgrading from 7.7 and below, it will be a two-upgrade process. First, upgrade to 8.7 and then upgrade to 8.8. If assistance is needed, please contact support@cloudbolt.io.
• The labels for three Orchestration Action trigger points have changed, which will impact the ability to import/export actions in these categories to/from older versions of CloudBolt. The three effected “Order Related” trigger points are: “Order Submission” (previously, “Order Approval”), “Post-Order Approval” (previously “Pre-Order Execution”), and “Post-Order Execution” (previously “Post Order Execution”).

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.7.1 - Nogueira

• Fixed a security vulnerability around Django templates and Django's built-in filters.

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.7 - Nogueira

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.6 - McFarlin

8.6 UPGRADE NOTES

When upgrading CloudBolt, please review all Upgrade Notes between the version of CloudBolt that you are presently running and the target version that you are upgrading to.

• The out-of-the-box “User Permission Sync From LDAP” action has had changes made to its code to support setting additional global roles. If you have changed it, you will need to update your version to reflect the new out-of-the-box code.
• Because the approach to exporting and importing Blueprints with Load Balancer build items has changed, doing so across pre-8.6 and post-8.6 CloudBolt instances will not be possible.

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS

Improvements for High Availability

Resource handlers used filesystem locks to ensure only one Sync VMs process executed at a time. However, that relied on filesystem syncing to copy lock files between CloudBolt instances in a High Availability configuration. Those locks have now been moved to the database, making the locks more reliable as Job Engine processes scale horizontally.

Importing and Viewing AWS Billing Reports

We’ve added the ability to import and view data from AWS monthly invoices. With an s3 bucket with billing report exports configured on your AWS Account, CloudBolt will import billing files at the end of each month with the new recurring job Import Public Cloud Billing Data. The data will be available to view on AWS servers’, AWS resource handlers’, and groups’ Billing tabs.

Updated AWS Communications to boto3

Due to security concerns with the older boto libraries, we’ve updated our standard communications with AWS to utilize the boto3 library. If you have existing CloudBolt plug-ins using the boto library, they will still operate. We suggest you do update these to use boto3 as well. If you would like an example, please look at the AWS S3 Bucket Blueprint available in the content library. Please reach out to Support if you have any additional concerns.

Improvements to Blueprint Imports

• Ensured that importing a Blueprint will not make changes to any generic object it’s related to that already exists. This will prevent a single BP import from unduly altering general objects used elsewhere. Specifically, it will not change existing parameters, preconfigurations, Resource Types, base actions, or Resource Actions.
• Modified exporting and importing of Blueprints with Load Balancer build items to rely on the type slug for the Load Balancer technology (e.g., HA Proxy), rather than the ID of that object in that CB. This will be more reliable across CB instances.

Password Reset Options

A new setting, Original Password Verification in Admin > System > Miscellaneous Settings, allows disabling the requirement for knowing a user’s original password when setting a new password. This setting defaults to True. If the setting is disabled, no user will see the Original password field when editing any user profile. 163232620

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• Fixed an issue where the login page would indefinitely redirect users. 164119244
• Fixed an issue where informational-only Blueprints would always be shown with a warning stating that configuration was required. 164061973
• Fixed an issue where importing a Blueprint that required creating new parameters would sometimes fail with a ValueError. 163312647
• Parameter values for a server tier when ordering through the API will now be validated against any predefined values for that parameter on that server tier with the selected Environment and against any options applicable to that parameter for that order context. 162612778
• Discovery Plug-ins now support the use of multiple keys for uniquely identifying Resources. 163394773
• Added the ability to disable individual out-of-the-box reports for all users. 163575312
• Added the ability to import templates for VMWare resource handlers via the API. 163365928.
• Improved Puppet Enterprise 2015+ out of the box experience. 157374262
• Fixed an arrow that was not rendering and a broken link in the “Server Utilization Table” report. 163405469
• Fixed an issue with the “Docs” navigation-bar item when users are in an Action’s detail page. 163274464
• Fixed an issue with resource name template uniquificiation when the template includes capital letters. 162612401
• All Global Roles can now be added to an LDAP mapping. The new options include Devops Admin, Global Viewer, and API Access. The page for managing mappings has also been improved. 162772510
• The notebook feature is now enabled by default for new CB installations (this can be changed from Admin > Miscellaneous settings). 162774811
• Fixed a bug that caused any non-ASCII characters to be stripped from emails sent by CloudBolt. 162678738
• Added support for syncing NICs using Nutanix API version v2. 162876926
• Added tabs to the User details view that now include Servers and Resources owned by the User. 162774778
• Update out-of-the-box Infoblox plugins to remove deprecated Python 2 methods. 162916816
• Added error handling for Puppet when the user attempts to sync VMs after deleting the server outside of CloudBolt. 162645059
• Add explicit Application restriction to Blueprint Server builds. 162388643
• Added the user that enabled or disabled an action to application.log message. 162791887
• Updated default naming for location-specific Environments to include the name of the ResourceHandler to make identifying Environments easier. 159669312
• Fixed an issue around QEMU-KVM resourcehandler’s Sync VMs job. 156138912
• Fixed a bug where AWS quota impacts for memory, disk size, and CPU count was incorrect. 160802326
• Fixed an issue where unreported Puppet nodes would not get deleted on sync. 161486348
• Fixed an issue not allowing multiple validations to use the same custom fields. 163122653
• Added stricter NIC parameter lookup to prevent overriding of NIC values with custom parameters that contained ‘sc_nic’ in the name. 163105087
• Added server tech-specific identifiers to the API. 162053566
• Added the ability to add LDAP users via API. 161559013
• Fixed a bug, where the constraints set on a Blueprint-level parameter would not display as a slider bar in the order form. 163131644
• Improved disk parameter name filtering to prevent overriding of disk values with custom parameters, and to prevent filtering of disk numbers containing zeros. 163105062
• Fixed a bug where manually entered hostnames would get abbreviated numbers when uniquified, i.e. ‘Server-001’ would become ‘Server-2’. Now, it will maintain the zeroes and would result in the name ‘Server-002’. 163069714
• Added numeric sorting on columns containing numbers in the the Environments and Resource Handlers tables. 159780290
• The Sync Resources Recurring Job no longer attempts to sync Resources for Historical Blueprints. 163373173
• Solved AWS issue using proxies with SSL. 159042106
• Added support for regenerate options and show/hide dependent fields to the Blueprint ‘configure environment’ form. Now, when you predefine the values for a parameter that is dependent on another, you should get the appropriate dependent options and dependent fields on the form. 161726471
• Made Nutanix API calls more robust.
• Improved syncing IP address of servers in Vmware Resource Handler. 163439956
• Improved security by ensuring that form field values are properly validated and that forms are validated when saved. 163461862
• Fixed an issue that caused Blueprint build items to disappear during ordering after options were selected. 161849123
• Fixed an issue that prevented NIC values from displaying correctly on Preconfigurations. 162657873
• On the Users page, added a column to show Online status of the Users and ability to show only online users. #162650894
• Updated the Groups page to resize the Group name column for long names. 163656571
• Fixed an issue that caused Blueprint build items to disappear during ordering after options were selected 161849123
• Improved Nutanix support for adding NICs to existing server with Nutanix V3 API
• Added support for maintaining Apache’s SSLCipherSuite setting during an upgrade 162249188

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.5 - Botha

8.5 UPGRADE NOTES

When upgrading CloudBolt, please review all Upgrade Notes between the version of CloudBolt that you are presently running and the target version that you are upgrading to.

• We’ve changed the default profile in context to be more consistent when it’s available as an argument to custom plugins and remote scripts. The profile will now always be the owner of the job in context. This may mean that behavior is changed in some of your scripts, because there were some cases where the server owner was used as the profile in context before this change. One case includes when running a remote script on a server from a deploy Blueprint job. When trying to access the job owner or the server owner in context, we highly suggest accessing those directly from the server or job to be more explicit, which you can do by using either {{ job.owner }} or {{ server.owner }} in your plugin or remote script code.

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS

Integration using iframes

As part of exposing CB’s catalog and request functions within other interfaces, there is now a new mode that can be made available. This “Catalog-Only” mode allows users to request resources using Blueprint, but does not allow them to access other parts of the application. The mode works well inside an iframe as an additional method of integrating with other IT products. 162432469

Azure Images

We’ve added multiple improvements in the support of Azure Images in CloudBolt.

• We’ve added the ability to add a single Azure public image in CloudBolt. This provides the convenience of being able to bypass the Fetch and Cache Available Azure Images rule when you only need to import a specific image.
• We’ve added the ability to import all private images in just one click. Another new button will appear on the Images tab: Import Private Images to provide a streamlined process which automatically imports private Azure images into the correct regions and environments.
• We fixed a bug where private images would show as available on resource handlers that they did not belong to, so now they will be resource-handler specific and will only show for the correct resource handler. There may still be some non-resource handler specific private images left behind if you were seeing this issue, but running ‘Import Private Images’ from the resource handler will clean those up.

Security Updates

A number of security-related features and settings have been updated.

• Running CloudBolt from within an iframe has been disabled by default, but can be activated if need be. 161992460
• Multiple failed login attempts will now result in a temporary lockout. The number of allowed attempts can be configured via the LOGIN_FAILURE_LOCKOUT_LIMIT setting, and the length of the lockout can be configured via the LOGIN_FAILURE_LOCKOUT_TIMEOUT setting. 161992655
• Stricter requirements for new passwords are now the default, and can be further configured. 161992575
• Security updates have been applied for the following Python packages: guacamole, cryptography, pycryptodome, django, paramiko, pyopenssl, and requests. 160599290
• A password reset workflow has been added for local users, and a link to send a reset email has been added to the bottom of the Login view. 162433261

If you have any questions about specific security topics, please contact support to learn more.

Azure Disks

• We’ve added the ability to add and remove ARM server’s disks when the disks are managed by Azure, a feature which was not supported in the past. This new feature gives you the ability to add multiple managed data disks to an Azure VM that already exists, with the ability to specify a storage type for the new disks. 162402734
• We’ve added the ability to resize disks on Azure VMs. Now, on the Disks tab on your Azure resource handler, you can edit the size of any disk. Note that in order to perform this operation, the VM must be deallocated, which may change the IP Address if you are using DHCP. 162435532

Blueprint-level Parameters in Resource Name Template

An issue with accessing Blueprint-level parameters destined for the resource from the resource name template after they were entered on the order form has been resolved. As part of that process, refactored how those parameters are added to the context to better match expected uses, including the addition of support for provided values and better constraining to only Blueprint-level parameters that have a destination that includes the resource. Also corrected and improved related documentation.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• Reports listing updated to card-based layout. 162679793
• On AWS Server details page, rename “Console Output” to “System Log” to match AWS Console language. 162848091
• The integrated RDP/SSH terminal can now be managed on a per-resource handler basis. 162863828
• Improved visual consistency of the Resources, Catalog, and Groups menus. 162028126
• Solved a confusing user experience where a preconfiguration on an Environment would not show in the form for configuring that Environment on a Blueprint server tier if its constituent parameters were already predefined for that Environment on that server tier. 162654087
• Fixed a bug with the edit button for a remote script on the Teardown tab of a Blueprint. 162490172
• On the catalog page, the OS Builds filter now only shows options that would return results. 162596225
• Fixed a bug that prevented non-Admin users with API access from accessing the API button 160464286
• A global job timeout is now enforced, to prevent runaway jobs from causing problems with the job engine. The default timeout is 24 hours, and upgrading to 8.5 will change this setting to 24 hours, but this can be changed in Admin > Miscellaneous Settings > Default job timeout 162464984
• Add unique name to Parameters in Parameter Display Sequence view 162398003
• Display Condition Plug-ins are now also passed the request, in addition to the server being considered. Note there’s a small chance this may cause an issue if your current Display Condition Plug-ins only accept the server and not the generic **kwargs. 161522384
• Permissions checks were made more consistent between the API and web UI. 161687841
• Clarifies that the DELETE verb is not supported in the API. 161687841
• Make “generate_string_from_template context” in job logs include all multi-value parameters, not just the last one.
• Fixed a bug involving windows password on AWS provisioned VMs 162422130
• On the system status page, show how long each Job Engine worker has been running 162468038
• Fixes a bug when the Server Filter has too many users 162798179
• Fixed a bug that made searching on the Catalog page difficult when using Firefox 162282731
• Sysprep answer files can now be used for customizing vCenter VMs during provisioning using the vmware_sysprep_file parameter 162653240
• Previously, the networks list view would take a long time to load. We’ve sped up the load time of this page. 160896666

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.4.0.1 - Tallman

• A few minor bugs were fixed relating to canceling jobs.

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.4 - Tallman

8.4 UPGRADE NOTES

When upgrading CloudBolt, please review all Upgrade Notes between the version of CloudBolt that you are presently running and the target version that you are upgrading to.

• Changes have been made to the API sample scripts. You’ll likely want to re-download them here, and may need to update your own scripts and processes for interacting with the API.
• Exports of the Group and Environment constraints on all base Actions, the Run on Server for Remote Scripts, and send_to_users for Email Hooks now have a different structure. Attempting to import a pre-8.4 export into 8.4 will cause those attributes to be skipped. Attempting to import an 8.4 export into a pre-8.4 CloudBolt will be incompatible.

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS

Resource Discovery & Sync

There is now a new way to create and update Resources in CloudBolt, by way of a Discovery Plug-in associated with a Blueprint that provides logic to discover and sync Resources of the type described by that Blueprint. This is an extension of CloudBolt’s “X as a Service” functionality, which now supports bringing brownfield environments of arbitrary types of resources under management and updating their state in CloudBolt as it changes in the external systems that host them.

Job Engine Improvements

After seeing a variety of issues with the Celery-based job engine introduced in CloudBolt 7.7, we are moving back to a CloudBolt-engineered Job Engine, which should be more stable, scalable, and sustainable. This newer engine was introduced as an option in CloudBolt 8.2.0.7. However, it is now the default engine, and the Celery-based engine will be removed altogether in a future release. The new engine includes a large set of enhancements, including support for High Availability in active-active configurations.

More information is available on our blog: API Documentation

IP Address Validation

Assignment of an IP address from an IP pool will skip addresses that are found to be already pingable, even if the address is not assigned to a server managed by CloudBolt. That remains true, however that validation has been moved to run as an out-of-the-box orchestration action at the “Validate IP Address” hook point and can now be disabled.

Now that the discovery of a pingable IP counts as a normal validation failure, the number of IP addresses that will be attempted before the assignment gives up has been increased from 5 to 50. That can be customized via the MAX_IP_RETRIES setting.

Regenerate Parameter Options

We’ve added support for multiple-choice parameters in regenerated parameter options dependencies. Now, you can set ‘allow_multiple’ to True on the controlling field and accept the new ‘control_values’ kwarg in the ‘get_options_list’ function in your generated parameter options plugin and generated options for the dependent field based on a list of selected control values.

Nutanix VM Snapshot support

CloudBolt now supports managing single-level snapshots on Nutanix servers. Two actions are provided: creating a new snapshot and reverting to a previous snapshot. Both actions are now available in the Actions panel on the server details page for Nutanix servers.

System status page

The health of various services within CloudBolt can now be viewed at Admin > Support Tools > System Status.

Azure Improvements

This release features some improvements to Azure (Resource Manager). * We’ve upgraded our Azure python SDK packages to the latest version, 4.0.0. You can read more about this version and it’s dependencies on PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/azure/ 159402657 * Fixes a bug where auto-creating availability sets was not compatible with non-managed disks. So, you can now auto-create availability sets in CloudBolt at provisioning time with a custom storage account. 160913381 * Added the ability to provision a VM with multiple managed disks. To take advantage of this feature, you can add data disks at provisioning time by adding the ‘Size for disk #’ parameters to your Azure environment, and the disks will be creating at provisioning time with the same storage type as the os disk. 160566671

Nutanix v3 Integration

In addition to being able to integrate with v2 of the Nutanix API, CloudBolt now integrates with v3 of the Nutanix API. Admins can dictate which version of the Nutanix API they want to connect with from the Overview tab of their Acropolis Resource Handler.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• Permissions checks were made more consistent across several areas of the product. 161184139, 161557669
• New admin-only maintenance mode (can be enabled from Admin > Support Tools > System Status) 156293691
• Improve the performance of VM sync and prov when using IP pools 161106009
• Importing an exported Action will now preserve any configured display sequence for its action inputs. 159709675
• Resolved potential issues when importing Actions with Group or Environment constraints, Remote Scripts with a Run on Server set, Email Hooks using send_to_users, and Resource Actions associated with a particular Blueprint. 160797727
• Temporary stdout/stderr and diskpart resize logs now respect the “Remote script Windows directory” miscellaneous setting. If unset, C:WindowsTempis used. 160990367
• Orders created from the API will now have a relationship to a Blueprint when applicable, allowing orders duplicated from them to be edited. 161017512
• Fixed an issue with the mod_server API sample script/ create_order_for_group method in the api_helpers file. 161030394
• URLs in email templates will be clickable in more email clients. 160150400
• After creating a CIT test from an order, show a link to the new CIT test. 160433485
• Formatting improvements in code comments. 160699450
• Made improvements to loading the networks page 160896020
• Added ‘disk_X_size’ parameter to allow constraints to ALL additional disks on a server 160855249
• Added the ability to duplicate an Order via the API 161066128
• Fixed a bug not allowing the denial of Orders via the API 161066128
• Limit the scope of certain exports from CloudBolt. 161270646
• Increase timeout of GCP operations from 3 minutes to 10. 161690556

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.3 - Paige

8.3 UPGRADE NOTES

When upgrading CloudBolt, please review all Upgrade Notes between the version of CloudBolt that you are presently running and the target version that you are upgrading to.

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS

Blueprint Catalog Redesign

The Catalog page for Blueprints has been redesigned to support pagination. It also inclues new sorting options, like ‘Frequently ordered’ and ‘Recently Added’. If the catalog is full enough to require pagination, filters are presented in a sidebar to improve discoverability of Blueprint categorization.

OpenStack Improvements

This release features a number of improvements for our OpenStack support.

• Fix a provisioning error when ordering a VM with security groups.
• Provide more useful error messages when the server is in an error state in OpenStack.
• Speed up the order details page by saving ‘flavor’ (node size) information to a file and loading it from there, rather than having to access the API.
• Add support for removing the ‘floating ip’ parameter from environments, making sure provisioning jobs do not fail from the lack of that parameter.

VMware Tags

CloudBolt now supports managing VMware tags on your servers by linking them to CloudBolt server attributes. When the value of the CloudBolt attribute changes on the server, so will the value of the tag in VMware. Likewise, when a tag is modified via VMware, that attribute will be updated in CloudBolt the next time that server is synced.

Adding Disks to Servers Through the API

Adding disks to a server in any resource technology that supports this, now can also be accomplished via the API. For specific instructions and examples please see the API documentation.

New Global Viewer Role

There is now an additional Global Role called a Global Viewer. Users given this role will have permission to view, but only view, everything in the UI, except for the exceptions listed in the documentation. This can be helpful for users who want high-level visibility to CB, perhaps to view reports, but should not have any edit capabilities.

Database and webserver upgrades

CloudBolt has been upgraded to MySQL 5.7.22 and Apache 2.4.33. If you have any custom configuration for these services, please make sure that it is compatible with the new versions.

Ordering Blueprints Through the API

We’ve fixed a bug where a Blueprint order placed through the API would exclude any sub-blueprint build items. Now, ordering Blueprints with sub-blueprints through the API will include the sub-blueprint and all of its build items in the order.

XenServer Static IP Assignment

We’ve added the ability to assign static IP addresses to Xen VMs. To use this feature, provision a new VM with a static network in CloudBolt, assigning an IP address. IPs can be set through the order form, an IP pool, or an IPAM. Note that in order to configure a static IP, the VM must have XenServer tools installed, which can be done by provisioning with an image that already has the tools installed. Additionally, we’ve added the ‘refresh info’ server action to Xen, which will get and update basic info on your VM like power status, CPUs, memory, disk, and IP address.

New Version Naming Scheme

Each CloudBolt major & minor version starting with 8.3 will be named after a noteworthy power user of CloudBolt. These CloudBolt champions are nominated by CloudBolt employees then randomly selected amongst the pool of consenting champions. This code name, and a brief description of the champion is displayed in CloudBolt’s About dialog (but this can be disabled by adding ENABLE_CHAMPION = False to your customer_settings.py).

8.3 is named for Steve Paige, who has been a CloudBolt power user and admin at InterContinental Hotels Group since 2015. One of his favorite CB features (which he has also helped to shape through his feedback) is power scheduling of servers & resources.

Support for CredSSP over WinRM

CloudBolt now supports the CredSSP authentication mechanism when running remote scripts on Windows machines. CredSSP allows an application to delegate the user’s credentials from the client to the target server for remote authentication, and solves the ‘second hop’ problem that some users experience when running remote scripts from CloudBolt. Enable the new ‘Support CredSSP’ Parameter for any Servers that should use CredSSP when authenticating. Consult the Microsoft documentation on CredSSP for more info: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/secauthn/credential-security-support-provider.

Font Awesome Upgraded to v5.3.1

The version of Font Awesome used by CloudBolt has been upgraded from version 4 to version 5.3.1. This includes thousands of new icons, as well as varying styles like solid, regular, and light. Note, the names of some fonts have changed, and the ‘fa’ prefix has been replaced by several prefixes to specify the style. Font classes that you have associated with actions and resource types should automatically update, but we recommend you review your current usage. Check out https://fontawesome.com/icons for more information.

Chef DK now included with CloudBolt

CloudBolt now ships with the current GA version of Chef DK, version 3.x. If you are using Chef with CloudBolt, please consult the Chef DK docs to make sure your Blueprints are using a compatible OS Build: https://docs.chef.io/platforms.html#chef-dk

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• Added support for non-English vCenter handlers, by allowing the network adtapter prefix to be overwritten in settings 160260676
• Names are now unique across both Parameters and Preconfigurations, so you cannot set a Parameter to have the same name as a Preconfiguration, or vice versa. This avoids potential ordering issues, and you will see a warning when ordering if you already have a matching Parameter and Preconfiguration. 159667885
• When actions have long names, they will no longer break the page layout. 159314282
• A new setting on Kubernetes container orchesterators allows specifying a prefix to the path to the API endpoint URL, for clusters that have non-standard URLs. 155369172
• Order Validation plugins with validate_order_form() functions now have build_item passed as an argument. (You can use this to access build_item.blueprint.) 158148588
• The output log of jobs will continually show the last lines of the output as additional output is added. 159045152
• CB will now notify admins by email when the CB product license is within 30 days of expiration, rather than 7. This change will only affect new CB instances (it can be changed in upgraded CBs by going to Admin > Rules > and editing the rule titled “Email CB Admin when license warning for thresholds”). 159507005
• On VMware vCenter resource handlers, the Templates tab now shows the last known status of VMware Tools. 159119766
• Specifying new disk with with size ‘0’ no longer causes an error. 158543761
• The default threshold for retaining sync VMs jobs & logs has been changed from 30 days to 7 days, and the delete old jobs recurring job changed to run once/day instead of once/week. 159125473
• Previously, when a sync VMs job was initiated by a user from the CB UI, it would assign newly discovered VMs to that user. Now an owner is no longer set for those VMs. 159086420
• Change the default number of rows shown in datatables from 10 to 25 158780556
• Webhook content was previously limited to Latin-1 characters, but can now include the full range of unicode. 159149609
• CIT jobs that have a number of retries set and are successful upon rerun are now marked as successful overall, instead of a warning. 159206787
• VM deletion warnings are enhanced. 159081181
• When importing networks from AWS and Azure environments, we now clean up old networks that were not fetched from the resource technology. This prevents users from trying to provision a server with a no-longer existent network. 158986534
• Prevents unnecessary file deletion and creation when remote source code is fetched and there are no changes from the previous version. 157009965
• Changed admin SSH url from http://localhost:8000/admin/admin/sshkeys/ to http://localhost:8000/admin/sshkeys/ and added a url redirect. 159495195
• Various improvements have been made to the job engine, including permanently removing a deprecated config file that would allow job workers to run via init.d. 158511540
• Importing and exporting remote scripts with instance-specific info will now take into account the hostname of a configured ‘Run on Server’. 159712260
• Multiple custom field values are now prevented from being attached to the same object.
• Local file content is only updated if it differs from remote content. 159574769
• Improved the loading time of the order form. 159670201
• Removing a Blueprint parameter now also removes its options and constraints. 160158659
• Parameters will no longer show when configuring an environment for a Server Tier if they will be overridden by a Blueprint parameter. 160158659
• Fixes a bug where Blueprint-level parameters that did not have build items as a destination still caused build item parameters to be hidden. 160158659
• Azure Stack support has been improved, including beta support for ADAL authentication 158165330
• MySQL server libraries will be kept up to date even if mysqld is disabled when using a remote database. 160003922
• Azure no longer requires full owner priviledges for the subscription. The minimum permissions needed are now ‘Virtual Machine Contributor’ and ‘Storage Account Contributor’. 159186436
• Removes the IUS repository. To update Apache 2.4 (httpd24u) via yum, please manually reinstall it. 161295430

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.2.0.7

• Ensure database connections are closed when jobs complete 156351124
• Increase threadpool size to match eventlet pool 159712173
• Fix deletion of Resource Handlers with templates/images that do not have OS Builds 158959906
• Send job-specific log messages to the job’s log when using the alternate job engine 160333846

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.2

8.2 UPGRADE NOTES

When upgrading CloudBolt, please review all Upgrade Notes between the version of CloudBolt that you are presently running and the target version that you are upgrading to.

• Upgrading to 8.2 may take longer than most upgrades because all database tables will be converted to a character set that supports UTF-8. If you want to create a backup of your database before the conversion, pass the -b flag when running the CloudBolt upgrader.
• API orders using the AWS Security Groups parameter need to pass a list of strings instead of a single string.

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS

Sequencing Server Actions

Admins can now control the sequence in which Server Actions are shown to users, namely for the buttons on a Server’s details page and the dropdown when running Server Actions in bulk.

Conditional Server Actions

Admins can provide more complex logic for deciding when a Server Action should display. This is done by associating a Display Condition Plug-in that returns True or False to indicate whether or not the Server Action should appear in the given situation. For example, you can now configure your custom Server Actions so they only show when a Server is on.

Continuous Infrastructure Tests

Version 8.2 adds extra flexibility for tests, it is now possible to assign to individual tests their own timeout (in seconds).

Choosing EBS Volume Type

We’ve made a number of improvements for specifying a type for AWS volumes. Previously, you could specify a volume type when provisioning a new instance by adding the ‘EBS Volume Type’ parameter to your AWS environments. We’ve made that parameter out of the box for all new and existing environments with the 5 EBS volume types as provided options. We’ve also added an out of the box dependent field for IOPS, which is required when creating ‘io1’ volumes. You’ll also be able to specify disk type and IOPS when adding disks to existing servers.

Sequencing Parameter Options

We’ve added the ability to define the display sequence of parameter options for orders. You can change the default display sequence by going to a parameter’s detail page and clicking on the edit icon under ‘Parameter Options’. Additionally, AWS instance types will be sorted by size by default, rather than alphabetically.

Importing and Exporting Blueprints with Dependent Parameters

Dependent parameters will now be included in Blueprints being exported and imported. Any dependencies set on Blueprint-level parameters and on the action inputs for Blueprint actions will be automatically created if they don’t already exist.

AWS Server Utilization

With version 8.2, CloudBolt now supports the fetching and reporting of utilization data for AWS servers. Provided metrics are CPU, Disk I/O and Network Throughput. A Stats tab now appears on the server detail page for AWS servers, and the ‘Refresh all server utilization’ Recurring Job now refreshes usage statistics for AWS servers in addition to VMware servers. Additionally, AWS servers are now included in the CPU Utilization reports.

Server Utilization Reports

The two CPU usage reports have been updated to include additional server utilization metrics. In addition to CPU usage, the bar graph and the table reports display memory, disk and network utilization. These reports were previously named ‘Server CPU % Last 30 Days’ and ‘Server CPU % Table’. These reports are now referred to as ‘Server Utilization Graph’ and ‘Server Utilization Table’, respectively.

Unicode support

The database encoding has been updated to support UTF-8 characters, so your data can now include non-Latin alphabets and emoji. 😀

Azure Improvements

This release features a number of improvements for Azure Resource Manager support:

• Added a new out of the box parameter ‘deallocate_with_power_off’ available to all Azure ARM servers. This allows you to set VMs to be deallocated when powering off through CloudBolt, which causes the VM to stop incurring charges, but will delete the internal and public IP. 158474788
• We’ve added support for Azure Availability Sets. To add an availability set when creating a new VM, check the ‘Use Availability Set’ parameter and then either choose from existing or auto-create a new availability set by selecting a resource group and then selecting an option from the ‘Availability Set’ parameter. 131575627
• Along with the existing public images and private VHD images, private managed images are now supported in Azure.
• Private images are no longer allowed to be provisioned into a custom storage account, so if one is chosen, it will be ignored and a warning will be written to the logs. However, the VM will be provisioned successfully using a managed disk.
• We fixed a bug where the ‘Edit Settings’ form on an Azure ARM resource handler would throw an error when Azure credentials were invalid. It will now show a more useful message, reminding you to update your credentials. 155561778

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

The Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization resource handler is no longer supported. Please contact us if you have questions or would like to have support in a future version of CloudBolt.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• A DevOps Admin will now be able to run all Actions on Servers and Resources, which was the original intention. 156379400
• The AWS Security Groups parameter is now a multi-select on new CloudBolt instances. 157888865
• Previously, the ‘View log’ and ‘Download log’ buttons would show for jobs which didn’t have a log. We now hide these buttons when there is no log available. 156638191
• Previously, a Blueprint item’s “Show on order form if needed” option hid the item’s form if it was submittable when the order form loaded, automatically choosing the first available input if there were multiple options. It will now only hide if there are no inputs where a user could make a choice. 156675086
• Fixed a bug that prevented users from importing environments with instance-specific info. 158345210
• Efficiency improvements to provision job 158502822
• Fixed issues in the regenerated parameter options field dependency, where options would not generate properly if the controlling field was predefined on the Blueprint or provided on an environment. 158807938
• Also fixed an issue which was preventing an order form from submitting when a generated option was chosen. 158808082
• Fixed a bug that prevents users from having the same images on different resource handlers of the same technology 158679535

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.1.1

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS

Subgroup Inheritance of Parameters

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• Fixes errors with templates whose resource handlers were deleted. 158126821
• Fixes a provisioning bug when hostnames are specified for multiple servers. 158204537
• Resolves an issue with the form for adding a disk to an Azure VM. 158327110
• Added the ability to have placeholder text in password fields 158337283
• Fixes error that came up when importing GCE networks. 158366263
• Detect ssh-keys returned in the new way by the GCE API. 158371572
• Fixes a bug in the job engine where the number of open files was artificially limited. 158313776

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.1.0.1

UPGRADE IMPROVEMENTS

• Existing Azure images could disappear when upgrading from CloudBolt 8.0 to 8.1. That has been fixed. 158330558

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.1

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS

Azure

Users can now choose to provision servers using a custom storage account for disks, or let Azure manage disks automatically. Your environments and order forms are set up to use managed disks by default.

As before, if users want to use a custom storage account for some reason, they also have the choice of auto-creating a new one based on the hostname or selecting an existing one. To remove this choice completely, set a global Option of False for the ‘Use custom storage account’ parameter predefine a value (any value - as long as ‘Use custom storage account’ is False it is ignored) for the ‘Azure Storage Account’ parameter on your Blueprint build items.

Environments have a new parameter “Storage Type” to configure storage performance now: Standard (HDD) or Premium (SSD). Both managed disks and custom storage accounts support this choice. Consult the Microsoft Azure documentation for High-performance Premium Storage. Standard will be used by default.

This release also features a number of smaller improvements for Azure:

• We’ve added support for using the same os build across multiple regions on Azure resource handlers.
• We’ve improved the rule ‘Fetch and Cache Available Azure Images’, allowing you to use a whitelist of images to speed up the process. You can implement your own whitelist by adding a list of images named AZURE_IMAGE_WHITELIST to your customer_settings.py. You may disable the use of a whitelist on the rule’s plugin by setting the default value for the ‘use_whitelist’ action input to False. 156956579

Nutanix Acropolis

The Nutanix Acropolis resource handler now supports clusters. For each cluster brought under CloudBolt management, a new environment is created. Management of disks has been improved to allow adding disks at provision time, adding and removing disks on existing VMs, and extending the root disk of an existing server. Server CPU and Memory can be modified. Subnets are now associated with NICs on CloudBolt servers.

Mapping LDAP Attributes to Users

We’ve added a feature that allows you to map LDAP attributes to users in CloudBolt. From the new ‘Attribute Mapping’ tab on an LDAP Utility’s detail page, you can add attributes from LDAP and map them to existing parameters in CloudBolt. You may then click ‘sync mappings’ and add the mappings to a user. You’ll then be able to view a user’s attributes from the user’s detail page if the parameter has ‘Show on Objects’ set to True.

Tracking the History of Resource Handlers

You can now see history events for resource handlers. You’ll be able to see when a resource handler was created and when a network has been added or deleted from the resource handler. History can be viewed from the new ‘History’ tab on a resource handler’s detail page, or from the admin/history list.

Tracking the History of Orders

You can now see history events for orders. You’ll be able to see when an order was created and the modifications, approval and other order life cycle events. History can be viewed from the order’s detail page, or from the admin/history list.

Ability to Inherit Group Permissions

If you would like your subgroups to automatically have the same permissions as their parent group, it is now possible to enable the inheritance of Users and their Roles. This will impact both internal and external users, and will keep subgroup permissions in sync with parent group permissions while enabled.

Parameter Options Can Be Loaded Remotely

On forms, options for a parameter can be supplied through actions a the “Generated Parameter Options” trigger point. But if the set of options is large (more than a few hundred values) this approach may take too long to render. Now there is a way to provide a form field that renders immediately and then auto-suggests matching options as the user types. This asynchronous loading of options makes for a lightweight, responsive user experience.

To enable this, go to Admin > Orchestration Actions and click the download-cloud icon in the top right to view actions available on the CloudBolt Content Library. Search for “Sample async param options plugin” and import it to get started.

Password Input Improvements

In addition to the expected masking and security concerns around password fields, CloudBolt also tries to determine if a password input should be presented with or without a confirmation field. The dual treatment of password fields was not aways intuitive. In version 8.1 users have the ability to switch to a more modern user experience with a single input element for all password fields that allow users to temporarily showing what is being typed. You can turn the new behavior on for all password fields by enabling Password Toggle in Admin > System > Miscellaneous Settings.

Customizing the Remote Script Directory

When remote scripts are written to a target *nix VM, the default directory it uses is /tmp/. For Windows VMs running remote scripts via VMware Tools, the directory is C:\Windows\Temp\. Both of those defaults can now be modified in Admin > Miscellaneous Settings.

Improved Stats tab for vCenter servers

The Stats tab for vCenter servers now includes charts for Disk I/O and Network throughput. Overall performance for this tab has been improved. In addition, stats for an individual server can now be manually refreshed from this tab.

Ordering on behalf of a recipient user

It is now possible for users with the appropriate permission to select a recipient for an order on the order form before submitting it. The recipient will own the Server(s) and/or Resource(s) created by the order, rather than the requester (who would own them by default). This feature is also available in the API, where it can be used to replace the existing approach of setting the order owner to someone other than the API user, or in addition to it.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• Quick Setup no longer guides you through setting up your first Resource Handler, and has been reduced to three steps. 156018644
• In-product guidance now helps you set up your first Resource Handler via handy warning icons + infotips. 157528193
• Fixed missing resource-parameters attribute on order serialization that was preventing the use of resource paramenters on API order requests 157565300
• Recurring jobs can be configured to start new jobs on schedule even if a previously spawned job is still running. 156559049 156486359
• Added the ability to set a default owner for all CIT tests, if you need CIT jobs to have an owner even when they’re run automatically on a schedule. 155451258
• We’ve improved the ‘Change Resources’ server button. The form now populates an initial value that reflects the existing values of the server for both CPUs and Mem Size. It will even do so when the existing value on the server is not an option on the environment or group, allowing you to change only one value when exceptions exist. 156133713
• We’ve improved the rule ‘Fetch and Cache Available Azure Images’, allowing you to use a whitelist of images to speed up the process. You can implement your own whitelist by adding a list of images named AZURE_IMAGE_WHITELIST to your customer_settings.py. You may disable the use of a whitelist on the rule’s plugin by setting the default value for the ‘use_whitelist’ action input to False. 156956579
• Fixed a bug around Syntax highlighting, where highlighting code and changing the syntax would removed the code. :bug: 155758058
• Added a miscellaneous setting to enable/disable Cost preview per environment in the order form. 157137954
• Fixed a bug where Resource Pool usage counts were reported incorrectly. 157234534
• Added the ability to modify the maximum page size of API calls in Customer Settings. 157216772
• Made hostname checks case insensitive with an option of sensitive in Miscellaneous Settings 157299905
• The Most-Recently-Used list under Resources has been temporarily removed because it was consistently inaccurate. 157234646
• A management script has been added to automatically cancel or requeue jobs that might have been dropped by the job engine. 157301579
• The Refresh All Server Utilization Recurring Job has been sped up considerably. 156961278
• The skipped messages are now being captured in the provisioning job log. These skipped messages get generated upon configuring a remote script for specific settings. These specific settings include: Resource technologies, OS families, Configuration managers and Server. 150051566
• The ‘Cost Savings from Power Schedules’ report can now be filtered by group. 157162909
• Actions now appear in the global search results. 157566936
• VMware API connections are reused more often for better efficiency. 157606054
• Remote scripts no longer log the rendered script contents. 157161739
• New trigger point for post-environment creation. Useful for automatic setup of environment parameters. 157616068
• We’ve improved how networks are selected when ordering. This fixes a bug where non-unique network names were incorrectly selected when provisioning servers. 151303061
• Kubernetes YAML files can now only be viewed by admins and Blueprint managers. 156486165
• You can provision AWS instances with multiple security groups by enabling the Allow Multiple Values option on the Security Groups parameter. 154968465

What’s New in CloudBolt 8.0

8.0 UPGRADE NOTES

When upgrading CloudBolt, please review all Upgrade Notes between the version of CloudBolt that you are presently running and the target version that you are upgrading to.

• Google Compute Engine images have been updated. If you experience any issues provisioning your existing images, please try re-importing them.

8.0 UPGRADE NOTES - XaaS Changes for your Custom Code

A variety of models, methods, and attributes have been updated to better align with the new structure of Resources in general, rather than Services in particular. If you reference any of the altered items in custom code such as actions or UI extensions, you will need to update your code accordingly.

If you have not written any custom code, you will not need to make any of these changes.

• The services app has become the resources app. This means that if you have any import statements like “from services.x import y”, you will need to change them to “from resources.x import y”. Similarly, imports of the type “from services import x” will need to become “from resources import x”.
• The following models have been renamed, so you will need to change any use of the old one to instead use the new one (including any indirect references from other models such as service_set):
  • Service has become Resource (service_set becomes resource_set)
  • ServiceAction has become ResourceAction (serviceaction_set becomes resourceaction_set)
  • ServiceNetwork has become SoftwareDefinedNetwork (servicenetwork_set becomes softwaredefinednetwork_set)
  • ServiceAppliance has become SoftwareDefinedNetworkAppliance (serviceappliance_set becomes softwaredefinednetworkappliance_set)
  • ServiceHistory has become ResourceHistory (servicehistory_set becomes resourcehistory_set)
  • ServiceActionSerializer has become ResourceActionSerializer
• The context available to actions now has resources, resource, and resource_name (in blueprint_context), rather than services, service, and service_name. For example, if you have a plug-in that uses {{ service.id }} it will need to become {{ resource.id }}. Similarly, {{ Blueprint_context.service_name }} should instead be {{ Blueprint_context.resource_name }}.
• If you have a get_options_list method in a Generated Parameter Options Orchestration Action or a generate_options_for_<action-input-name> method inside a CloudBolt Plug-in, those methods will now receive a resource keyword argument, rather than a service one, where applicable.
• If your code calls generate_string_from_template, be aware that method now expects resource in the context dictionary it receives, rather than service.
• If you have a Service tab UI extension, it needs to become a Resource tab UI extension. Change the model passed to the tab_extension decorator from Service to Resource.
• A number of out-of-the-box actions have had changes made to their code. If you have changed them, you will need to update your versions to reflect the new out-of-the-box code. The changes should mostly align with these Upgrade Notes. A number have also been renamed, which should update smoothly without intervention but is important for awareness.
  • Delete Service, renamed to Delete Resource
  • Associate Servers
  • Scale Service, which has also been renamed to Scale Resource and had its label changed to Scale
  • The actions in the Check Services for Scaling Conditions rule used for auto-scaling, which is not fully out-of-the-box but provided by CB in cloud_bursting.py. Renamed to Check Resources for Scaling Conditions, along with its condition. Updated actions include Get CPU Utilization from Parameter
  • The actions in the Expire Services rule, which has also been renamed to Expire Resources, had its condition renamed to Find Expired Resources, and had its “then” action renamed to Send Email About or Delete Expired Resources
  • Create Load Balancer
  • Create virtual network
  • A couple other action files that aren’t out-of-the-box currently, but may have been provided by CB: set_url_for_service.py (renamed to set_url_for_resource.py), arm_extension_puppetagent.py
  • A few action files that are no longer used were removed: xaas.py, generate_prov_service_item_options.py

8.0 UPGRADE NOTES - XaaS API Changes

A variety of API endpoints, serialization keys, and sample scripts have been updated to better align with the new structure of Resources in general, rather than Services in particular. You’ll likely want to re-download the sample scripts here, and may need to update any of your own scripts and processes for interacting with the API.

If you do not use the API or import/ export Blueprints or Actions, you will not need to make any of these changes.

• The way that Blueprints are serialized has changed, which will also affect import and export. Importing an old Blueprint export will not work properly.
  • The create-service metadata key has been changed to resource-type
  • The service-name-template metadata key has become resource-name-template
  • There are new labels for the destinations of Blueprint-level parameters
  • The service-management-actions metadata key has become management-actions
• There is no longer a services collection. Resources are accessed in the API through an endpoint of the format /resources/<name of type>. An individual Resource is found at /resources/<name of its type>/<its ID>.
• The service-actions collection has become resource-actions. This means that if you want to export or import a Resource Action through the API, the correct collection to pass in (say using the export sample script) is resource-actions.
• A number of sample scripts have been updated and/or renamed:
  • In order_blueprint.py, it now expects service-name, rather than resource-name, in the deploy-items argument
  • delete_service.py has become delete_resource.py, and has both changed its service-id argument to resource-id and added a resource-type argument
  • import_resource.py and export_resource.py have become import_object.py and export_object.py, respectively
• The way that Resources (as compared to when they were Services) are serialized has changed in that the service-networks metadata key has become software-defined-networks and the service-item key that used to appear for items such as networks and servers has been changed to tier
• In the serialization of a Job, the service metadata key has become resource
• In the serialization of a BlueprintOrderItem, the service-name metadata key has become resource-name

8.0 UPGRADE NOTES - Other XaaS Changes

In addition to the custom code and API-impacting changes described above, XaaS also introduced some other changes to URLs, settings, and the UI that you may need to be aware of.

• URLs that included the word services will now instead have resources and potentially a Resource Type.
  • The details page for a single Resource will change from /services/<id> to /resources/<id>
  • The list page for Resources of a particular type will be /resources/<type name>/list/, which means the list of Services will change from /services/ to /resources/service/list/
• URLs that included the phrase service_actions will now have resource_actions. For example, /actions/service_actions/ becomes /actions/resource_actions/.
• If you have overwritten CONTENT_LIBRARY_COLLECTIONS in your customer_settings.py, be aware that service-actions in that list has changed to resource-actions.
• The switcher between the Servers and Services lists that used to appear on both those pages has been removed. You can navigate to those pages using the nav bar at the top of the page, where both are now under Resources.
• The Pre-/Post-Delete Service trigger points have become Pre-/Post-Delete Resource, but should have the same Orchestration Actions associated with them.

8.0 UPGRADE NOTES - Hiding of the CloudBolt Admin global role

Most CloudBolt customers do not need the distinction between the Super Admin and the CloudBolt Admin global roles. To reduce confusion, the CloudBolt Admin role is now hidden by default and any user granted the Super Admin global role will automatically be granted CB Admin. When upgrading CloudBolt to 8.0, all users who have either CB Admin or Super Admin will be granted both. If you need to keep these two roles separate, you can edit customer_settings.py and add this line: CB_ADMIN_ENABLED=True.

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS

Upgrade to Python 3

CloudBolt has upgraded its Python version to 3.6.4.

Note

Any custom Plug-ins and UI Extensions must also be updated before upgrading to this version. Our out-of-the-box Actions have been updated to be compatible, and a guide is available to help in the transition. https://support.cloudbolt.io/hc/en-us/articles/115003824766

X as a Service (XaaS)

CloudBolt 8.0 includes an exciting paradigm shift in what can be deployed by a Blueprint. Namely, Administrators can now extend CB by defining custom Resource Types, and Blueprint managers can then choose which of those types their Blueprint should deploy, if any. If a Blueprint has a Resource Type selected, the high-level result of deploying that Blueprint (beyond what’s defined on the Build tab) will be a Resource of that type. The existing Service objects that used to be created by some Blueprint deployments are now an out-of-the-box Resource Type. While this new approach opens up many new opportunities, it does involve a shift in the way many features are conceptualized and function, so please review the Upgrade Notes for details on any changes you may need to make.

Job Engine Stability

The job engine workers are now being managed by Supervisor, which can automatically restart a crashed process. The worker process libraries have also been updated, and a number of default configuration settings have been improved.

Per-User API Access Permission

CloudBolt Admins may now remove access to the API for specific users by visiting that user’s profile and unselecting the “API Access” permission. When upgrading, all users will obtain this permission automatically. When creating new users (either manually or through a third-party authentication platform like LDAP), those users will obtain the permission as well.

In addition, CloudBolt now reports a generic error message during failed API authentication attempts to prevent malicious users from brute-forcing a list of valid usernames on the CloudBolt system.

Rates on Resources

Previously, servers were the only object for which CloudBolt tracked a rate, and while rates could be reported on groups, environments, etc., these were always aggregations of server rates. 8.0 introduces the ability to model the rate of items in Blueprints other than server tiers. For example, a Blueprint could be created with a CloudBolt Plug-in that provisions a storage bucket in a public cloud, and a rate could be associated with this item in the Blueprint. Anytime users order that Blueprint, they will create a resource that has that rate associated with it.

Catalog Management Improvements

Admins can now define a set of labels for categorizing Blueprints in Admin > Catalog Management. Blueprint managers can then tag their Blueprints with one or more labels. This enables end users to filter their Catalog view by label in addition to group, environment, and OS build. There is a new search field to find Blueprints by name or description. The catalog can be sorted by sequence (default) or name.

Sub-Group Inheritance of Parameters

Groups will now inherit parameters, along with their options and constraints, from parent groups. These parameters will influence order form customization such that inherited parameters will override any parameters previously set on sub-groups.

Viewing Bills

You can now view recent costs from AWS and Azure Resource Manager. From any AWS resource handler’s detail page, you can see last month’s total cost displayed in the Overview tab. For Azure ARM resource handlers on the public cloud, you can view a pdf of your latest invoice from the Overview tab.

Azure Improvements

This release features a number of improvements for Azure support:

• We’ve renamed our Azure resource technologies to better reflect Microsoft’s switch from service management to resource management. What was ‘Azure Resource Manager’ is now ‘Azure’, and ‘Azure’ (Service Manager) is now ‘Azure Classic’. 155453917 150713327
• As Microsoft phases out support for Azure Classic, the resource technology will be deprecated in a future release of CloudBolt. If you currently use an Azure Classic resource handler, please contact support to learn more about transitioning to Azure Resource Management.
• Private images are now supported. When images are fetched and cached, they will now include private images along with the public images. 143903523
• Because Azure requires a password field for new servers, we’ve added an out-of-the-box ‘Azure Password’ parameter for Azure (Resource Manager) Environments. This also provides a constraint for validating Azure’s password requirements. 155485173
• Cloning Azure Resource Manager environments will now include Resource Groups and Storage Accounts in the clone. 155451924
• We’ve cleaned up the log statements created by msrest, no longer filling application.log with verbose response content. 151136511
• We’ve optimized the loading speed of the Azure ‘Import Images’ dialog, which you can reach from an Azure resource handler’s detail page, under the ‘Images’ tab. 155642146

AWS Improvements

We’ve provided a new tech-specific parameter ‘Auto-delete EBS Volumes on Termination’ which will be automatically added to existing AWS environments. When set to True on a server, all attached root and non-root EBS volumes will be automatically deleted on termination of the instance. This parameter will be set on servers provisioned after this upgrade. Any existing servers won’t be affected. If you don’t want this behavior, remove the parameter from AWS environments.

Kubernetes Improvements

This release features a number of improvements to Kubernetes support:

• Kubernetes objects deployed via CloudBolt are displayed on the cluster details page, as well as the details page of the resource they belong to.
• You can edit the YAML of deployed Kubernetes objects.
• You can now provision to namespaces besides default by adding the “namespace” attribute to the “metadata” section of your YAML files.
• You can now use {{ group }}, {{ job }}, {{ Blueprint_context }} and more in your YAML files.
• You can authenticate with any strategy that uses a bearer token, including service accounts, static tokens, and bootstrap tokens.

Power Scheduling Resources

You can now set power schedules on any resource containing servers from the resource’s ‘Power Schedule’ tab. This allows you to schedule collections of servers to be powered on or off as a group in a specific sequence. The new ‘Auto-Power Control Resources’ recurring job will use the deploy sequence from the server tiers on the Blueprint the resource was deployed from to power the servers on in order. When powering servers off, it’s done in the reverse order.

LDAP Mapping Improvements

• The Super Admin role can now be added to an LDAP mapping.
• You can now do a dry run of a sync even if you have modified the out-of-the-box sync plugin.
• You can do an actual sync from the Mappings tab, as well as a dry run.
• You can sync permissions for all users in an LDAP domain at once. Note that this only includes users who have previously logged into CloudBolt.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• Fixed an issue where sub-blueprints were not being passed in the context for Blueprint actions. 155568834
• Google Compute Engine now provisions faster. The image list has also been updated. 155577636
• Improved the user experience for visually impaired people that rely on a screen reader, and improve compliance with Section 508 accessibility standards. 3821673
• Generated Parameter Options Orchestration Actions (Programmatically-Generated Options) are now shown on the details page for a Parameter to make them more discoverable. 155420577
• Remote Desktop connections using NLA will now prompt for Domain (optional). To connect with non-domain credentials, leave the field blank. 155301652
• Fixed a bug where VMs resources wouldn’t update if they were custom size in GCE 155042939
• A ‘GCE Network Tags’ parameter has been added that will attach provided value(s) as tags to servers provisioned in GCE. 154530295
• Fixed the blank ‘Power’ column (pictographs) on the Custom Server Report. 155235969
• Fixed a bug where server context wasn’t passed in email hook in pre/post power on/off hook point. 155602257
• The CB Admin global role is now hidden to prevent confusion. 156021211
• The Interactive Servers Report table updates correctly as the chart above is filtered. 155628105
• Order form validation errors for network fields are now shown. 154848440
• Templatetized From Address field of emailhook. 156486774

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.7.3

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS

Auto-Select Environment Plug-ins

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.7.2

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS

Generated Option Parameters Improvements

Prior to version 7.7.2, generating options for parameters using an action required a deep understanding of the CloudBolt architecture. It required, for instance, understanding all the places the action might get called from and the OOTB (out-of-the-box) behavior for parameter options. Starting in version 7.7.2, it’s possible to affect the options for a parameter on select contexts and default to the OOTB behavior in other contexts. It is also possible to bypass the OOTB filtering of generated options by constraints defined elsewhere in the product.

Azure Stack Resource Handler

Support for Azure’s on-premise cloud platform has been added. Functionality should match that of Azure’s public Resource Manager. For more information, refer to https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/azure-stack/.

Dynamic EC2 Regions

Past versions of CloudBolt relied on the static EC2 regions included with the botocore library to display lists of available regions to users. CloudBolt now attempts to lookup regions from the AWS web service to fetch the latest list of regions. New regions will now appear as soon as they’re available to EC2 users. If CloudBolt cannot reach AWS to fetch these regions, or the request takes too long, it falls back to the botocore static list of EC2 regions. 154526566

External source code caching

After fetching source code from an external system, CloudBolt will keep a cached copy. If connection to the system later fails and the source code can’t be accessed, CloudBolt will fall back to the cached version. This applies to plug-ins, remote scripts, and Kubernetes config files.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• Allow for multiple AMIs in OS Builds for the same resource handler. 151774553
• Release notes were moved to a shorter URL, /release-notes.html
• Fixed a bug where NICs lost the associated network 154678401
• Fixed a bug where already-deleted snapshots in GCE couldn’t be deleted in CloudBolt 154095690
• Added ability to cancel multiple jobs at once from the Jobs list page.
• The resolution of the CloudBolt favicon has been increased.
• Added a new weekly recurring job “Refresh Server Rates” which updates the rates used for calculating cost estimates on GCE and AWS servers when their pricing has changed.
• Added ability to control the order in which Action Inputs are shown on an order form. 152357278
• Improved the warning message when deleting Azure Resource Groups and Storage Accounts. 155041959
• Updated available AWS instance types 154538677
• Azure servers now set their power status to ‘Off’ when Azure reports their status as ‘stopping’. Before, they would have a power status of ‘Unknown’ until Azure reported it as ‘stopped’. 155344290
• The Azure Resource Manager Rate Hook action now uses the proxy configuration set in Miscellaneous Settings to fetch rate data from Azure. 155424581

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.7.1

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.7

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.6

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.5.1

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.5

This patch release fixes the following issues:

• Fixed vulnerability around delete snapshots 151486662
• Fixed issue where Remote Desktop connections to versions of Windows greater than 2012/10 failed with a DISCONNECTED error message. 151526509
• Fixed error raised when deleting a service with a sub-service 151552747
• Fixed Quick Setup steps “Networks” and “Templates” which prevented user from proceeding in some cases. 151525203
• Fix an error handling bug - after provisioning, if VMware returns an error when trying to find the template, the CloudBolt provisioning job is now resilient to that error. 151136839

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.4

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.3.0.1

• This release fixes a bug in the order form that prevented rates and hostname template previews from updating as values are changed.

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.3

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.2.2.1

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.2.2

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.2.1

/opt/cloudbolt/manage.py update_server_history_events 

rm -rf /var/opt/cloudbolt/proserv/cached_reports/*

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.2.0.1

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.2

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.1

What’s New in CloudBolt 7.0

"init_command": (     # Create tables using the InnoDB engine as opposed to the MyISAM engine     # Django will automatically create FK mappings and support     # transactions when using InnoDB based tables     # this option only affects the tables at schema creation time     'SET DEFAULT_STORAGE_ENGINE=INNODB; '     # Use READ COMMITTED instead of REPEATABLE READ     'SET SESSION TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ COMMITTED' ),