Foreman

Hi All,

This is a maintenance release, and most likely the last release of foreman supporting Ruby older than 1.87 (The proxy would still run on older versions of ruby as far as we can support it).

if you have no idea what foreman is about, feel free to review http://theforeman.org/projects/foreman/wiki/Features

This release mostly contains many small UI fixes and features, PostgreSQL related bugs and dashboard notifications.

If you are provisioning hosts via foreman, it is highly recommended to upgrade to this version, as it solves an issue when foreman was unable to rollback actions on failures #1386 [1] (e.g. dns / dhcp records etc).

The complete change log for foreman can be found here [2] and for the proxy at [3]

[1] - http://theforeman.org/issues/1386
[2] - http://theforeman.org/versions/show/17
[3] - http://theforeman.org/versions/show/18

Many thanks to all contributes and users,

Have fun,
Ohad

I'm pleased to announce the release of Foreman 0.3

Download from:

Source: http://theforeman.org/attachments/download/237/foreman-0.3.tar.bz2
RPM: http://yum.theforeman.org/stable/RPMS/foreman-0.3-1.noarch.rpm

It is recommended to upgrade your foreman smart proxy to the latest version as well.

Highlights of this release include:

Searching¶

• Foreman now has a searchbar that prompts for possible search fields and values.
• Searches can consist of multiple clauses with complex logic operations.
• Previous searches can be saved as a bookmark and made public for others to use.
• Many more search conditions, among them:
  • Host can be found by their parameters
  • Host can be found by their classes (direct associations or though host groups).
  • Host can be found by all valid combinations (e.g. multiple facts, report status, time stamps etc)
• Audits search target have been greatly enhanced
• All Search conditions could be used via the API as well
• Search can apply on pages such as the dashboard (e.g. show only hosts in environment != development)
• Example of a puppet function which uses the search API can found here: https://gist.github.com/919578

Authorization¶

• A user is always granted access to their own account information. This also allows Internal users to change their password even if they do not have edit rights on User.
• Additional permission groups have been added to control access to nearly all of Foreman's feature.

Charting¶

• The graphing libraries have been replaced with the Highchart system.
• Internet access is no longer required to view charts.
• They look way better :p

Virtualization¶

• The hypervisor pages now show more information about their guests.
• Virtual clients can now be deleted/stopped/started etc.

Smart-proxy extensions¶

• Puppet certificates can now be displayed, signed and revoked from within Foreman.
• Autosign entries can be managed from within Foreman.

API¶

Many more operations that are available from the Web interface have been exposed via the API. These are just a few:-

• Classes per host
• Host's last report
• Statistics can be retrieved
• Complex search queries could be performed via the API as well using the same search syntax as in the UI

Information for developers¶

• The Backend Prototype Javascript library has been replaced with jQuery, thus providing a much richer set of graphical browser components

Misc.¶

• All communication between smart-proxies and Foreman could be encrypted over HTTPS channels.
• Support for Scientific Linux has been added.
• Most operations now refer to the host by its name rather than its id in the URL.
• Selected hosts tickbox works across multiple pages.
• Foreman handles unreachable proxies gracefully.
• Hosts which report skipped operations are no longer considered as being in error state.
• When creating or editing a host the provisioning templates that will be used are displayed.

The complete changes list can be found here: http://theforeman.org/versions/show/4

As Usual, many thanks to all contributors and users!!!

Have fun,
Ohad

Hello All,

I'm happy to announce a new release of Foreman, top highlights for this release includes:

• New look and feel
• Extended restful API
• Support for New Puppet Reports format
• Full VM/physical host Provisioning
• Powerful template generator ( pxelinux, gpxe, kickstart, preseed, grub etc..)
• introduce a new service called smart proxy (which can run on remote machines) to manage the following services:
  • DNS Management
  • DHCP Management
  • TFTP Management
  • Puppet/PuppetCA Management

This release is a major release packed with goodies, more than 130 tickets were closed.

Release notes can be found here: http://theforeman.org/projects/foreman/wiki/ReleaseNotes

Full change log can be found here: http://theforeman.org/versions/show/9

As usually many many thanks to all contributors and users

RPMS for both smart proxy and foreman can be found at http://yum.theforeman.org/stable

Have fun,
Ohad

For those of you who think that Foreman development has slowed down a bit, you are probably right....

• I started a new job last week.
• I moved a country.
• I didn't have more than 10" display for a month and a half.

But not to worry, I'll be up to speed in no time (ok.. Maybe a few more weeks :))

Keep on the bugs / feature requests coming, we'll cut out a new version soon.

Thanks,
Ohad

New Foreman Release - checkout the Release Notes at http://theforeman.org/projects/foreman/wiki/ReleaseNotes

Have fun!
Ohad

I've created RPM (RHE5) for foreman, to install, please create a yum repo

Puppet manifest¶

yumrepo { 'foreman':
    descr => 'Foreman Repo',
    baseurl => 'http://theforeman.org/repo',
    gpgcheck => '0',
    enabled => '1'
}

Quick and dirty¶

cat > /etc/yum.repos.d/foreman.repo << EOF
[foreman]
name=Foreman Repo
baseurl=http://theforeman.org/repo
gpgcheck=0
enabled=1
EOF

yum install foreman

Update: Additional rpms might be required from epel repo's

if you just want to get the rpms:

http://theforeman.org/repo/el5/noarch/foreman-0.1.4-3.noarch.rpm
http://theforeman.org/repo/el5/noarch/rubygem-rack-1.0.1-1.noarch.rpm
and
http://theforeman.org/repo/el5/SRPM/foreman-0.1.4-2.src.rpm

feedback / comments are welcomed.

Ohad

Hello All,

Its been a while since last release.. so I'm happy to announce the next stable release of Foreman (0.1-4).

• host report graphs, this hopefully removes the need for the RRD graphs.
• support for customized run interval
• support to browse and filter hosts based on facts
• extlookup variables store (can replace extlookup csv files)
• support to trigger puppetrun from the web interface
• added state to query interface (e.g. get all hosts which are not running puppet)
• Summary Email Supports facts or environment restrictions
• upgraded rails to 2.3.5 (mostly because of security patches)

As usual, many bugs were fixed - many thanks to all reporters, and those of you who keep on sending patches :-)

For a complete change log, please visit http://theforeman.org/projects/changelog/foreman#0.1-4

Note that now there is also a foreman users group (http://groups.google.com.sg/group/foreman-users) and an IRC channel #theforeman on freenode

If you already have Foreman installed, make sure you go through http://theforeman.org/wiki/foreman/Upgrade_instructions.

latest version can be fetched from here - http://theforeman.org/attachments/download/60/foreman-0.1-4.tar.bz2

Note - because of rails upgrade you now require rack 1.0.1 gem
e.g.: gem install rack -v 1.0.1 (as foreman user)

For feature requests, bugs, wiki etc, visit: http://theforeman.org

Hello All,

As we try to release every month, I'm happy to announce the next stable release of Foreman (0.1-3):

• External nodes mode – Allows you to use foreman without automating your server installation as well (e.g. you wont have to add additional information when adding a new host to Foreman) - http://theforeman.org/wiki/foreman/FAQ#I-dont-want-to-use-Foreman-for-unattended-installations-can-I-disable-it
• Dashboard improvements
• Email Summary notification - http://theforeman.org/wiki/foreman/Summarized_E-Mail_Reports
• Inventory Graphs - e.g. http://theforeman.org/attachments/download/42
• Better HTTPS support
• Query interface - This exciting feature allows you to ask Foreman for a list of host based on a classes or facts
  (or any combination of those).
  An example of a multi-ssh connection (e.g. in parallel) which queries foreman and all is even added for fun - http://theforeman.org/wiki/foreman/Query_Interface

As usual, many bugs were fixed - many thanks to all reporters, and those of you who keep on sending patches :-)
For a complete change log, please visit:http://theforeman.org/projects/changelog/foreman
For feature requests, bugs, wiki etc, visit: http://theforeman.org

If you already have Foreman installed, make sure you go through http://theforeman.org/wiki/foreman/Upgrade_instructions.

latest version can be fetched from here - http://theforeman.org/attachments/download/53/foreman-0.1-3.tar.bz2

Happy new year!
Ohad

I'm happy to announce the next stable release of Foreman (0.1-2), main new features include:

• General
  • LDAP / AD Authentication support.
  • Audit Log - keeps information about changed host values (e.g. host environment, external node parameters etc).
  • Added Puppet module for installing/managing foreman
• Puppet Reports
  • Added a basic dashboard, allows you to know your puppet client status at a glance.
  • Added retention rules to expire old reports
• Added query interface
  • Similar mini functionally like storeconfigs, allows puppet clients to collect list of hosts based on a class or a fact groups
  • Provide host list to external tools e.g. Capistrano, *ssh etc
• Unattended installations
  • allow to have reusable configurations (snippets) across operating systems (e.g. for puppet.conf)

Additionally a lot of bugs were fixed, if you are using foreman, it is highly recommended to upgrade.

For a complete change log, please visit: http://theforeman.org/projects/changelog/foreman

For feature requests, bugs, wiki etc, visit: http://theforeman.org

If you already have Foreman installed, make sure you go through http://theforeman.org/wiki/foreman/Upgrade_instructions.

if you are using external nodes, please note that the URL has changed - please review the foreman puppet module for examples.

Cheers,
Ohad

• Integration of Puppet Reports, once enabled you would see a real time overview of all of yours hosts status.
• Improved support for multiple Puppet Masters (e.g. import facts and reports from remote servers over http)
• Simplified migration from existing external nodes setup, now its possible to import your existing classifier data into Foreman.

For a complete change log, please visit: http://theforeman.org/projects/changelog/foreman
For feature requests, bugs, wiki etc, visit: http://theforeman.org

If you already have Foreman installed, make sure you go through http://theforeman.org/wiki/foreman/Upgrade_instructions.

Cheers,
Ohad