Chef Infra Client Release Notes
Chef Infra Client 18.5.0
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/18.5.0.mdSecurity
- Updated OpenSSL to 3.0.9 for all platforms except macOS and Windows.
- Amazon Linux and Ubuntu now support FIPS on ARM processors.
Resource Updates
chef_client_config resource
- Fixed the ERB template used to generate
client.rb
files with the chef_client_config resource. When the thepolicy_persist_run_list
andminimal_ohai
properties were set tofalse
, the template would return aNoMethodError
. (#14255) (#14465)
chef_client_systemd_timer resource
- Added the
service_umask
property to the chef_client_systemd_timer resource. This allows you to define a custom umask for files or directories created by Chef Infra Client. (#14238)
chocolatey_package resource
Fixed the
use_choco_list
property in the chocolatey_package resource. When set tofalse
it was still usingchoco list
to return a list of installed chocolatey packages. Thanks jaymzjulian! (#14227)Fixed the chocolatey_package resource for customers using the licensed version of Chocolatey. Users with the licensed version of Chocolatey who were trying to install
chocolatey.extension
using the chocolatey_package resource would get a license error because chocolatey_package resource would runchoco --version
before installing a package, but Chocolatey requires thatchocolatey.extension
is installed before running that command. (#14320)Fixed the chocolatey_package resource which would return an error when installing or upgrading multiple packages with the same action. Thanks jaymzjulian! (#14327)
habitat_install resource
Fixed the habitat_installer resource so that it correctly uses the system bash to install Chef Habitat instead of another command-line shell. (#14298)
powershell_package resource
Added the allow_clobber
property to the powershell_package resource. This overrides warning messages when installing packages with conflicting commands. Thanks mikef-nl! (#14382)
sysctl resource
Updated the comment
property of the sysctl resource so that property does not define system state. Thanks drdev! (#14309)
windows_service resource
Reverted an earlier change to the description
property in the windows_service resource. This changed returned NoMethodError
when used with the win32-service Gem. (#14334)
zypper_package resource
- Reverted an earlier change to the zypper_package resource included in Chef Infra Client 18.3.0. After this change, the zypper_package resource was throwing an error if a package isn’t available in a repository, but its capability is provided by another package. For example the systemd-bash-completion package doesn’t exist, but its functionality is provided by systemd package. Chef Infra Client now correctly handles valid packages. (#14408)
Improvements
- Added the
hyperv?
helper method to check if a node is a Hyper-V guest. (#14359)
Performance improvements
- Added a variety of performance improvements thanks to dafyddcrosby.
Bug fixes
- Removed the EOL warning for Chef Infra Client 18 because there is no longer a specific timeline for major version releases. (#14366)
- Replaced the hardcoded Chef trademark with the distribution name in deprecation warnings. (#14279)
- Client now uses the correct log level using
log_level
in the Credentials file or config.rb file andverbose_logging
isn’t set. Previously it would usewarn
ifverbose_logging
wasn’t set andlog_level
was set. (#14294) - Fixed a Windows UTF-8 encoding error when retrieving data from the Windows registry. (#14449) (Ruby Patches)
Packaging
- We no longer build packages for macOS 10.15. (#14291)
Dependencies
- Upgraded Ruby 3.1 from 3.1.2 to 3.1.4. This also upgrades curl to version 8.0.1 and Perl to version 5.36.
- Upgraded the vault gem to 0.18.2 #14423
Chef Infra Client 18.4.12
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/18.4.12.mdCompliance Phase improvements
Updated Chef InSpec to 5.22.40. (#14200)
This update removes the dependency on the activesupport Gem by removing the
blank?
method. (inspec/inspec#6916)
Breaking changes
Removed the deprecated
_blacklist
and_whitelist
attributes. (#14186)These attributes were deprecated in Chef Infra Client 16.3 and replaced with blocklist and allowlist attributes. See the attributes documentation for more information.
Packaging
- We are now building packages for Amazon Linux 2023 on
aarch64
andx86_64
platforms. #14228
Chef Infra Client 18.4.2
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/18.4.2.mdImprovements
- net/http statements are now logged with the Chef debug logger (
Chef::Log.debug
) instead of withputs
. (#13970)
New resources
Added the new chocolatey_installer resource which installs the Chocolatey package manager on a node.
For additional information, see the chocolatey_installer resource documentation. (#14043)
Resource updates
Added the
use_inline_powershell
property to the powershell_script resource. This adds the ability to use the PowerShell DLL on Windows instead of shelling out. Thanks @jaymzjulian! (#14052)Optimized Chocolatey resources when doing large numbers of operations. This includes adding the
bulk_query
anduse_choco_list
properties to the chocolatey_package resource.The
bulk_query
property batches queries and significantly reduces the load on upstream package servers.The
use_choco_list
property uses thechoco list
command to return Chocolatey packages instead of querying for NuGet package files. This property isfalse
by default because querying for NuGet package files is faster than executing thechoco list
command.For more information, see the chocolatey_package resource documentation. Thanks @jaymzjulian! (#13972)
Added the following properties to the user_ulimit resource:
- as_limit
- as_soft_limit
- as_hard_limit
- locks_limit
- maxlogins_limit
- maxlogins_soft_limit
- maxlogins_hard_limit
- msgqueue_limit
- msgqueue_soft_limit
- msgqueue_hard_limit
- cpu_limit
- cpu_soft_limit
- cpu_hard_limit
- sigpending_limit
- sigpending_soft_limit
- sigpending_hard_limit
- rss_limit
- rss_soft_limit
- rss_hard_limit
For more information, see the user_ulimit resource documentation. Thanks @chrisminton! (#13394)
Added the
anchor_package_regex
property to the apt_package resource. This property restricts or allows apt_package to match packages by regular expression if it can’t find the exact package name that’s specified. For more information, see the apt_package resource documentation. #13873)Improved debug logging output when the service resource can’t enable a service. (#13959)
Resource bug fixes
- Fixed the zypper_package resource to handle error 104 when removing a non-existent package properly. (#14150)
- Fixed the windows_service resource, which would trigger a change on every execution if you specify a service description. (#14064) Thanks @jakauppila!
- Fixed the chef_client_systemd_timer resource to accept integer values for a unit’s CPU quota. (#14011) Thanks @blackknight36!
- Fixed the local resource on Windows machines, which now correctly validates if locale-gen is installed. (#14014)
- Fixed homebrew_cask, homebrew_tap, and homebrew_update resources error if Homebrew is not in the path. (#13937)
- Fixed the chef_client_config resource which was removing permissions to the
\chef
directory on Windows systems. (#14173)
Dependencies
- Updated Chef Foundation to 3.1.20. This includes loosening the package dependency chain in Solaris to allow clients with older patch versions than the Solaris builder to still be able to install. (#14183)
Security
- Fixed an issue where sensitive items could be logged or displayed even if the sensitive attribute is set to
true
. (#13897) - Updated OpenSSL to 1.0.2zi. (#14088)
Bug fixes
- Updated the
attribute_changed
event hook to handle changes in arrays. Thanks @Annih! (#13996) - Fixed the
knife search
command to correctly handle attributes with a dot, for example, a SemVer version number. (#13956) - Fixed chef-shell in Chef Infra Client mode when debugging a cookbook with attributes. Thanks @dafyddcrosby! (#13941)
Chef Infra Client 18.3.0
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/18.3.0.mdImprovements
- Reformatted the output of the
knife cookbook list -a -F json
command so it returns a hierarchical JSON object of cookbook versions instead of a flat array. (#13654) Thanks aknarts!
Resource updates
- Added an
options
parameter to the apt_repository resource to set arbitrary options for Apt repositories. (#13728) Thanks, tmccombs!
Resource bug fixes
- Fixed an issue where the homebrew_tap resource on ARM64 (Apple Silicon) machines would not untap a Homebrew tap with the
:untap
action. (#13669). - Fixed an issue where an integer passed to the
program_arguments
property in the launchd resource would cause a kernel panic in launchd because it requires a string. (#13682) Thanks, gbatye! - Fixed an idempotency issue in the zypper_package resource by verifying that the named package is already installed. (#13691) Thanks, ramereth!
- Fixed a bug in the windows_security_policy resource when the user running Chef Infra Client has a space in their username. (#13809) Thanks, jwdean!
- Updated the chocolatey_package resource to handle changes introduced in Chocolatey CLI v2.0. (#13833)
- Fixed a type error in the yum_package resource when the
makecache_fast
property isfalse
. (#13829). Thanks chouetz!
Bug fixes
- Fixed an issue where attributes loaded slowly due to a regression in
net/http
in Ruby 3.1. (#13745) - Fixed an
Invalid Memory object
error when Infra Client runs on Windows. (#13677) - Fixed an issue where
knife bootstrap
would fail using the--sudo
option on EL8 systems. (#13636)
Dependencies
- Bundled
chef-powershell
updated from 18.0.2 to 18.1.0. (Also addresses #13357)
Packaging
- We are now building packages for Rocky Linux 8. (#13867)
- We brought back support for AIX systems after it was removed in Chef Infra Client 18.2.7.
Security
- Update OpenSSL to 1.0.2zf to address CVE-2022-2068 and CVE-2022-1292. (#13890)
Chef Infra Client 18.2.7
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/18.2.7.mdNOTE: This release does not include Infra Client packages for AIX systems.
New Resources
selinux_user and selinux_login resources
Added the new selinux_user and selinux_login resources. (#13511)
The selinux_user resource allows you to manage the security level, security range, and roles for a given SELinux user.
The selinux_login resource allows you to manage the security range and associated SELinux user mapping for a given OS login.
Thanks wheatevo!
Resource Updates
macos_userdefaults resource
We fixed an issue in the macos_userdefaults resource where the user
property was not being used when host
property wasn’t passed. This update sets default values for user
and host
as the current user and any host. (#12791)
launchd resource
Updated the associated_bundle_identifiers
property in the macOS launchd resource to accept an array instead of just a hash of values. Thanks Arequ! (#13477)
apt_repository resource
Updated the apt_repository resource so that the apt-keys are updated if the expiration of a key is updated without changing the fingerprint. Thanks tmccombs! (#13535).
Packaging
This release does not include Infra Client packages for AIX systems.
Bundled Dependencies
- Bundled
ohai
updated from18.0.26
to18.1.3
- Bundled
proxifier (1.0.3)
is replaced withproxifier2 (1.1.0)
- Bundled
inspec-core
updated from5.18.14
to5.21.29
- Bundled
aws-partitions
updated from1.681.0
to1.731.0
- Bundled
aws-sdk-core
updated from3.168.4
to3.170.1
- Bundled
aws-sdk-kms
updated from1.61.0
to1.63.0
- Bundled
aws-sdk-s3
updated from1.117.2
to1.119.1
- Bundled
aws-sdk-secretsmanager
updated from1.68.0
to1.73.0
- Bundled
chef-vault
updated from4.1.10
to4.1.11
- Bundled
concurrent-ruby
updated from1.1.10
to1.2.2
- Bundled
erubi
updated from1.11.0
to1.12.0
- Bundled
faraday
updated from1.4.3
to2.7.4
- Bundled
inspec-core-bin
updated from5.18.14
to5.21.29
- Bundled
mime-types-data
updated from3.2022.0105
to3.2023.0218.1
- Bundled
multipart-post
updated from2.2.3
to2.3.0
- Bundled
net-ssh
updated from7.0.1
to7.1.0
- Bundled
parser
updated from3.1.3.0
to3.2.1.1
- Bundled
plist
updated from3.6.0
to3.7.0
- Bundled
rack
updated from2.2.4
to2.2.6.4
- Bundled
regexp_parser
updated from2.6.1
to2.7.0
- Bundled
timeout
updated from0.3.1
to0.3.2
- Bundled
webrick
updated from1.7.0
to1.8.1
Bug fixes
We fixed a bug in the Chef Omnibus pre-install script that sometimes led to EBUSY errors during upgrades.(#13562)
The “FFI::Yajl
” errors (#13380) have been resolved by an update to chef-powershell
(chef-powershell-shim#187)
Security
Test Certificates
As part of ongoing work, we updated new Digicert-based certificates for testing. These need to be updated sporadically, and we’re updating you here in case this impacts your own testing. (#13625)
Windows Certificates
We fixed an issue with private keys that are encrypted in the certificate store on a Windows node that is under management by two or more users or by an admin and the SYSTEM account. The private key could not be decrypted by a user other than the user that bootstrapped the node because the password is user-specific. We now use an initialization vector to encrypt the private key, which is stored in the Windows registry. This allows multiple users to decrypt a private key. (#13552)
Chef Infra Client 18.1.0
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/18.1.0.mdResource Updates
- Resource validation should be aware of action property requirements (#13069) - Thanks @sabat!
- Added the option to set a release version when using activation keys in the rhsm_register resource. (#13352) - Thanks @ianl678!
- Added the
associated_bundle_identifiers
property to the launchd resource. This property indicates which bundles the Login Items Added by Apps panel associates with the helper executable. (#13288) - Thanks @chilcote! - Added the
makecache_fast
property to the yum_repository resource. This allows you to download only the minimum required metadata when refreshing the cache. (#12915) - Thanks @lanky!
Security
- Upgraded Nokogiri to 1.13.6 to address CVE-2022-29181 and CVE-2022-24836.
Bug Fixes
- Resolved FIPS mode breakage in Windows. (#13375)
- Updated the deprecated
hab sup status
call tohab svc status
. (#13314) - Thanks @gene1wood! - Fixed an error in the yum_package resource where the
options
property would ignoredisable
options if more than one option is specified and thedisable
option isn’t last. (#13327) - Thanks @darnaut!
Chef Infra Client 18.0.185
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/18.0.185.mdREST Operations Resource Support
Added REST operations to the resources DSL. (#12755)
This allows you to create a resource partial that can be used in a custom resource like this:
use "core::rest_resource"
provides :rest_resource_by_query, target_mode: true
property :address, String, required: true
property :prefix, Integer, required: true
property :gateway, String
rest_api_collection "/api/v1/addresses"
rest_api_document "/api/v1/address/?ip={address}"
rest_property_map({
address: "address",
prefix: "prefix",
gateway: "gateway",
})
Thanks to the folks at tecRacer 1 for providing the foundation for this feature.
Unified Mode in Custom Resources
Unified mode is now enabled for custom resources by default. (#12692)
In Chef Infra Client 16, we introduced unified mode allowing you to collapse the sometimes confusing compile and converge phases into a single unified phase. Unified mode makes it easier to write and troubleshoot failures in custom resources and this is now the default execution phase for custom resources. Set unified_mode false in a custom resource if you need to disable unified mode.
Potential Breaking Change
If your custom resources have specific compile/converge phase behaviors, please test them for compatibility. For more information, see the Out-of-Order Execution section of the Unified Mode documentation.
Known Issues
FIPS support on Windows
Shortly before the final GA build of Chef Infra Client 18, we discovered an issue with FIPS support for Windows. We are currently investigating the root cause and correcting the issue; however, please note that FIPS support will not be available in the initial GA version of Chef Infra Client 18.0 for all Windows versions. We have prioritized this issue and FIPS support will be released in the next minor version of Chef Infra Client (18.1). We are reviewing the release date for Chef Infra Client 18.1 with FIPS support and will announce that date on all major communication channels when it is established.
Support for Effortless on Windows
Chef Infra Client 18.0.169 does not include support for effortless on Windows.
New Resources
selinux_boolean
Use the selinux_boolean resource to set SELinux boolean values. See the selinux_boolean resource documentation for additional information.
selinux_fcontext
Use the selinux_fcontext resource to set the SELinux context of files. See the selinux_fcontext resource documentation for additional information.
selinux_install
Use the selinux_install resource to encapsulate the set of SELinux packages to install in order to manage SELinux. See the selinux_install resource documentation for additional information.
selinux_module
Use the selinux_module module resource to create an SELinux policy module from a cookbook file or content provided as a string. See the selinux_module resource documentation for additional information.
selinux_permissive
Use the selinux_permissive resource to allow some domains to misbehave without stopping them. See the selinux_permissive resource documentation for additional information.
selinux_port
Use the selinux_port resource to assign a network port to a specific SELinux context. See the selinux_port resource documentation for additional information.
selinux_state
Use the selinux_state resource to manage the SELinux state on a system. See the selinux_state resource documentation for additional information.
Resource Updates
chef_client_config
The :create
action will now create directories defined in the resource properties if they are defined but don’t exist. (#12416)
Added a rubygems_url property that allows users to specify URI as a source for Ruby gems. This could be an internal mirror of rubygems for airgapped environments. (#12724) Thanks (DecoyJoe)!
chef_client_launchd
The chef_client_launchd resource now runs at load instead instead of requiring a system restart before running. (#12706)
rhsm_register
The rhsm_register resource now flushes the internal package cache after registering with Red Hat Satellite. (#12828) Thanks for fixing this @jasonwbarnett!
user
The user resource now has expire_date and inactive properties on Linux systems that specify the date a user account will be disabled and the number days after a password expires before an account is permanently disabled.
Secrets Manager Integration
The Secrets Management Integration helper is now a fully supported feature. The Secrets Management Integration helper allows you to fetch secrets from the following secrets management systems within your Infra recipes or resources:
- AWS Secrets Manager
- Akeyless Vault
- Azure Key Vault
- HashiCorp Vault
Platform Support Updates
AIX 7.3
Chef Infra Client packages are now produced for AIX 7.3.
AlmaLinux 8
Chef Infra Client packages are now produced for AlmaLinux 8.
Amazon 2022
Chef Infra Client packages are now produced for Amazon Linux 2022.
CentOS 8
CentOS 8 became end-of-life on December 2021. Chef Infra Client packages are no longer produced for CentOS 8, which is being replaced by AlmaLinux 8.
Windows 8
Chef Infra Client packages are no longer produced for Windows 8.
32-bit Windows
Chef Infra Client packages are no longer produced for 32-bit versions of Windows.
Security
Sensitive Properties in Custom Resources
Fixed an issue in custom resources where Chef Infra Client was logging data of properties with sensitive: true and desired_state: false. (#13014)
Migrate PEM Storage to Certificate Store for Windows
Use migrate_key_to_keystore true in the Chef Infra Client config.rb to migrate certificates to the Windows certificate store on Windows nodes. This creates a PFX certificate, extracts a public key from the certificate and sends it to the Chef Infra Server, and then stores the certificate in the local certificate store.
Certificates have a 90-day lifespan. If a certificate is expiring, Infra Client will automatically generate a new one and store it in the local certificate store, and then generate and replace the older public key on the Infra Server. (#12910) (#12640) (#12426) (#12518)
Updated Components
- license_scout 1.0 -> 1.3 (#12992)
- ncurses 5.9 -> 6.3 (#12953)
- libxml2 2.9.10 -> 2.9.13 (#12752)
- libxslt 1.1.14 -> 1.1.15 (#12752)
- win32-api 1.5.3 -> 1.5 to allow for the latest releases (#12614)
- diff-lcs to not 1.4.0 and < 1.6.0 (#12534)
- Windows versions are now built on Universal CRT (#12959)
- Use new msys2-based development kit for Windows (#13097)
- inspec 4.23 -> 5.18.14 (#13144)
Bug Fixes
- Fixed the chef_client_config resource to properly return the datacollector parameters. (#12732)
- Fixed the zypper-package resource so it correctly handles packages specified in the source property. (#12182)
- Fixed the plist resource so it will correctly generate a new file using the file resource. (#12680). Thanks (jazaval)!
- Fixed the mount resource so it can handle spaces in a file path. (#11626)
- Fixed the crod_d resource so it will accept a space in the name of the resource block. (#12377)
- Fixed the locale resource regenerated all installed locales on every Chef Infra run. (#12833)
- Fixed an issue when specifying a package version when using the yum_package resource. (#12657)
- Fixed missing X-Vault-AWS-IAM-Server-ID header in the Secrets Management Integration helper when using AWS IAM to fetch secrets from HashiCorp Vault. (#12956)
- Improved error message when using knife upload to upload a file with a syntax error to chef-zero. (#11678)
- Fixed bug where ChefSpec fails to load Compliance Profiles in Compliance Phase that contain an InSpec profile. (#12830)
- Fixed a performance issue when reading attributes from nodes. (#12742)
- Fixed an issue where a PEM file was not generated when a new user is created with knife user create. (#12619)
- Resolved failures when running the audit-enforcer reporter. (#12595)
- Introduced a new compliance-enforcer reporter as an alias to the audit-enforcer. This forces the Infra Client run to fail if the Compliance Phase fails. (#12595)
- The subscribes property in a resource will now validate an incorrectly formatted resource call. (#12525)
- Fixes bug in compare_user on linux systems.(13223) - Shoutout to fretb from the community!
- Fixes missing require and small error in REST implementation(13066) - Shoutout to tecracer-theinen from the community!
Chef Infra Client 18.0.155
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/18.0.155.mdChef Infra Client Release Candidate
Chef Infra Client 18.0.155 is a release candidate. You can download this release from Chef Downloads.
Known Issues
Chef Infra Client 18.0.155 is currently unavailable for AIX 7.3, Solaris, and Windows 2012 platforms. These will be supported with the GA release.
REST Operations Resource Support
Added REST operations to the resources DSL. (#12755)
This allows you to create a resource partial that can be used in a custom resource like this:
use "core::rest_resource"
provides :rest_resource_by_query, target_mode: true
property :address, String, required: true
property :prefix, Integer, required: true
property :gateway, String
rest_api_collection "/api/v1/addresses"
rest_api_document "/api/v1/address/?ip={address}"
rest_property_map({
address: "address",
prefix: "prefix",
gateway: "gateway",
})
Unified Mode in Custom Resources
Unified mode is now enabled for custom resources by default. (#12692)
In Chef Infra Client 16, we introduced unified mode allowing you to collapse the sometimes confusing compile and converge phases into a single unified phase. Unified mode makes it easier to write and troubleshoot failures in custom resources and this is now the default execution phase for custom resources. Set unified_mode false
in a custom resource if you need to disable unified mode.
New Resources
selinux_boolean
Use the selinux_boolean resource to set SELinux boolean values. See the selinux_boolean resource documentation for additional information.
selinux_fcontext
Use the selinux_fcontext resource to set the SELinux context of files. See the selinux_fcontext resource documentation for additional information.
selinux_install
Use the selinux_install resource to encapsulate the set of SELinux packages to install in order to manage SELinux. See the selinux_install resource documentation for additional information.
selinux_module
Use the selinux_module module resource to create an SELinux policy module from a cookbook file or content provided as a string. See the selinux_module resource documentation for additional information.
selinux_permissive
Use the selinux_permissive resource to allow some domains to misbehave without stopping them. See the selinux_permissive resource documentation for additional information.
selinux_port
Use the selinux_port resource to assign a network port to a specific SELinux context. See the selinux_port resource documentation for additional information.
selinux_state
Use the selinux_state resource to manage the SELinux state on a system. See the selinux_state resource documentation for additional information.
Resource Updates
chef_client_config
The :create
action will now create directories defined in the resource properties if they are defined but don’t exist. (#12416)
Added a rubygems_url
property that allows users to specify URI as a source for Ruby gems. This could be an internal mirror of rubygems for airgapped environments. (#12724) Thanks (DecoyJoe)!
chef_client_launchd
The chef_client_launchd resource now runs at load instead instead of requiring a system restart before running. (#12706)
rhsm_register
The rhsm_register resource now flushes the internal package cache after registering with Red Hat Satellite. (#12828) Thanks for fixing this @jasonwbarnett!
user
The user resource now has expire_date
and inactive
properties on Linux systems that specify the date a user account will be disabled and the number days after a password expires before an account is permanently disabled.
Secrets Manager Integration
The Secrets Management Integration helper is now a fully supported feature. The Secrets Management Integration helper allows you to fetch secrets from the following secrets management systems within your Infra recipes or resources:
- AWS Secrets Manager
- Akeyless Vault
- Azure Key Vault
- HashiCorp Vault
Platform Support Updates
AIX 7.3
Chef Infra Client packages are now produced for AIX 7.3.
AlmaLinux 8
Chef Infra Client packages are now produced for AlmaLinux 8.
Amazon 2022
Chef Infra Client packages are now produced for Amazon Linux 2022.
CentOS 8
CentOS 8 became end-of-life on December 2021. Chef Infra Client packages are no longer produced for CentOS 8, which is being replaced by AlmaLinux 8.
Windows 8
Chef Infra Client packages are no longer produced for Windows 8.
32-bit Windows
Chef Infra Client packages are no longer produced for 32-bit versions of Windows.
Security
Sensitive Properties in Custom Resources
Fixed an issue in custom resources where Chef Infra Client was logging data of properties with sensitive: true
and desired_state: false
. (#13014)
Migrate PEM Storage to Certificate Store for Windows
Use migrate_key_to_keystore true
in the Chef Infra Client config.rb to migrate certificates to the Windows certificate store on Windows nodes.
This creates a PFX certificate, extracts a public key from the certificate and sends it to the Chef Infra Server, and then stores the certificate in the local certificate store.
Certificates have a 90-day lifespan. If a certificate is expiring, Infra Client will automatically generate a new one and store it in the local certificate store, and then generate and replace the older public key on the Infra Server. (#12910) (#12640) (#12426) (#12518)
Updated Components
- license_scout 1.0 -> 1.3 (#12992)
- ncurses 5.9 -> 6.3 (#12953)
- libxml2 2.9.10 -> 2.9.13 (#12752)
- libxslt 1.1.14 -> 1.1.15 (#12752)
- win32-api 1.5.3 -> 1.5 to allow for the latest releases (#12614)
- diff-lcs to not 1.4.0 and < 1.6.0 (#12534)
- Windows versions are now built on Universal CRT (#12959)
- Use new msys2-based development kit for Windows (#13097)
Bug Fixes
- Fixed the chef_client_config resource to properly return the datacollector parameters. (#12732)
- Fixed the zypper-package resource so it correctly handles packages specified in the source property. (#12182)
- Fixed the plist resource so it will correctly generate a new file using the file resource. (#12680). Thanks (jazaval)!
- Fixed the mount resource so it can handle spaces in a file path. (#11626)
- Fixed the crod_d resource so it will accept a space in the name of the resource block. (#12377)
- Fixed the locale resource regenerated all installed locales on every Chef Infra run. (#12833)
- Fixed an issue when specifying a package version when using the yum_package resource. (#12657)
- Fixed missing X-Vault-AWS-IAM-Server-ID header in the Secrets Management Integration helper when using AWS IAM to fetch secrets from HashiCorp Vault. (#12956)
- Improved error message when using
knife upload
to upload a file with a syntax error to chef-zero. (#11678) - Fixed bug where ChefSpec fails to load Compliance Profiles in Compliance Phase that contain an InSpec profile. (#12830)
- Fixed a performance issue when reading attributes from nodes. (#12742)
- Fixed an issue where a PEM file was not generated when a new user is created with
knife user create
. (#12619) - Resolved failures when running the audit-enforcer reporter. (#12595)
- Introduced a new compliance-enforcer reporter as an alias to the audit-enforcer. This forces the Infra Client run to fail if the Compliance Phase fails. (#12595)
- The
subscribes
property in a resource will now validate an incorrectly formated resource call. (#12525)
Chef Infra Client 17.10.163
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.10.163.mdImprovements
- We removed the EOL (End Of Life) warning because major Chef Infra Client releases are no longer scheduled. (#14367)
- Updated OpenSSL to 3.0.9 for all platforms except AIX, Windows, and macOS. (#14403)
Bug Fixes
- We corrected a method name conflict in the Azure Secrets Manager. (#14439)
- We updated the client.erb file to correctly process boolean properties. Previously, when properties with true/false values were set in the chef_client_config resource in a recipe, the client.erb template issued a no method error when generating a client.rb file. (#14466)
- The chef_client_config resource now correctly handles boolean values in
policy_persist_run_list
, andminimal_ohai
properties. Previously it returned an undefined method error. (#14431) - Updated Ohai so that it returns the FQDN suffix on Windows nodes. (#1816)
- Backported a fix from Infra Client 18.1 to the yum_package resource. The options property now correctly handles disable options if more than one option is specified and the disable option isn’t last. (#14536)
- Running
choco --version
now returns the correct version of Chocolatey. #14523
Security updates
- Updated the RDoc gem to 6.3 to address CVE-2024-27281. (#14548)
Dependency updates
- Removed support for Ruby 2.7. (#14260)
Gem updates:
- Updated Vault gem to 0.18.2.
- Updated chef-powershell gem to 18.1.
- Updated inspec-core to 5.22.40.
- Set URI gem to 0.10.1 on Fedora.
- Set kitchen-inspec gem to 2.5.
- Set train-core gem to between 3.10 and 3.12.5.
- Constrained the FFI gem to less than 1.17.
- Constrained train-core to less than 3.12.5.
Packaging
Added support for the following platforms:
- Amazon Linux 2023
- FreeBSD 13
- Ubuntu 22.04
- Ubuntu 24.04
Removed support for the following platforms:
- FreeBSD 12
- macOS 10.15
- Ubuntu 16
- Windows 8
- Windows 2012
- Windows 2012 R2
Chef Infra Client 17.10.122
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.10.122.mdCompliance Phase Improvements
- Upgrade InSpec 5.22.40 from InSpec 5.22.36
- Remove dependency on
active-support
method.blank?
- Streaming report fix to capture progress correctly (inspec#6936, inspec#6912 backport)
- Remove dependency on
knife
- Updating Train support to allow for more connection types:
winrm
andssh
plus certaintrain
plugins not in the deny list. #14208
Packaging
- switched to
proxifier2
gem to reflect changes inruby/uri
- finished removing support for Ruby 2.7. No further testing against that version. #14260
Chef Infra Client 17.10.114
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.10.114.mdResource Updates
This release backports the following updates from Chef Infra Client 18.4:
- Fixed the chef_client_systemd_timer resource to accept integer values for a unit’s CPU quota. (#14152). Backports (#14011).
- Fixed the windows_service resource, which would trigger a change on every execution if you specify a service description. (#14151). Backports (#14064)
- Fixed the zypper_package resource to properly handle error 104 when removing a non-existent package. (#14160). Backports (#14150).
- Added support for homebrew_cask, homebrew_cask, and homebrew_tap resources on ARM64 systems and fixed a pathing issue. (#14153). Backports (#13669) and (#13937).
Security
- Updated inspec-core Gem to 5.22.36 and its dependencies to fix security (CVE) issues. (#14147)
Bug fixes
- Refactored Berkshelf because it failed to install and run on macOS during Test Kitchen runs. (#14149)
Dependencies
- Updated net-ssh from 7.1.0 to 7.2.1. (#14162)
- Updated ffi-yajl. (#14176)
- Bump Ruby version for Chef 17 to 3.0.6. (#14056)
- Bump Omnibus to 9.0.2, which downgrades Bash on Solaris to allow Chef to run correctly. (#14177)
Chef Infra Client 17.10.95
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.10.95.mdBackports
This release backports several features and fixes from Chef Infra Client 18.
Resource Updates
This release backports the following resource updates from Chef Infra Client 18:
- Added a
rubygems_url
property to the chef_client_config resource that allows users to specify URI as a source for Ruby gems. This could be an internal mirror of RubyGems for airgapped environments. (#12978) - Updated the rhsm_register resource so that it flushes the internal package cache after registering with Red Hat Satellite. (#12909)
- Updated the chocolatey_package resource to handle changes introduced in Chocolatey CLI v2.0. (#13928)
Security
This release backports the following security updates from Chef Infra Client 18:
- Fixed an issue where properties with
desired_state: false
andsensitive: true
would report data to the resource reporter. (#13817) - Add the ability to set a default secret service and secret service configuration in the Secrets Manager. (#12856)
OpenSSL
Updated OpenSSL to 1.0.2zi (#13911, #14046) to address the following CVEs :
- CVE-2022-2068
- CVE-2023-3446
- CVE-2023-3817
- CVE-2023-2650
- CVE-2023-0465
- CVE-2023-0466
- CVE-2023-0464
- CVE-2023-0286
- CVE-2023-0215
- CVE-2022-4304
Bug fixes
This release backports the following bug fixes from Chef Infra Client 18:
- Fixed an issue where a PEM file is not generated when a new user created with
knife user create
. (#12772) - Fixed a performance issue when reading attributes from nodes. (#12743)
- Fixed missing X-Vault-AWS-IAM-Server-ID header in the Secrets Management Integration helper when using AWS IAM to fetch secrets from HashiCorp Vault. (#12957)
- Fixed a bug where ChefSpec fails to load Compliance Profiles in Compliance Phase that contain an InSpec profile. (#12872)
Resource fixes
- Fixed the chef_client_config resource which was rendering duplicate
ohai_disabled_plugins
andohai_optional_plugins
properties in the client.rb template. (#12826) - Fixed the macos_userdefaults resource where the
user
property was not being used whenhost
property wasn’t passed. This update sets default values foruser
andhost
as the current user and any host. (#12825) - Fixed the locale resource which was regenerating locales on every Chef Infra run. (#12905)
Windows Certificates
We fixed an issue with private keys that are encrypted in the certificate store on a Windows node that is under management by two or more users or by an admin and the SYSTEM account. The private key could not be decrypted by a user other than the user that bootstrapped the node because the password is user-specific. We now use an initialization vector to encrypt the private key, which is stored in the Windows registry. This allows multiple users to decrypt a private key. (#13552)
Packaging
- Removed support for Debian 9. (#13738)
- Removed support for i386 platforms. (#13694)
- Removed support for Freebsd 11. (#12870)
- Added support for Rocky Linux 8 and 9. (#14048)
Dependencies
- Bump dependencies for net-ssh 7.x for RHEL 9 and Ubuntu 22.04. (#13332)
- Bump chef-vault to 4.1.11. (#13583)
Chef Infra Client 17.10.3
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.10.3.mdBug Fixes
Fixed an issue with the powershell_package resource where it was calling an incorrect error handling method. (#12722)
Chef Infra Client 17.10.0
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.10.0.mdSecurity
- Added support to move the client.pem file to secure storage (#12518).
Improvements
- The
chef_client_config
resource will now create directories defined in the properties if they don’t exist (#12416).
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue when specifying a package version when using the
yum_package
resource (#12657). - Fixed an issue where the subscribes notification would silently ignore an incorrectly formatted resource name (#12525).
- Fixed an issue where the
archive_file
resource would fail to find archive files on CentOS 7.x (#12552).
Chef Infra Client 17.9.52
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.9.52.mdBug Fixes
- Resource subscriptions syntax is now properly validated to provide better error messages.
Compliance Phase Improvements
Reporter Updates
- Resolved failures when running the
audit-enforcer
reporter. - Introduced a new
compliance-enforcer
reporter as an alias to theaudit-enforcer
. This forces the Infra Client run to fail if the Compliance Phase fails.
Packaging
- Updated the bundled OpenSSL on macOS to 1.1.1m to resolve minor bugs.
- Updated the bundled cacerts to the 2022-02-01 release with new certificates.
- Resolved installation failures on older releases of Solaris 11.3
Chef Infra Client 17.9.46
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.9.46.mdBug Fixes
- Resolved failures using the
archive_file
resource on somesystemd
based Linux distributions.
Chef Infra Client 17.9.42
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.9.42.mdBug Fixes
- Fixed deprecation warnings displayed when using the
chef_client_updater
cookbook. - Fixed failures when loading waivers and inputs shipped within cookbooks.
Chef Infra Client 17.9.26
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.9.26.mdBug Fixes
- Resolved failures when running the
homebrew_tap
resource that were introduced in 17.9.18. Thanks for this fix @jweyer8!
Enhancements
- Minor performance improvements.
Chef Infra Client 17.9.18
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.9.18.mdBug Fixes
- Resolved a failure in the
windows_feature_powershell
resource introduced in Chef Infra Client 17.8.
Compliance Phase
InSpec 4.52.9
Updated InSpec from 4.50.3 to 4.52.9 with the following improvements:
- Added remote target support for Alpine Linux.
- Added the ability to specify a proxy as a parameter in the http resource.
- Added support for TLS 1.3 to the ssl resource.
- Fixed an edge case in the service resource where InSpec may falsely detect services as enabled on FreeBSD if that service is the suffix of another enabled service.
- Fixed the ibmdb2_session resource so that it now correctly accepts queries with clauses.
- Fixed the oracledb_session resource to properly handle nil in the query output.
- Fixed the packages resource to correctly list only installed packages on Alpine Linux.
Secrets Manager Integrations
HashiCorp Vault AppRole Support
The secrets
helper now supports fetching secrets from HashiCorp Vault using AppRole authentication.
Fetching secret data using an AppRole ID and an associated AppRole Secret ID:
secret(name: 'secret/example',
service: :hashi_vault,
config: {
vault_addr: 'vault.example.com',
auth_method: :approle,
approle_id: "11111111-abcd-1111-abcd-111111111111",
approle_secret_id: "22222222-abcd-2222-abcd-222222222222"
})
Fetching secret data using a token and an AppRole name creates a SecretID associated with that AppRole:
secret(name: 'secret/example',
service: :hashi_vault,
config: {
vault_addr: 'vault.example.com',
auth_method: :approle,
approle_name: "my-approle",
token: '123456'
})
Resource Updates
homebrew_tap
Updated the homebrew_tap
resource to remove the full
property. Homebrew no longer supports the --full
option, and attempting to use it causes Homebrew to fail.
yum_package
The yum_package
resource has received extensive refactoring to align its functionality with the dnf_package
resource and expand how package names and versions can be provided.
The following ways of calling yum_package
with a single name argument have been fixed and are now supported:
yum_package "ypbind-3:1.37.1"
yum_package "ypbind-3:1.37.1-9.el7"
The following ways of calling yum_package
with a single named argument are still supported:
yum_package "ypbind-1.37.1"
yum_package "ypbind-1.37*"
yum_package "ypbind-1.37.1-*"
yum_package "ypbind-1.37*-*"
yum_package "ypbind-*:1.37.1-*"
yum_package "ypbind-*:1.37*-*"
yum_package "ypbind-1.37.1-9.el7"
yum_package "ypbind-1.37*-9.el7"
yum_package "ypbind-1.37.1-9.*"
The following ways of calling yum_package
with a single named argument do not properly match candidate versions (due to support in the underlying YUM libraries) and will fail:
yum_package "ypbind-3:1.37*-9.el7"
yum_package "ypbind-3:1.37.*"
yum_package "ypbind-3:1.37.1-9.*"
The following ways of calling yum_package
with a version property have been fixed and are now supported:
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "1.37*"
end
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "1.37.1-*"
end
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "1.37*-*"
end
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "3:1.37.1-9.el7"
end
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "*:1.37.1-*"
end
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "*:1.37*-*"
end
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "1.37.1-9.el7"
end
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "1.37*-9.el7"
end
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "1.37.1-9.*"
end
The following ways of calling yum_package
with a version property were not idempotent and that has been fixed (there was previously no way to correctly use the version property of the yum_package
resource and have it behave idempotently):
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "1.37.1"
end
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "3:1.37.1"
end
The following ways of calling yum_package
with a version property do not properly match candidate versions (due to support in the underlying yum libraries) and will fail:
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "3:1.37*-9.el7"
end
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "3:1.37.*"
end
yum_package "ypbind" do
version "3:1.37.1-9.*"
end
We strongly encourage users to always provide the full epoch, version, and release (EVR) of an RPM since omitting the epoch is ambiguous and the RPM, YUM, and DNF libraries tend to assume zero when the epoch is omitted. Omitting the release is also not a best practice, but may be required due to the convention of embedding the distribution string in the release.
The same fixes apply to the :upgrade
action. The :remove
action may have been similarly fixed, and we have added many additional tests to the test suite around idempotency and correctness.
System Detection
Improved VMware detection
Ohai now collects hypervisor information on Windows guests and provides more information in the node['vmware']
attribute.
The properties node['vmware']['host']
and node['vmware']['guest']
provide more information about the hypervisor and the running version of the VMware Tools package. For example, you can use `node[‘vmware’] to get information about VM running on VMware vSphere:
{
"host": {
"type": "vmware_vsphere",
"version": "VMware ESX 7.0.0 build-15843807"
},
"guest": {
"vmware_tools_version": "11.0.5.17716"
},
"hosttime": "09 Dec 2021 12:16:55",
"speed": "1992 MHz",
"sessionid": "0x5ff24c6ec541d5ac",
"balloon": "0 MB",
"swap": "0 MB",
"memlimit": "4294967295 MB",
"memres": "0 MB",
"cpures": "0 MHz",
"cpulimit": "4294967295 MHz",
"upgrade": "",
"timesync": "Disabled"
}
The Chef Infra language also has two new helpers for detecting the guest VMware hypervisor:
vmware_desktop?
: Determines if the current node is virtualized on VMware Desktop (Fusion/Player/Workstation).vmware_vsphere?
: Determines if the current node is virtualized on VMware vSphere (ESX).
Thanks for this new functionality @tecracer-theinen!
Packaging
RHEL 8 Build ID
Chef Infra Client packages no longer install a build ID file that prevents installing other Chef packages such as Infra Server or Workstation.
Chef Infra Client 17.8.25
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.8.25.mdCompliance Phase Improvements
CLI Output
Chef Infra Client will now always show the Compliance Phase output on the CLI when run.
Interval Runs
You can now run the Compliance Phase at less frequent intervals than the main Chef Infra Client Infra Phase. This is helpful if compliance scans impact the system performance and are only necessary on a less frequent cadence. To enable interval runs, set the following attributes:
node['audit']['interval']['enabled']
: Set to true to enable interval runs.node['audit']['interval']['time']
: The time in minutes between Compliance Phase execution. This defaults to 1440 (once a day).
InSpec 4.50.3
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.49.0 to 4.50.3 which adds Windows support to the http resource.
Resource Updates
All Resources
Updated the umask
common property to accept both Strings and Integers, restoring pre-Chef Infra Client 17 behavior on several resources.
chef_client_launchd
Updated the chef_client_launchd
resource to properly handle restarting the Chef Infra Client service when a configuration change is made.
chef_gem
Updated the chef_gem
resource with significant performance improvements, especially on Windows hosts.
dnf_package
The dnf_package
resource now supports the allow_downgrade
property. This removes the previous deprecation warning when using the allow_downgrade
property with dnf_package
.
dpkg_package
The dpkg_package
resource now properly compares versions with the :upgrade
action to prevent package installation on each Chef Infra Client run.
macos_userdefaults
Updated the macos_userdefaults
resource to resolve failures from coercing certain data types in properties.
mount
Updated the mount
resource to converge idempotently on Linux with loopback mounts. Thanks for reporting this issue @Blorpy!
powershell_package
Refactored the powershell_package
package to improve performance, especially on subsequent Chef Infra Client runs where no changes need to be performed.
rhsm_register
Updated the rhsm_register
resource with the following new properties for managing how a node is registered with RHSM:
server_url
base_url
service_level
release
See the rhsm_register resource documentation for more information on using these new properties.
windows_feature_powershell
Refactored the windows_feature_powershell
package to improve performance, especially on subsequent Chef Infra Client runs where no changes need to be performed.
zypper_package
Updated the zypper_package
resource to prevent failures when removing packages that do not exist on the system or in available Zypper repositories.
Packaging
coreutils Dependency
Chef Infra Client RPMs now depend on coreutils. This resolves an issue where Chef Infra Client may install before coreutils
when used in a kickstart script, causing the installation of the chef-client symlink to fail.
macOS 10.14 Package Removal
With the release of macOS 12, our N-2 macOS release policy now includes macOS 12, 11, and 10.15. macOS 10.14 packages will no longer be produced.
Security
Ruby 3.0.3
Ruby has been updated from 3.0.2 to 3.0.3 to resolve the following CVEs:
- CVE-2021-41817
- CVE-2021-41816
- CVE-2021-41819
Chef Infra Client 17.7.29
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.7.29.mdBug Fixes
- Resolved a regression introduced in Chef Infra Client 17.7.22 that caused changes to
node['fdqn']
data in some DNS configurations. - Resolved a regression introduced in Chef Infra Client 17.7.22 that could cause
macos_user_defaults
to fail.
Compliance Phase Improvements
Chef InSpec 4.49.0
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.46.13 to 4.49.0 with the following updates:
New Features
- Added support for testing Cassandra DB configurations and CQL commands.
Bug Fixes
- Resolved case sensitivity issue for Windows
users
andgroup
resources. - Fixed the oracledb_session resource when invoking a query using OS user and DB role.
- Additional oracledb_session resource fixes.
Resource Updates
chef_client_trusted_certificate
The chef_client_trusted_certificate
resource now supports the sensitive
property to mask certificate contents in logs. Thanks for this improvement @jakauppila!
Chef Infra Client 17.7.22
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.7.22.mdSecrets Manager Integration
Improved Azure Key Vault Support
The beta secrets manager helper now supports Azure Key Vault on VMs with multiple User Assigned Managed Identities. You can now specify an identity with the client_id
, object_id
, and mi_res_id
options. The default is the system-assigned identity, which is the same as in past releases. If you omit an option, the secrets manager uses the system-assigned identity. See the Azure docs for more information.
Fetching Secret Using Specified client_id
secret(name: "test3", service: :azure_key_vault, config: { client_id: "3fc5c05e-604c-44ef-b27b-36da9d78c470" })
Fetching Secret Using Specified object_id
secret(name: "test3", service: :azure_key_vault, config: { object_id: "3fc5c05e-604c-44ef-b27b-36da9d78c470" })
Fetching Secret Using Specified mi_res_id
secret(name: "test3", service: :azure_key_vault, config: { mi_res_id: "3fc5c05e-604c-44ef-b27b-36da9d78c470" })
Thanks for this improvement @jasonwbarnett!
Target Mode
The Target Mode beta, which executes Chef Infra on remote systems without the client installed, has bug fixes and new functionality:
- Several bugs in Ohai preventing remote Ohai execution were resolved.
- Added an
:api
platform type to enable REST APIs instead of operating systems. - Added support for specifying
transport_protocol
on targets to the Chef credential file. For example:
['remote-target']
transport_protocol = "serial"
device = "/dev/ttyUSB0"
# ... and other Transport-specific settings
Thanks @tecracer-theinen for continually improving the Target Mode experience!
Resource Updates
chocolatey_source
The chocolatey_source
resource now supports setting up authenticated sources. See the chocolatey_source resource documentation for more information on the new properties introduced to support user/password or certificate authentication. Thanks for this improvement @gep13!
cron
Failures running the cron
resource with a commented-out cron entry have been resolved. Thanks for this fix @wheatevo!
kernel_module
The kernel_module
resource now includes an :enable
action, which allows you to install a kernel module that was previously disabled. Thanks for this improvement @qubitrenegade!
macos_userdefaults
The macos_userdefaults
resource now uses use native macOS API calls instead of shelling out to command line tools. This complete rewrite makes setting complex data types in the resource more reliable.
subversion
Failures running the subversion
resource have been resolved. Thanks for this fix @tomhughes!
Bug Fixes
- Fixed failing knife gem installs on Windows.
- Fixed detection of 32bit Windows applications on 64bit Windows installations in
node['packages']
. Thanks for this fix @knightorc! - Resolved Ruby deprecation warnings in Ohai on Windows and macOS hosts.
Chef Infra Client 17.6.18
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.6.18.mdSecurity
- Updated cacerts to remove the expired DST Root CA X3 root certificate causing failures with Lets Encrypt certificates
Chef Infra Client 17.6.15
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.6.15.mdCompliance Phase Improvements
InSpec 4.46.13
InSpec has been updated from 4.41.20 to 4.46.13 with the following enhancements:
- Added
rocky
andalmalinux
Linux distributions toservice
resource. - Added the ability to handle files without headers in the
csv
resource. - Added the option to establish connection using a UNIX socket in the
postgres_session
resource. - Fixed the
opa_cli
andopa_api
resources so they are able to verify an empty result.
Resource Updates
powershell_package_source
The powershell_package_source
was updated to support authenticating to package sources with new user
and password
properties. The existing url
property has also been renamed to source_location
, which better describes the purpose of this property. The existing url
property will continue to function for backward compatibility with any existing cookbook code.
openssl_x509_certificate
The openssl_x509_certificate
resource was updated to correctly use the provided CA key when signing the new certificate. Thanks for reporting this @nico-loeber!
System Detection
:Tc Ohai Plugin
A new optional Ohai plugin :Tc
has been added to detect tc qdisc information for network interfaces on Linux systems. Thanks for this new plugin @MatthewMassey!
To enable this optional plugin set ohai_optional_plugins [:Tc]
in the chef_client_config resource.
Packaging
Ubuntu 16.04
We are once again producing packages for Ubuntu 16.04. Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu, has extended support for Ubuntu releases for a full 10 years, so the previously EOL Ubuntu 16.04 release is no longer EOL.
Security
OpenSSL 1.0.2zb
OpenSSL has been updated from 1.0.2za to 1.0.2zb to resolve issues with Let’s Encrypt certificates.
cacerts
The cacerts bundle has been updated to the 2021-07-25 release which removes older expired root certificates and adds the following new root certificates:
- AC RAIZ FNMT-RCM SERVIDORES SEGUROS
- GlobalSign Root R46
- GlobalSign Root E46
- GLOBALTRUST 2020
- ANF Secure Server Root CA
- Certum EC-384 CA
- Certum Trusted Root CA
Chef Infra Client 17.5.22
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.5.22.mdCompliance Phase Improvements
InSpec Profiles Within Cookbooks
You can now ship Chef InSpec profiles, waivers, and inputs directly in cookbooks allowing you to combine infrastructure and compliance concerns in a single artifact. Bringing infra and compliance together ensures security is always considered when making changes to your systems and enables collaboration in DevSecOps through shared pipelines. Combining infrastructure and compliance content in cookbook artifacts also allows for the safe and controlled promotion of compliance content from development to production using Policyfiles.
Cookbook Compliance Directory
A new compliance
directory in cookbooks includes InSpec content in inputs
, waivers
, and profiles
directories:
my_cookbook/
├─ compliance/
│ ├─ inputs/
│ │ ├─ my_inputs.yml
│ ├─ profiles/
│ │ ├─ my_profiles/
│ │ │ ├─ controls/
│ │ │ ├─ inspec.yml
│ ├─ waivers/
│ │ ├─ control_waiver.yml
├─ metadata.rb
InSpec content placed in these new directories will be available for execution during the Chef Infra Client Compliance Phase, similar to how recipes are shipped in cookbooks but must be executed with include_recipe
. This gives you fine-grained control of when and how InSpec content runs using Chef Langauge helpers.
Loading InSpec Content in Recipes
InSpec content is loaded from Chef Infra recipes using new include helpers in the Chef Language:
- include_profile
- include_waiver
- include_input
These helpers behave similarly to the existing include_recipe
helper, allowing you to include InSpec content from various cookbooks:
# load a single profile from a specific cookbook:
include_profile "my_cookbook::profile_name"
# load all waivers from a cookbook:
include_waiver "my_cookbook::.*"
# load all inputs that start with ssh
include_input "acme_cookbook::ssh.*"
# load a specific profiles depending on cloud:
include_profile "my_cookbook::ec2_node_profile" if ec2?
include_profile "my_cookbook::gce_node_profile" if gce?
Chef Infra Resources for InSpec
If you prefer to define your InSpec content directly in cookbooks, we also include new inspec_input and inspec_waiver resources that allow you to define inputs and waivers dynamically in recipes.
# defining a waiver directly in a recipe with dynamic values
inspec_waiver 'Add waiver entry for control' do
control 'my_inspec_control_01'
run_test false
justification "The subject of this control is not managed by Chef Infra Client on the systems in policy group \#{node['policy_group']}"
expiration '2022-01-01'
action :add
end
# loading a waiver with content on disk
inspec_waiver 'my-waiver-name' do
source '/path/to/my/waiver.toml'
end
# setting an input directly in a recipe
inspec_input 'setting my input' do
source( { ssh_custom_path: '/whatever2' })
end
# setting an input from content on disk
inspec_input '/path/to/my/input.yml'
Chef Inspec 4.41.20
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.41.2 to 4.41.20 with the following improvements and fixes for Compliance Phase:
- Added support for Alibaba Cloud Linux 3 to the Chef InSpec service resource.
- Replaced the WMI command-line (WMIC) utility in the Chef InSpec security_identifier resource with Common Information Model (CIM) cmdlets as the WMIC utility will be deprecated soon.
- Fixed range based filtering in filter tables
- Fixed an issue in the Chef InSpec apache_conf resource when the ServerRoot is not specified in the Apache configuration file.
- Fixed an error in the Chef InSpec
postgres_session
resource where the resource was unable to connect to a database. - Fixed an error in the Chef InSpec apache_conf resource where it would overwrite any Apache configurations from the main Apache configuration file with configurations from any included configuration files.
- Fixed an error where the Chef InSpec
security_policy
resource returned a comma-separated string of local groups (rather than SIDs) instead of an array. - Updated the git fetcher to handle profiles with a default git branch that is not
master
.
Secrets Management Beta
Our secrets management beta within Chef Infra Client has been updated to support HashiCorp Vault and Akeyless Vault secrets. These can be fetched using the new secrets
helper using either AWS IAM authentication or token-based authentication.
Fetching Secrets From HashiCorp Vault Using AWS IAM
secret(name: "secret/example",
service: :hashi_vault,
config: {
vault_addr: "vault.example.com",
role_name: "example-role"
})
Fetching Secrets From HashiCorp Vault Using Tokens
secret(name: "secret/example",
service: :hashi_vault,
config: {
vault_addr: "vault.example.com",
token: "123456"
})
Fetching Secrets From Akeyless Vault Using Tokens
secret(name: "/secret/data/my_secret",
service: :akeyless_vault,
config: {
access_key: "12345678910=",
access_id: "p-12345678910"
})
Fetching Chef Solo Recipes from AWS S3
You can now fetch recipes from Amazon’s S3 storage when using Chef Solo. To have Chef Solo fetch recipes from AWS S3, pass an S3 URL with the --recipe-url
command line flag, such as s3://my-private-bucket/setup-0.1.0.tgz
. Thanks for this improvement @tecracer-theinen!
Resource Updates
archive_file
The archive_file
has a new strip_components
property that allows you to strip any number of leading path elements similar to the tar --strip_components
behavior. For example, if archive archive.tar
contained some/file/name
, then setting strip_components 2
would extract just name
. Thanks for this improvement and a large number of new tests @jasonwbarnett!
chef_client_scheduled_task
The chef_client_scheduled_task
resource now supports setting the scheduled task priority for the execution of the Chef Infra Client with a new priority
property. You can also now set the scheduled task to run with the same splay value during each run using a new use_consistent_splay
property. With this property set, a random splay will still be used for the node, but it will be the same splay during subsequent runs. This ensures that Chef Infra Client always runs with a consistent time between runs (i.e., always exactly 30 minutes). Thanks for these improvements @gholtiii!
file
The file
resource and resources based on the file
resource now include additional verifiers for YAML and JSON content in files. Set verify :json
or verify :yaml
to validate JSON and YAML content. Thanks for this addition @gogsbread!
mount
The mount
resource no longer strips trailing /
values when the mount point is just /
. Thanks for this fix @jiokmiso!
registry_key
The registry_key
resource has been updated to allow lazily evaluating the data passed to the values
property. Thanks for reporting this @sjethvani!
remote_file
The remote_file
resource has been updated with a new http_options
option that accepts a Hash of Ruby Net/HTTP options such as http_retry_count
and http_retry_delay
.
ulimit
The ulimit
resource now supports setting sensitive true
to prevent logging ulimit data as it is written to disk.
windows_uac
The windows_uac
resource now sets the proper registry key value when using the consent_behavior_users
property. Thanks for reporting this @ahembree!
windows_user_privilege
The windows_user_privilege
resource no longer fails with an error stating that the privilege
property needs to be set, even if it is set.
Packages
We are now producing packages for the following platforms / architectures:
- Windows 11 - x64
- Windows 2022 - x64
- Debian 11 - amd64 / arm64
- macOS 12 (Monterey) - Intel
Security
OpenSSL 1.0.2za
OpenSSL has been updated from 1.0.2y to 1.0.2za to resolve CVE-2021-3712.
Chef Infra Client 17.4.38
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.4.38.mdBug Fixes
- Resolved a regression introduced in Chef Infra Client 17.4 that caused HWRP-style resources inheriting from LWRPBase to fail.
Enhancements
- Improved log output to clearly define where the Infra Phase ends and the Compliance Phase begins.
- Enhanced Ohai data collection of Amazon EC2 metadata to collect additional data for some configurations.
- Removed ERROR logs when retrying failed communication with the Chef Infra Server.
- Improved the
archive_file
resource by upgrading thelibarchive
library it uses, which includes the following improvements:- Support for PWB and v7 binary CPIO formats.
- Support for the deflate algorithm in symbolic link decompression with zip files.
- Various bug fixes when working with CAB, ZIP, 7zip, and RAR files.
Security
OpenSSL 1.1.1l
OpenSSL has been updated from 1.1.1k to 1.1.1l on macOS systems to resolve the following CVEs:
libarchive 3.5.2
Updated the libarchive library that powers the archive_file
resource from 3.5.1 to 3.5.2 to resolve security vulnerabilities in libarchive’s handling of symbolic links.
Chef Infra Client 17.4.25
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.4.25.mdCompliance Phase Improvements
Chef InSpec 4.41.2
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.38.3 to 4.41.2 with the following improvements for Compliance Phase
- New Open Policy Agent resources
opa_cli
andopa_api
- New
mongodb_session
resource - The
mssql_session
resource now allows named connections by no longer forcing a port. - The PostgreSQL resources (
postgres_session
,postgres_conf
,postgres_hba_conf
, andpostgres_ident_conf
) now work with Windows. - Fixed a bug where the year in an expiration date was misinterpreted in waiver files
json-file Reporter Off By Default
The InSpec json-file
reporter is no longer enabled by default in Compliance Phase. Outputting compliance data to file by default potentially exposed sensitive data to the filesystem, without much upside. If you rely on this file for processing by external systems you can produce it by setting the reporter attribute node['audit']['reporter']
to %w{json-file cli}
.
Chef Attribute Integration
The chef_node_attribute_enabled
configuration option for Compliance Phase is now enabled by default. This provides a chef_node
object in InSpec profiles containing all attributes from the Chef Infra Client including Ohai configuration attributes.
Compliance Phase Inputs Attribute
In 2019 we renamed InSpec attributes to inputs to avoid confusion between InSpec attributes and Chef Infra attributes. Compliance Phase is now updated to use the updated inputs name. Instead of passing node['audit']['attributes']
you can now use node['audit']['inputs']
. Don’t worry about rushing to update your code though because Compliance Phase will still work with the existing attributes, giving you time to migrate to the new name.
Secrets Manager Integration
We’ve updated our beta secrets management integration helper to improve the experience of fetching secrets from AWS Secrets Manager and Azure Key Vault. We’d still love to hear from you if you are integrating Chef Infra with a secrets management system or you’d like to do so in the future. E-mail us at secrets_management_beta@progress.com.
Simpler Azure Key Vault Names Declaration
The secrets
helper has been updated to allow specifying the Azure Key Vault to fetch a secret using the name instead of the config hash:
Specifying the Vault in the Name:
secret(name: "test-chef-infra-secrets/test-secret-1", service: :azure_key_vault)
Specifying the Vault in the Options Hash:
secret(name: "test-secret-1", service: :azure_key_vault, config: {vault: "test-chef-infra-secrets" })
AWS Default to Node’s Region in AWS Secrets Manager
When fetching secrets from AWS Secrets Manager, the secrets
helper now defaults to fetching secrets from the region where the node resides. If you need to fetch secrets from another region, you can use the region config option:
Specifying AWS Region:
secret(name: 'test1', service: :aws_secrets_manager, config: { region: 'us-west-2' })
Using the Node’s Region:
secret(name: 'test1', service: :aws_secrets_manager)
Resource Updates
group
The group
resource has been updated to prevent failures on macOS systems when passing the GID as an Integer. Thanks for reporting this @rb2k!
homebrew_cask
The homebrew_cask
resource now supports Homebrew Casks with ‘-’ or ‘@’ in their name. Thanks for this fix @byplayer!
rhsm_subscription
The rhsm_subscription
resource now flushes all DNF or YUM caches after adding a new subscription so that subsequent package installs can use packages from the subscription. Thanks for fixing this @jasonwbarnett!
systemd_unit
The systemd_unit
resource now generates valid unit files when passing a hash of data. Thanks for reporting this issue @gregkare
user
The user
resource on macOS no longer fails if the shell
or hidden
fields are not present for the user being updated.
yum_repository
The yum_repository
has been refactored to better flush cache on RHEL and Fedora derivatives Linux distributions.
Packaging
Arm64 Docker Containers
Chef Infra Client Docker containers are now published for the arm64
architecture on DockerHub at https://hub.docker.com/r/chef/chef. These containers can be used for testing Chef Infra Client on arm64
architecture Linux distributions with Test Kitchen.
Chef Infra Client 17.3.48
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.3.48.mdCompliance Phase Improvements
Chef InSpec 4.38
We’ve updated Chef InSpec from 4.37.23 to 4.38.3:
New Features
- Added a new mongodb_conf resource.
Bug Fixes
- Changed the Windows local pipe server connection to retry once on EPIPE.
- Exceptions are now handled correctly in the oracledb_session resource.
- Fixed the mysql_session resource to raise an exception if there is an error in a connection or query.
- Fixed the postgres_session resource to raise an exception if there is an error in a connection or query
Run Lists with Policyfiles
You can now optionally execute Chef Infra Client with a specified run list on nodes that are managed with Policyfiles. This differs from the traditional Policyfile workflow by allowing you to run any cookbook/recipe combination that exists within the Policyfile lock.
Safety With Flexibility
Run lists with Policyfiles give you the safety of locked sets of cookbook dependencies while also giving you the flexibility to change run lists or run different run lists on nodes for adhoc Chef Infra Client converges. Without Policyfiles, manually specifying or overriding a run list determines an entirely new set of dependencies. When using run lists with Policyfiles, Chef Infra Client executes within the predefined set of cookbook dependencies in your Policyfile lock. This allows you to change or override run lists without introducing new, and potentially untested, cookbook dependencies.
To execute a run list defined on a node in Chef Infra Server instead of the run list defined directly in a Policyfile, set the Chef Config policy_persist_run_list
to true. An override run list that is specified on the command line with Policyfiles will execute without any additional configuration.
How This Differs From Named Run Lists
Policyfiles with run lists offer additional flexibility over named run lists and are better suited for adhoc Chef Infra Client execution or programmatically changing run lists during bootstrap. Named run lists within Policyfiles need to be defined when the Policyfile is created, requiring you to predefine each potential run list you may want to run at a future date. Run lists with Policyfiles allows you to run any run list for cookbooks included in the Policyfile lock. Override run lists with Policyfiles offer adhoc flexibility as the override run list is not saved to the node on Chef Infra Server, unlike named run lists which permanently update the node.
Examples
Override Run List
chef-client -o my_cookbook::some_recipe
Set Permanent Run List via CLI
chef-client -r my_cookbook::some_recipe
or
chef-client -j my_run_list_and_attribute_data.json
Configuring Chef Infra Client to Use Run Lists
chef_client_config 'Configure Infra Client' do
policy_persist_run_list true
end
New Resources
habitat_package
Use the habitat_package to install or remove Chef Habitat packages from Habitat Builder. See the habitat_package Resource documentation for additional details and example usage.
habitat_sup
Use the habitat_sup resource to run a Chef Habitat supervisor for one or more Chef Habitat services. The resource is commonly used in conjunction with the habitat_service resource, which will manage the services loaded and started within the supervisor. See the habitat_sup Resource documentation for additional details and example usage.
habitat_config
Use the habitat_config resource to apply a configuration to a Chef Habitat service. See the habitat_config Resource documentation for additional details and example usage.
habitat_install
Use the habitat_install resource to install Chef Habitat. See the habitat_install Resource documentation for additional details and example usage.
habitat_service
Use the habitat_service resource to manage Chef Habitat services. This requires that core/hab-sup be running as a service. See the habitat_sup resource documentation for more information. See the habitat_service Resource documentation for additional details and example usage.
habitat_user_toml
Use the habitat_user_toml resource to template a user.toml
for Chef Habitat services. Configurations set in the user.toml
override the default.toml
for a given package, which makes it an alternative to applying service group level configuration. See the habitat_user_toml Resource documentation for additional details and example usage.
windows_defender
Use the windows_defender resource to enable, configure, or disable the Microsoft Windows Defender service. See the windows_defender Resource documentation for additional details and example usage.
windows_defender_exclusion
Use the windows_defender_exclusion resource to exclude paths, processes, or file types from Windows Defender realtime protection scanning. See the windows_defender_exclusion Resource documentation for additional details and example usage.
windows_update_settings
Use the windows_update_settings resource to manage the various Windows Update patching options. See the windows_update_settings Resource documentation for additional details and example usage.
Updated Resources
powershell_package
Updated the powershell_package resource to allow passing an array of install options via the options
property. Thanks for reporting this issue @kimbernator
windows_printer
Updated the windows_printer
resource to better load the current state of the printer and to allow controlling the creation of the printer port. The resource now includes a create_port
property that allows skipping the creation of the printer port and a port_name
property that allows specifying the name of the port to use. With these new properties, users can create advanced printer ports using the windows_printer_port
resource and then attach a new printer to those ports using the windows_printer
resource.
windows_printer_port '10.4.64.39' do
port_name 'My awesome printer port'
snmp_enabled true
port_protocol 2
end
windows_printer 'HP LaserJet 5th Floor' do
driver_name 'HP LaserJet 4100 Series PCL6'
port_name 'My awesome printer port'
ipv4_address '10.4.64.38'
create_port false
end
chef_client_config
Updated the chef_client_config resource to properly format the client.rb
config when the user sets the ohai_optional_plugins
or ohai_disabled_plugins
properties. Thanks for reporting this issue @caneylan. The resource can now also set the new policy_persist_run_list
configuration with the client.rb
file by setting the policy_persist_run_list
property to true
.
Chef Language Improvements
We’ve added several new helpers to the Chef Infra Language to make writing out various data formats easier. These helpers allow you to convert data from Ruby Hashes or Chef Infra attributes into YAML, JSON, or TOML formatted data. A great use case for these helpers is writing system or application configuration files to disk without having to template out data formats using a template resource.
Given this Ruby hash:
example_hash = {
"golf": "hotel",
"kilo": %w{lima mike},
"india": {
"juliett": "blue",
},
"alpha": {
"charlie": true,
"bravo": 10,
},
"echo": "foxtrot",
}
Output the data in JSON format:
render_json(example_hash)
{
"golf": "hotel",
"kilo": [
"lima",
"mike"
],
"india": {
"juliett": "blue"
},
"alpha": {
"charlie": true,
"bravo": 10
},
"echo": "foxtrot"
}
Output the data in TOML format:
render_toml(example_hash)
echo = "foxtrot"
golf = "hotel"
kilo = ["lima", "mike"]
[alpha]
bravo = 10
charlie = true
[india]
juliett = "blue"
Output the data in YAML format:
render_yaml(example_hash)
---
golf: hotel
kilo:
- lima
- mike
india:
juliett: blue
alpha:
charlie: true
bravo: 10
echo: foxtrot
Using this helper with the file resource:
file '/etc/some_app/config.yml' do
content render_yml(example_hash)
mode '0640'
end
Experimental Secrets Management
With Chef Infra Client 17.3, we’re introducing experimental secrets management integration with a new secrets
helper in the Infra Language. This helper has a plugable model for fetching secrets from multiple secrets management systems. In this release of Chef Infra Client we’re support AWS Secrets Manager and Azure Key Vault with additional secrets managers coming in future releases. This new functionality should be considered a beta and not not necessarily ready for production usage. We’d love to get feedback on how how this works for you and additional features you’d like, or need, in order to utilize secrets from secret managers within your cookbooks. E-mail us at secrets_management_beta@progress.com.
Authentication
The secrets
helper uses cloud instance authentication to access secrets in both Azure Key Vault and AWS Secrets Manager. This avoids the need to pass authentication in the helper and allows you to control access to secrets using existing cloud vendor access control models. When using AWS Secrets Manager, this is IAM roles applied to instances. In Azure this is Manged Identities applied to the VMs.
Fetching Secrets
The secrets helper accepts the secret name, and secrets service, secret version (optional), and connection options for the secrets service.
Fetching an AWS Secrets Manager secret
secret(name: 'test1', service: :aws_secrets_manager, config: { region: 'us-west-2' })
Fetching an Azure Key Vault secret
secret(name: 'test1', service: :azure_key_vault, config: { vault: 'vault1' })
Fetching a specific version of an Azure Key Vault secret
secret(name: 'test1', version: 'v1', service: :azure_key_vault, config: { vault: 'vault1' })
Using in Cookbooks
The secrets helper returns a text string, so it can be used anywhere in Chef Infra where you might hard code a value or access a value from a data bag.
Writing a Secret To a File
file '/home/ubuntu/aws-secret' do
content secret(name: 'test1', service: :aws_secrets_manager)
end
Passing a Secret to a Template
template '/etc/my_fancy_service/my_fancy_service.conf' do
source 'config.erb'
variables(
db_token: secret(name: 'db_token', service: :aws_secrets_manager)
)
end
System Detection Improvements
virtuozzo Support
The virtuozzo
platform is now detected as a member of the RHEL platform family. Thanks for this addition @robertmasztalerz!
Linux Livepatch Detection
A new Ohai optional plugin :Livepatch
has been added to detect Linux kernel Livepatch modules that have been loaded on a system. This plugin can be enabled on systems using the ohai_optional_plugins
property in the chef_client_config resource. Thanks for this new plugin @liu-song-6!
Package Improvements
M1 macOS Monterey Packages
Chef Infra Client packages are now produced for Apple’s macOS Monterey preview release. Packages for Intel-based Macs will ship at a later date.
Solaris 11.3 EOL / Solaris 11.4 Packages
Oracle Solaris 11.3 became end-of-life (EOL) in January 2021. Chef Infra Client packages are no longer produced for Solaris 11.3 and new Solaris 11.4 packages are available in their place.
FIPS on PPC RHEL
Failures initializing Chef Infra Client on FIPS enabled PowerPC RHEL systems have been resolved.
RPM Package Digests
The file digest in Chef Infra RPM packages has been updated from MD5 to SHA256 to prevent failures installing on some FIPS-enabled systems.
Security
Ruby 3.0.2
Ruby has been updated to 3.0.2 to resolve a large number of bugs as well as the following CVEs:
Addressable
We’ve updated the addressable gem from 2.7 to 2.8 to resolve CVE-2021-32740.
Chef Infra Client 17.2.29
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.2.29.mdCompliance Phase Improvements
Chef InSpec 4.37
We’ve updated Chef InSpec from 4.36.4 to 4.37.8:
New Features
- The new
inspec automate
command replaces theinspec compliance
command, which is now deprecated. - Added support for
zfs_pool
andzfs_dataset
resources on Linux. - Improved
port
resource performance: adding more specific search while usingss
command. - Updated the
inspec init plugin
command with the following changes:- The values of flags passed to the
inspec init plugin
command are now wrapped in double quotes instead of single quotes. - Template files are now ERB files.
- The
activator
flag replaces thehook
flag, which is now an alias.
- The values of flags passed to the
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an error when using profile dependencies and require_controls.
- Fixed the
windows_firewall_rule
resource when it failed to validate more than one rule. - The
http
resource response body is now coerced into UTF-8. - Modified the
windows_feature
resource to indicate if a feature is enabled rather than just available. file
resourcemore_permissive_than
matcher returns nil instead of throwing an exception when the file does not exist.inspec detect --no-color
now returns color-free output.
Slow Resource Report
Chef Infra Client now includes a --slow-report
flag that shows the 10 slowest running resources in a Chef Infra Client run to help you troubleshoot and optimize your cookbooks. This new flag also takes an argument for the number of resources to list if you’d like to see additional resources included in the output. Our next release of Chef Workstation will include the ability to set this flag in Test Kitchen to allow testing for slow resources in the development process.
Example Output
Starting Chef Infra Client, version 17.2.12
Patents: https://www.chef.io/patents
resolving cookbooks for run list: ["test"]
Synchronizing Cookbooks:
- test (0.0.1)
Installing Cookbook Gems:
Compiling Cookbooks...
Converging 1 resources
Recipe: test::default
* file[/tmp/foo.xzy] action create (up to date)
Running handlers:
Top 1 slowest resource:
resource elapsed_time cookbook recipe source
------------------ ------------ -------- ------- ----------------------------------------
file[/tmp/foo.xzy] 0.015114 test default test/recipes/default.rb:2:in `from_file'
- Chef::Handler::SlowReport
Running handlers complete
Chef Infra Client finished, 0/1 resources updated in 03 seconds
Improved YAML Recipe Support
Chef Infra Client now supports both .yaml
and .yml
file extensions for recipes. If a .yml
and .yaml
recipe of the same name is present, Chef Infra Client will now fail as there is no way to determine which recipe should be loaded in this case.
Improved Reporting to Automate
Chef Infra Client run reporting to Automate now respects attribute allowlist
and denylist
configurations set in the client.rb
. This change allows users to limit the data sent to their Automate servers to prevent indexing sensitive data or to reduce the necessary storage space on the Automate server.
Updated Resources
homebrew_path
The homebrew_path
now passes the homebrew_path
when creating or deleting taps. This change prevents failures when running homebrew in a non-standard location or on a M1 system. Thanks @mattlqx!
hostname
The hostname
resource now sets the hostname on Windows systems using native PowerShell calls for increased reliability and allows changing the hostname on domain-attached systems. To change the hostname on a domain-attached system, pass a domain administrator account using the new domain_user
and domain_password
properties.
openssl_x509_certificate
The openssl_x509_certificate
no longer marks the creation of the X509 certificate file as sensitive since this makes troubleshooting difficult and this content is not sensitive. Thanks @jasonwbarnett!
windows_firewall_rule
The windows_firewall_rule
resource now allows specifying multiple IP addresses in the remote_address
property.
windows_pagefile
The windows_pagefile
resource features improved performance and support for the latest releases of Windows 10. These improvements also make managing pagefiles more predictable:
- The
path
property now accepts a drive letter in addition to the full path of the pagefile on disk. For example,C
,C:
, orC:\
can now be used to specify a pagefile stored atC:\pagefile.sys
. - Creating a new pagefile no longer disables the system-managed pagefile by default. If you wish to create a pagefile while also disabling the system-managed pagefile, set
system_managed false
.
windows_printer
The windows_printer
resource includes improved logging when adding or removing printers.
windows_printer_port
The windows_printer_port
resource has been refactored with several improvements:
- Better performance when adding and removing ports.
- Supports updating existing ports with new values.
- Clearer logging of changes made to ports.
- Deprecated the
description
property, which does not set a description on the ports.
windows_security_policy
The windows_security_policy
resource now limits the value of ResetLockoutCount
to any value less than LockoutDuration
rather than limiting it to 30 minutes.
zypper_repository
The zypper_repository
resource now accepts an array of GPG key locations in the gpgkey
property. Thanks for reporting this @bkabrda.
Chef Infra Client 17.1.35
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.1.35.mdCompliance Phase Improvements
cli reporter by default
The compliance phase will now default to using both the json-file
and the new cli
reporter by default. This gives you a visual indication of the success of the Compliance Phase and is perfect for running both on the CLI and in Test Kitchen.
inspec_waiver_file_entry resource
Chef Infra Client now ships with a inspec_waiver_file_entry
resource for managing Chef InSpec waivers. With this resource you can add and remove waiver entries to a single waiver file located at c:\chef\inspec_waiver_file.yml
on Windows or /etc/chef/inspec_waivers.yml
on all other systems.
See the inspec_waiver_file_entry documentation for more information and usage examples.
Chef InSpec 4.36
We’ve updated Chef InSpec from 4.33.1 to 4.36.4:
- Added the selinux resource which includes support for modules and booleans.
- Added the pattern input option for DSL and metadata inputs.
- Added the
members_array
property for group & groups resources. - Train now reads the username and port from the
.ssh/config
file and will use these values if present. - Switch to GNU timeout-based implementation of SSH timeouts.
- Fixed the group resource when a member does not exist.
Unified Mode Improvements
We’ve extended support for Unified Mode to the edit_resource
helper and also improved the Unified Mode related deprecation warnings to provide more useful information and not warn when resources are deprecated or set to only run on older Chef Infra Client releases.
Resource Improvements
service on systemd Hosts
The service
resource on systemd hosts will now properly load the state of the service. Thanks for this fix @ramereth!
systemd_unit
We updated the systemd_unit
resource to resolve a regression in Chef Infra Client 17.0 that would re-enable and restart unit files on each Chef Infra Client run. Thanks for this fix @gene1wood!
template
We updated the template
resource to allow passing the cookbook_name
variable to template files.
Windows Resource
We fixed a failure that could occur in multiple Windows resources due to larger 64-bit values that logged the error: RangeError: bignum too big to convert into 'long'
.
windows_security_policy
The windows_security_policy
resource now supports setting AuditPolicyChange
and LockoutDuration
.
yum_package / dnf_package
We’ve made multiple improvements to how we interact with the systems RPM database in the yum_package
and dnf_package
resources. These changes improve reliability interacting with the RPM database and includes significant performance improvements, especially when no installation or upgrade action is taken by Chef Infra Client.
Platform Detection
Rocky Linux, a RHEL clone, is now detected as a member of the rhel
platform family.
Packaging
Improved Dependencies
Chef Infra Client 17.1 is once again smaller than previous releases thanks to reduced dependencies in the packages.
RHEL 8 Packages
We improved our RHEL 8 packages with additional RHEL 8 optimizations and EL8 in the filename.
Chef Infra Client 17.0.242
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/17.0.242.mdChef Infra Client 17.0 is our yearly release for 2021. These yearly releases include new functionality, an update to the underlying Ruby release, as well as potentially breaking changes. These notes outline what’s new and what you should be aware of as part of your upgrade process.
Compliance Phase
Chef Infra Client’s new Compliance Phase allows users to automatically execute compliance audits and view the results in Chef Automate as part of any Chef Infra Client Run. This new phase of the Chef Infra Client run replaces the legacy audit cookbook and works using the existing audit cookbook attributes. With this new phase, you’ll always have the latest compliance capabilities out of the box without the need to manage cookbook dependencies or juggle versions during Chef Infra Client updates.
The Compliance Phase also features a new compliance reporter: cli
. This reporter mimics the InSpec command line output giving you a visual indication of your system’s compliance status. Thanks for this new reporter @aknarts.
Existing audit cookbook users can migrate to the new Compliance Phase by removing the audit cookbook from their run_list and setting the node['audit']['compliance_phase']
attribute to true
.
For more information see our on-demand webinar Configure Chef Infra & Compliance Using Built-In Functionality
Ruby 3
Chef Infra Client 17 packages now ship with embedded Ruby 3.0. This new release of Ruby improves performance and offers many new language improvements for those writing advanced custom resources. See the ruby-lang.org Ruby 3.0 Announcement for additional details on what’s new and improved in Ruby 3.0.
Knife Moved to Workstation
For historical packaging reasons the Chef Infra Client packages have always shipped with the knife
command for managing your Chef Infra nodes. With Chef Workstation there’s no benefit to shipping knife in the Chef Infra Client package and there are several downsides. Shipping management tooling within the client is seen as a security risk to many and increases the side of the Chef Infra Client codebase by adding a large number of management dependencies. With Chef Infra Client 17 we’ve split knife into its own Ruby Gem, which will continue to ship in Chef Workstation, but will no longer come bundled with Chef Infra Client. We hope you’ll enjoy the new faster and smaller Chef Infra Client while continuing to use knife in Chef Workstation uninterrupted.
Breaking Changes
AIX Virtualization Improvements
The Ohai :Virtualization plugin on AIX systems will now properly return the lpar_no
and wpar_no
values as Integers instead of Strings. This makes the data much easier to work within cookbooks, but may be a breaking change depending on how AIX users consumed these values.
32bit RHEL/CentOS 6 Support
We will not produce Chef Infra Client 17 packages for 32bit RHEL/CentOS 6 systems. RHEL/CentOS 6 reached EOL in November 2020. We are extending support for 64-bit RHEL/CentOS 6 until Chef Infra Client 18 (April 2022) or when an upstream platform or library changes prevent us from building on these systems that are at the end of their lifecycle.
Chef Infra Client As A Service on Windows
Based on customer feedback and observations in the field we’ve removed the ability to run the Chef Infra Client as a service on Windows nodes. We’ve seen the service manager for the Chef Infra Client consume excessive memory, hang preventing runs, or prevent nodes from updating to new client releases properly. We’ve always seen significantly better reliability by running Chef Infra Client as a scheduled task on Windows and in July of 2006 we introduced warnings to the chef-client cookbook when running as a service. The ability to set up the client as a service was later removed from the cookbook entirely in October of 2017.
For customers currently running Chef Infra Client as a service, we advise migrating to scheduled task-based execution. This allows for complex scheduling scenarios not possible with simple services, such as skipping Chef Infra Client execution on systems running on battery power or running the Chef Infra Client immediately after a system boot to ensure configuration.
Chef Infra Client can be configured to run as a scheduled task using the chef-client cookbook or ideally using the chef_client_scheduled_task resource built into Chef Infra Client 16 or later. For users already running as a service setting up the scheduled task and then stopping the existing service can be performed within a Chef Infra Client run to migrate systems.
Gem Resource Ruby 1.9+
The gem
resource used to install Ruby Gems into the system’s Ruby installation will now assume Ruby 1.9 or later. As Ruby 1.8 and below reached end of life almost 7 years ago, we believe there is little to no impact in this change.
Legacy node[‘filesystem2’] removed on AIX/Solaris/FreeBSD
The legacy node['filesystem2']
attributes leftover from our multi-year migration of filesystem data on AIX, Solaris, and FreeBSD systems has been removed. This same data is now available at node['filesystem']
node[‘filesystem’] Uses Updated Format on Windows
In Chef Infra Client 16 we introduced node['filesystem2']
on Windows to complete our migration to a unified structure for filesystem data regardless of platform. In Chef Infra Client 17 we are updating node['filesystem']
on Windows with this same unified format. Both node attributes now have the same data allowing users to more easily migrate filesystem2
to filesystem
in their cookbooks. In Chef Infra Client 18, we will remove node['filesystem2']
completely finishing our multi-year migration of Ohai filesystem data format.
Removed Antergos and Pidora Detection
Ohai detection of the end-of-life Antergos and Pidora distributions has been removed. Antergos ended releases and downloads of the distribution in May 2019 and Pidora stopped receiving updates in 2014.
Infra Language Improvements
Lazy Attribute Loading
A common problem when using the “wrapper cookbook” pattern is when the wrapped cookbook declares what are called “derived attributes”, which are attributes that refer to other attributes. Because of the order that attribute files are parsed in, this does not work as intended when the base attribute is changed in a wrapper cookbook. By extending the use of the lazy {}
helper to the declaration of node attributes, it makes it possible for the wrapped cookbook to cleanly allow wrapper cookbooks to override base attributes as intended.
Use the lazy helper:
default['myapp']['dir'] = '/opt/myapp'
default['myapp']['bindir'] = lazy { "#{node['myapp']['dir']}/bin" }
Instead of:
default['myapp']['dir'] = '/opt/myapp'
default['myapp']['bindir'] = "#{node['myapp']['dir']}/bin"
With the lazy helper the wrapper cookbook can then override the base attribute and the derived attribute will change:
default['myapp']['dir'] = "/opt/my_better_app" # this also changes the bindir attribute correctly
The use of this helper is not limited to declarations in attribute files and can be used whenever attributes are being assigned. For a complete description of the capabilities of lazy attribute evaluation see https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/10861
Custom Resource Property Defaults
Chef Infra Client’s handling of default property values in Custom Resources has been improved to avoid potential Ruby errors. These values are now duplicated internally allowing them to be modified by the user in their recipes without potentially receiving fatal frozen value modification errors.
effortless? helper
A new effortless?
helper identifies if a system is running Chef Infra Client using the Effortless Pattern.
reboot_pending? Improvements
The reboot_pending?
helper now works on all Debian based platforms instead of just Ubuntu.
Resource Improvements
Logging Improvements
A large number of resources have seen improvements to the logging available in the debug
log level providing better information for troubleshooting Chef Infra Client execution. Thanks for this improvement @jaymzh!
apt_package
The apt_package
resource now properly handles downgrading package versions. Please note that full versions must be provided in the version
property and invalid version strings will now raise an error. Thanks for this improvement @jaymzh!
chef_client_launchd / macosx_service
The chef_client_launchd
and macosx_service
resources have been updated to use the full path to the launchctl
command. This avoids failures running these resources with incorrect PATH environment variables. Thanks for this improvement @krackajak!
execute
The execute
resource includes a new login
property allowing you to run commands with a login shell. This helps ensure you have all potential environment variables defined in the user’s shell.
hostname
The hostname
resource now includes a new fqdn
property to allow you to set a custom fqdn in the hostname file in addition to the system’s hostname. Thanks for suggesting this improvement @evandam!
systemd_unit
The systemd_unit
resource has been improved to only shell out once to determine the state of the systemd unit. This optimization should result in significant performance improvements when using large numbers of systemd_unit
resources. Thanks @joshuamiller01!
windows_certificate
The windows_certificate
resource has undergone a large overhaul, with improved support for importing and exporting certificate objects, the ability to create certificate objects from a URL, and a new output_path
property for use with exporting.
windows_task
The windows_task
resource now has a new backup
property that allows you to control the number of XML backups that will be kept of your Windows Scheduled Task definition. This default for this setting is 5
and can be disabled by setting the property to false
. Thanks @ kimbernator!
Ohai
Podman Detection
Ohai now includes detection for hosts running the Podman containerization engine or Chef Infra Client running in containers under Podman.
For hosts the following attributes will be set:
{
"systems": {
"podman": "host",
},
"system": "podman",
"role": "host"
}
For Chef Infra Client within containers the following attributes will be set:
{
"systems": {
"podman": "guest",
},
"system": "podman",
"role": "guest"
}
Thanks for this addition @ramereth!
Habitat Support
Ohai includes a new :Habitat
plugin that gathers information about the Habitat installation, including installed Habitat version, installed packages, and running services.
Sample Habitat attribute output:
{
"version": "1.6.288/20210402191717",
"packages": ["core/busybox-static/1.31.0/20200306011713",
"core/bzip2/1.0.8/20200305225842",
"core/cacerts/2020.01.01/20200306005234",
"core/gcc-libs/9.1.0/20200305225533",
"core/glibc/2.29/20200305172459",
"core/hab-launcher/15358/20210402194815",
"core/hab-sup/1.6.288/20210402194826",
"core/libedit/3.1.20150325/20200319193649",
"core/libsodium/1.0.18/20200319192446",
"core/linux-headers/4.19.62/20200305172241",
"core/ncurses/6.1/20200305230210",
"core/nginx/1.18.0/20200506101012",
"core/openssl-fips/2.0.16/20200306005307",
"core/openssl/1.0.2t/20200306005450",
"core/pcre/8.42/20200305232429",
"core/zeromq/4.3.1/20200319192759",
"core/zlib/1.2.11/20200305174519"
],
"services": [{
"identity": "core/nginx/1.18.0/20200506101012",
"topology": "standalone",
"state_desired": "up",
"state_actual": "up"
}]
}
Alibaba Detection
Ohai now includes detection of nodes running on the Alibaba cloud and supports gathering Alibaba instance metadata.
Sample node['alibaba']
values:
{
"meta_data": {
"dns_conf_": "nameservers",
"eipv4": "47.89.242.123",
"hibernation_": "configured",
"hostname": "1234",
"image_id": "aliyun_2_1903_x64_20G_alibase_20210120.vhd",
"instance_id": "i-12345",
"instance_": {
"instance_type": "ecs.t6-c2m1.large",
"last_host_landing_time": "2021-02-07 19:10:04",
"max_netbw_egress": 81920,
"max_netbw_ingress": 81920,
"virtualization_solution": "ECS Virt",
"virtualization_solution_version": 2.0
},
"mac": "00:16:3e:00:d9:01",
"network_type": "vpc",
"network_": "interfaces/",
"ntp_conf_": "ntp-servers",
"owner_account_id": 1234,
"private_ipv4": "172.25.58.242",
"region_id": "us-west-1",
"serial_number": "ac344378-4d5d-4b9e-851b-1234",
"source_address": "http://us1.mirrors.cloud.aliyuncs.com",
"sub_private_ipv4_list": "172.25.58.243",
"vpc_cidr_block": "172.16.0.0/12",
"vpc_id": "vpc-1234",
"vswitch_cidr_block": "172.25.48.0/20",
"vswitch_id": "vsw-rj9eiw6yqh6zll23h0tlt",
"zone_id": "us-west-1b"
},
"user_data": null,
"dynamic": "instance-identity",
"global_config": null,
"maintenance": "active-system-events"
}
Sample `node[‘cloud’] values:
{
"public_ipv4_addrs": [
"47.89.242.123"
],
"local_ipv4_addrs": [
"172.25.58.242"
],
"provider": "alibaba",
"local_hostname": "123",
"public_ipv4": "47.89.242.123",
"local_ipv4": "172.25.58.242"
}
The Chef Infra Language now includes an alibaba?
helper method to check for instances running on Alibaba as well.
Improved Linux CPU Data
Data collection in the :Cpu
plugin on Linux has been greatly expanded to give enhanced information on architecture, cache, virtualization status, and overall model and configuration data. Thanks for this addition @ramereth!
Packaging Improvements
PowerPC RHEL FIPS Support
We now produce FIPS capable packages for RHEL on PowerPC
Sample client.rb on *nix Platforms
On AIX, Solaris, macOS, and Linux platforms the Chef Infra Client packages will now create the various configuration directories under /etc/chef
as well as a sample /etc/chef/client.rb
file to make it easier to get started running the client.
New Deprecations
Unified Mode in Custom Resources
In Chef Infra Client 16 we introduced Unified Mode allowing you to collapse the sometimes confusing compile and converge phases into a single unified phase. Unified mode makes it easier to write and troubleshoot failures in custom resources and for Chef Infra Client 18 we plan to make this the default execution phase for custom resources. We’ve backported the unified mode feature to the Chef Infra Client 14 and 15 systems and for Chef Infra Client 17 we will now begin warning if resources don’t explicitly set this new mode. Enabling unified mode now lets you validate that resources will continue to function as expected in Chef Infra Client 18. To enable unified mode in your resource add unified_mode true
to the file.
Chef Infra Client 16.18.30
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.18.30.mdBug fixes
- Stop executing locale-gen on every chef run (#12904) Thanks @hrak
- Fixed issue where checksum validation fails when creating/updating files because the two checksums are in different letter cases. The existing checksum validation logic was using case sensitive equality checks.(#13322) Thanks @decoyjoe
- Fixed issue in
rhsm_register
resource where it does not flush chef internal package cache after registering.(#12829) Thanks @jasonwbarnett - Fixed indentation of condition for disabling repos.(#13529)
Packaging
- Bundled
addressable
updated from 2.8.0 to 2.8.1 - Bundled
concurrent-ruby
updated from 1.1.10 to 1.2.0 - Bundled
erubi
updated from 1.10.0 to 1.12.0 - Bundled
highline
updated from 2.0.3 to 2.1.0 - Bundled
json
updated from 2.6.1 to 2.6.3 - Bundled
logging
updated from 2.3.0 to 2.3.1 - Bundled
mixlib-config
updated from 3.0.9 to 3.0.17 - Bundled
multipart-post
updated from 2.1.1 to 2.3.0 - Bundled
net-scp
updated from 3.0.0 to 2.0.0 - Bundled
net-ssh
updated from 6.1.0 to 5.2.0 - Bundled
parser
updated from 3.1.2.0 to 3.2.0.0 - Bundled
public_suffix
updated from 4.0.7 to 5.0.1 - Bundled
regexp_parser
updated from 2.3.1 to 2.6.2 - Bundled
rspec-expectations
updated from 3.11.0 to 3.11.1 - Bundled
train-core
updated from 3.9.2 to 3.2.0 - Bundled
webmock
updated from 3.14.0 to 3.18.1 - Bundled
webrick
updated from 1.7.0 to 1.8.1
Security
Platform Support Updates
32-bit Windows
Chef Infra Client packages are no longer produced for 32-bit versions of Windows.
Compliance Phase Improvements
New Resources
Resource Updates
Chef Infra Client 16.18.0
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.18.0.mdEOL Updates
Chef-16 EOL has been extended to 30 November 2022 from earlier 30 April 2022.
Bug Fixes
Improves Infra Client run time by reducing execution duration.
For more details, please refer PR
Fixes rendering of
ohai_disabled_plugins
andohai_optional_plugins
properties in theclient.rb
template.Thanks @jasonwbarnett
For details about the issue refer
For details about the fix refer
Compliance Phase Improvements
New Resources
Resource Updates
Packaging
- Bundled chef-vaul updated from 4.1.5 to 4.1.10
- Bundled inspec-core updated from 4.56.19 to 4.56.20
- Bundled mixlib-shellout updated from 3.2.5 to 3.2.7
- Bundled parser updated from 3.1.1.0 to 3.1.2.0
- Bundled public_suffix updated from 4.0.6 to 4.0.7
- Bundled regexp_parser updated from 2.2.1 to 2.3.1
- Bundled rspec-mocks updated from 3.11.0 to 3.11.1
- Bundled rubocop-ast updated from 1.16.0 to 1.17.0
- Bundled train-core updated from 3.8.9 to 3.9.2
- Bundled win32-process updated from 0.9.0 to 0.10.0
- Bundled wmi-lite updated from 1.0.5 to 1.0.7
Security
Chef Infra Client 16.17.51
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.17.51.mdPackaging
- Updated the bundled version of OpenSSL on macOS to 1.1.1m to resolve minor bugs.
- Updated the bundled cacerts file to the 2022-02-01 release with new certificates.
- Resolved installation failures on older releases of Solaris 11.3
Chef Infra Client 16.17.39
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.17.39.mdCompliance Phase Improvements
Chef InSpec 4.52.9
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.50.3 to 4.52.9 with the following updates:
New Features
- Added remote target support for Alpine Linux.
- Added the ability to specify a proxy as a parameter in the http resource.
- Added support for TLS 1.3 to the ssl resource.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an edge case in the service resource where InSpec may falsely detect services as enabled on FreeBSD if that service is the suffix of another enabled service.
- Fixed the ibmdb2_session resource so that it now correctly accepts queries with clauses.
- Fixed the oracledb_session resource to properly handle nil in the query output.
- Fixed the packages resource to correctly list only installed packages on Alpine Linux.
Chef Infra Client 16.17.18
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.17.18.mdCompliance Phase Improvements
InSpec 4.50.3
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.49.0 to 4.50.3 which adds Windows support to the http resource.
Packaging
macOS 10.14 EOL
With the release of macOS 12, our N-2 macOS release policy now includes macOS 12, 11, and 10.15. macOS 10.14 packages will no longer be produced.
Security
Ruby 2.7.5
Ruby has been updated from 2.7.4 to 2.7.5 to resolve the following CVEs:
- CVE-2021-41817
- CVE-2021-41816
- CVE-2021-41819
Chef Infra Client 16.17.4
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.17.4.mdCompliance Phase Improvements
Chef InSpec 4.49.0
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.46.13 to 4.49.0 with the following updates:
New Features
- Added support for testing Cassandra DB configurations and CQL commands.
Bug Fixes
- Resolved case sensitivity issue for Windows users and group resources.
- Fixed the oracledb_session resource when invoking a query using OS user and DB role.
- Additional oracledb_session resource fixes.
Resource Updates
chef_client_trusted_certificate
The chef_client_trusted_certificate resource now supports the sensitive property to mask certificate contents in logs. Thanks for this improvement @jakauppila!
System Detection
Improved RHEL Derivative Detection
Ohai now detects XCP-ng 8, Rocky Linux, and Virtuozzo as being part of the rhel
platform family.
Windows Package Detection
32-bit applications on 64-bit Windows hosts are now properly detected by Ohai in the node['packages']
attribute. Thanks for this fix @knightorc!
Packaging
Solaris 11.3 Support
Solaris 11.3 support is back due to popular demand. If you’ve upgraded to Solaris 11.4, Chef Infra Client will continue to work, but this way you’ll have a bit longer to plan your upgrade.
Security
CA Certificates 10-26-2021
The bundled CA certificates file has been updated to the 10-26-2021 release, which includes 3 new CA certs.
Chef Infra Client 16.16.13
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.16.13.mdBug Fixes
- Improved Windows version helper to properly detect Windows 2022
Security
- Updated cacerts to remove the expired DST Root CA X3 root certificate causing failures with Lets Encrypt certificates
Chef Infra Client 16.16.7
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.16.7.mdCompliance Phase Improvements
InSpec 4.46.13
InSpec has been updated from 4.41.20 to 4.46.13 with the following enhancements:
- Added
rocky
andalmalinux
Linux distributions toservice
resource. - Added the ability to handle files without headers in the
csv
resource. - Added the option to establish connection using a UNIX socket in the
postgres_session
resource. - Fixed the
opa_cli
andopa_api
resources so they are able to verify an empty result.
Packaging
We are now shipping packages for the following new platforms:
- Debian 11 amd64/arm64
- Windows 11
- Windows 2022
- Ubuntu 16.04 (no longer EOL with vendor)
Security
OpenSSL 1.0.2zb
OpenSSL has been updated from 1.0.2za to 1.0.2zb to resolve issues with Let’s Encrypt certificates.
cacerts
The cacerts bundle has been updated to the 2021-07-25 release which removes older expired root certificate and adds the following new root certiciates:
- AC RAIZ FNMT-RCM SERVIDORES SEGUROS
- GlobalSign Root R46
- GlobalSign Root E46
- GLOBALTRUST 2020
- ANF Secure Server Root CA
- Certum EC-384 CA
- Certum Trusted Root CA
Chef Infra Client 16.15.22
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.15.22.mdBug Fixes
- Removed ERROR logs when retrying failed communication with the Chef Infra Server.
- Several Ruby failures on Windows have been resolved.
- The
cookbook_name
variable is now available in templates as expected. - YAML recipes can now end in
.yaml
and.yml
. - The data collector for sending data to Chef Automate now respects attribute
allowlist
anddenylist
configurations. - An edge condition in the deprecations system could cause failures running Chef Infra Client.
- Chef Vault has been updated to allow storing key data.
Chef InSpec 4.41.20
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.38.9 to 4.41.20 with the following improvements:
- New Open Policy Agent resources
opa_cli
andopa_api
. - New
mongodb_session
resource. - The
mssql_session
resource now allows named connections by no longer forcing a port. - The PostgreSQL resources (
postgres_session
,postgres_conf
,postgres_hba_conf
, andpostgres_ident_conf
) now work with Windows. - Fixed a bug where the year in an expiration date was misinterpreted in waiver files.
- Added support for Alibaba Cloud Linux 3 to the Chef InSpec
service
resource. - Replaced the WMI command-line (WMIC) utility in the Chef InSpec
security_identifier
resource with Common Information Model (CIM) cmdlets as the WMIC utility will be deprecated soon. - Fixed range-based filtering in filter tables.
- Fixed an issue in the Chef InSpec
apache_conf
resource when the ServerRoot is not specified in the Apache configuration file. - Fixed an error in the Chef InSpec
postgres_session
resource where the resource was unable to connect to a database. - Fixed an error in the Chef InSpec
apache_conf
resource where it would overwrite any Apache configurations from the main Apache configuration file with configurations from any included configuration files. - Fixed an error where the Chef InSpec
security_policy
resource returned a comma-separated string of local groups (rather than SIDs) instead of an array. - Updated the Git fetcher to handle profiles with a default Git branch that is not
master
.
Resource Updates
archive_file
We improved the archive_file
resource has by upgrading the libarchive
library it uses, which includes the following improvements:
- Support for PWB and v7 binary CPIO formats.
- Support for the deflate algorithm in symbolic link decompression with zip files.
- Various bug fixes when working with CAB, ZIP, 7zip, and RAR files.
chef_client_config
Updated the chef_client_config resource to properly format the client.rb
config when the user sets the ohai_optional_plugins
or ohai_disabled_plugins
properties. Thanks for reporting this issue @caneylan.
homebrew_cask
The homebrew_cask
resource now supports Homebrew Casks with ‘-’ or ‘@’ in their name. Thanks for this fix @byplayer! The resource also now passes the homebrew_path
when creating or deleting taps. This change prevents failures when running Homebrew in a non-standard location or on an M1 system. Thanks for this fix @mattlqx!
mount
The mount
resource no longer strips trailing /
values when the mount point is just /
. Thanks for this fix @jiokmiso!
powershell_package
Updated the powershell_package resource to allow passing an array of install options via the options
property. Thanks for reporting this issue @kimbernator
rhsm_subscription
The rhsm_subscription
resource now flushes all DNF or YUM caches after adding a new subscription so that subsequent package installs can use packages from the subscription. Thanks for fixing this @jasonwbarnett!
systemd_unit
The systemd_unit
resource now generates valid unit files when passing a hash of data. Thanks for reporting this issue @gregkare
ulimit
The ulimit
resource now supports setting sensitive true
to prevent logging ulimit data as it is written to disk.
windows_security_policy
The windows_security_policy
resource has been refactored to improve reliability and now supports setting AuditPolicyChange
and LockoutDuration
.
windows_uac
The windows_uac
resource now sets the proper registry key value when using the consent_behavior_users
property. Thanks for reporting this @ahembree!
windows_user_privilege
The windows_user_privilege
resource no longer fails with an error stating that the privilege
property needs to be set, even if it is set.
Security
OpenSSL 1.0.2za
OpenSSL has been updated from 1.0.2y to 1.0.2za on non-macOS systems to resolve CVE-2021-3712.
OpenSSL 1.1.1l
OpenSSL has been updated from 1.1.1k to 1.1.1l on macOS systems to resolve the following CVEs:
libarchive 3.5.2
Updated the libarchive library that powers the archive_file
resource from 3.5.1 to 3.5.2 to resolve security vulnerabilities in libarchive’s handling of symbolic links.
Package Improvements
Intel macOS Monterey Packages
We now produce Chef Infra Client packages for Apple’s macOS Monterey preview release on Intel architecture in addition to M1 architecture.
Deprecations
Policyfile Compatibility Mode
The Chef Infra Server 11 era Policyfile Compatibility Mode is now deprecated. Users should upgrade to a newer release of Chef Infra Server 12+ that supports Policyfiles natively. With Chef Infra Server upgraded, you can remove policy_document_native_api
from the client.rb
config file or set it to true
.
Attribute Whitelists
We deprecated the attribute whitelist feature in favor of attribute allowlists. Users will need to update whitelist configurations in their client.rb
configuration file to be allowlist
configurations.
Chef Infra Client 16.14.1
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.14.1.mdBug Fixes
bundle install
now correctly installs gems from cookbookmetadata.rb
files. Thanks for this fix @nvwlsknife bootstrap
on Windows now correctly useshttps://omnitruck.chef.io
to download packages.
Chef InSpec 4.31
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.31.1 to 4.38.9 with the following changes:
New Features
- Added the new
--reporter-include-source
CLI option, which includes the source code of the controls in the output of the CLI reporter. - Added ability to pass inputs to InSpec shell using input file and CLI.
- Added a new mongodb_conf resource.
- Fixed the inspec shell to allow loading profiles that have their own dependent profiles.
- Updated the inspec init plugin command with the following changes.
- The values of flags passed to the inspec init plugin command are now wrapped in double quotes instead of single quotes.
- Template files are now ERB files.
- The activator flag replaces the hook flag, which is now an alias.
- Added support for zfs_pool and zfs_dataset resources on Linux.
- Improved port resource performance: adding more specific search while using ss command.
- The new inspec automate command replaces the inspec compliance command, which is now deprecated.
- Added the selinux resource which includes support for modules and booleans.
- Added the pattern input option for DSL and metadata inputs.
- Added the members_array property for group & groups resources.
- Train now reads the username and port from the .ssh/config file and will use these values if present.
Bug Fixes
- Removed the default of 3600 seconds for
--command-timeout
CLI option. - Fix SSH Timeout PTY allocation.
- Changed the Windows local pipe server connection to retry once on EPIPE.
- Fixed the postgres_session resource to raise an exception if there is an error in a connection or query.
- Fixed the mysql_session resource to raise an exception if there is an error in a connection or query.
- Removed support for Chef Compliance Server and Chef Automate 1 from the inspec automate command, as both products are EOL.
inspec detect --no-color
returns color-free output.- file resource more_permissive_than matcher returns nil instead of throwing exception when file does not exist.
- The HTTP resource response body is now coerced into UTF-8.
- Modified the windows_feature resource to indicate if a feature is enabled rather than just available.
- Fixed an error when using profile dependencies and require_controls.
- Fixed the windows_firewall_rule resource when it failed to validate more than one rule.
- Switch to GNU timeout-based implementation of SSH timeouts.
- Fixed the group resource when a member does not exist.
Packaging
M1 macOS Monterey Packages
Chef Infra Client packages are now produced for Apple’s macOS Monterey preview release. Packages for Intel-based Macs will ship at a later date.
Solaris 11.3 EOL / Solaris 11.4 Packages
Oracle Solaris 11.3 became end-of-life (EOL) in January 2021. Chef Infra Client packages are no longer produced for Solaris 11.3 and new Solaris 11.4 packages are available in their place.
PowerPC RHEL FIPS Support
We now produce FIPS capable packages for RHEL on PowerPC.
RHEL 8 Packages
We improved our RHEL 8 packages with additional RHEL 8 optimizations and EL8 in the filename.
RPM Package Digests
The file digest in Chef Infra RPM packages has been updated from MD5 to SHA256 to prevent failures installing on some FIPS-enabled systems.
Security
Ruby 2.7.4
Ruby has been updated to 2.7.4 to resolve a large number of bugs as well as the following CVEs:
Addressable
We’ve updated the addressable gem from 2.7 to 2.8 to resolve CVE-2021-32740.
Chef Infra Client 16.13.16
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.13.16.mdChef InSpec 4.31
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.29.3 to 4.31.1.
New Features
- Commands can now be set to timeout using the command resource or the
--command-timeout
option in the CLI. Commands timeout by default after one hour. - Added the
--docker-url
CLI option, which can be used to specify the URI to connect to the Docker Engine. - Added support for targeting Linux and Windows containers running on Docker for Windows.
Bug Fixes
- Hash inputs will now be loaded consistently and accessed as strings or symbols. (#5446)
Ubuntu FIPS Support
Our Ubuntu packages are now FIPS compliant for all your FedRAMP needs.
Chef Language Additions
We now include a centos_stream_platform?
helper to determine if your CentOS release is a standard CentOS release or a CentOS Stream release. This helper can be used in attributes files, recipes, and custom resources. Thanks for this new helper @ramereth!
Resource Improvements
dsc_script and dsc_resource
Our PowerShell integration has been improved to better handle failures that were silently occurring when running some DSC code in Chef Infra Client 16.8 and later. Thanks for reporting this problem @jeremyciak!
Platform Support Updates
Ubuntu 16.04 EOL
Packages will no longer be built for Ubuntu 16.04 as Canonical ended maintenance updates on April 30, 2021. See Chef’s Platform End-of-Life Policy for more information on when Chef ends support for an OS release.
Improved System Detection
Ohai now includes a new :OsRelease
plugin for Linux hosts that includes the content of /etc/os_release
. This data can be very useful for accurately identifying the Linux distribution that Chef Infra Client is running on. Thanks for this new plugin @ramereth!
Sample :OsRelease
Output
{
"name": "Ubuntu",
"version": "18.04.5 LTS (Bionic Beaver)",
"id": "ubuntu",
"id_like": [
"debian"
],
"pretty_name": "Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS",
"version_id": "18.04",
"home_url": "https://www.ubuntu.com/",
"support_url": "https://help.ubuntu.com/",
"bug_report_url": "https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/",
"privacy_policy_url": "https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy",
"version_codename": "bionic",
"ubuntu_codename": "bionic"
}
Security
Ruby 2.7.3
Ruby has been updated to 2.7.3, which provides a large number of bug fixes and also resolves the following CVEs:
Chef Infra Client 16.12.3
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.12.3.mdChef InSpec 4.29
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.28 to 4.29.3.
New Features
- The JSON metadata pass through configuration has been moved from the Automate reporter to the JSON Reporter. (#5430)
Bug Fixes
- The apt resource now correctly fetches all package repositories using the
-name
flag in an environment where ZSH is the user’s default shell. (#5437) - Updates how InSpec profiles are created with GCP or AWS providers so they use
inputs
instead ofattributes
. (#5435)
Resource Improvements
service and chef_client_launchd
The service
and chef_client_launchd
resources on macOS now use the full path to launchctl
to avoid potential failures. Thanks @krackajak!
file
Verifiers in the file
resource are only run if the content actually changes. This can significantly speed execution of Chef Infra Client when no actual changes occur. Thanks @joshuamiller01!
mount
The mount resource now properly handles NFS mounts with a root of /
. Thanks for reporting this @eheydrick and thanks for the fix @ramereth!
powershell_script and dsc_script
Our embedded PowerShell libraries have been updated for improved execution of PowerShell and DSC code on Windows systems.
Improved System Detection
Ohai has been updated to better detect system configuration details:
- Ohai now detects Chef Infra Clients running in the Effortless pattern at
node['chef_packages']['chef']['chef_effortless']
. - Windows packages installed for the current user are now detected in addition to system wide package installations. Thanks @jaymzh!
Sangoma Linux
is now detected as part of therhel
platform family. Thanks @hron84!- Docker is now properly detected even if it’s running on a virtualized system. Thanks @jaymzh!
- Alibaba Cloud Linux is now detected as platform
alibabalinux
and platform familyrhel
.
Security
Upgraded OpenSSL on macOS hosts to 1.1.1k, which resolves the following CVEs:
Chef Infra Client 16.11.7
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.11.7.mdNative Apple M1 Architecture Packages
We now build and test native Apple M1 architecture builds of Chef Infra Client. These builds are available at Chef Downloads, our install.sh
scripts, and the Omnitruck API.
Chef InSpec 4.28
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.26.4 to 4.28.0.
New Features
- Added the option to filter out empty profiles from reports.
- Exposed the
conf_path
,content
, andparams
properties to theauditd_conf
resource. - Added the ability to specify
--user
when connecting to docker containers.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed the
crontab
resource when passing a username to AIX. - Stopped a backtrace from occurring when using
cmp
to comparenil
with a non-existing file. - Fixed
skip_control
to work on deeply nested profiles. - The
ssh_config
andsshd_config
resources now correctly use the first value when a setting is repeated.
Fixes and Improvements
- Upgraded openSSL on macOS from 1.0.2 to 1.1.1 in order to support Apple M1 builds.
- Resolved an issue that caused the DNF and YUM package helpers to exit with error codes, which would show up in system logs.
- Added a new attribute to make the upcoming Compliance Phase an opt-in feature:
node['audit']['compliance_phase']
. This should prevent the Compliance Phase from incorrectly running when using named run_lists or override run_lists. If you’re currently testing this new phase, make sure to set this attribute totrue
. chef_client_cron
: theappend_log_file
property now sets up the cron job to use shell redirection (>>
) instead of the-L
flag
Chef Infra Client 16.10.17
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.10.17.mdBug Fixes
- Resolved installation failures on some Windows systems
- Fixed the
mount
resource for network mounts using the root level as the device. Thanks @ramereth! - Resolved a Compliance Phase failure with profile names using the
@
symbol.
Security
Upgraded OpenSSL to 1.0.2y, which resolves the following CVEs:
Platform Updates
With the release of macOS 11 we will no longer produce packages for macOS 10.13 systems. See our Platform End-of-Life Policy for details on the platform lifecycle.
Chef Infra Client 16.10.8
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.10.8.mdImprovements
Improved Linux Network Detection
On Linux systems, Chef Infra Client now detects all installed NICs on systems with more than 10 interfaces and will populate Ethernet pause frame information if present. Thanks for these improvements @kuba-moo and @Babar!
AWS Instance Metadata Service Version 2 (IMDSv2) support
Chef Infra Client now supports the latest generation of AWS metadata services (IMDSv2). This allows you to secure the contents of the metadata endpoint while still exposing this data for use in Chef Infra cookbooks. Thanks for this new functionality @wilkosz and @sawanoboly!
Improved AWS Metadata Gathering
On AWS instances, we now gather data from the latest metadata API versions, exposing new AWS instance information for use in Infra Cookbooks:
- elastic-gpus/associations/elastic-gpu-id
- elastic-inference/associations/eia-id
- events/maintenance/history
- events/maintenance/scheduled
- events/recommendations/rebalance
- instance-life-cycle
- network/interfaces/macs/mac/network-card-index
- placement/availability-zone-id
- placement/group-name
- placement/host-id
- placement/partition-number
- placement/region
- spot/instance-action
AlmaLinux Detection
Chef Infra Client now maps AlmaLinux to the rhel
platform_family
value. AlmaLinux is a new open-source RHEL fork produced by the CloudLinux team. AlmaLinux falls under Chef’s Community Support platform support policy providing community driven support without the extensive testing given to commercially supported platforms in Chef Infra Client.
You can test cookbooks on AlmaLinux in Test Kitchen using [AlmaLinux 8 Vagrant Images](https://app.vagrantup.com/bento/boxes/almalinux-8 on VirtualBox, Parallels, and VMware hypervisors as follows:
platforms:
- name: almalinux-8
driver:
box: bento/almalinux-8
Knife Bootstrapping Without Sudo
The knife bootstrap
command now supports elevating privileges on systems without sudo
by using the su
command instead. Use the new --su-user
and --su-password
flags to specify credentials for su
.
Resource Updates
dnf_package
The dnf_package
has been updated to maintain idempotency when using the :upgrade
action when the RPM release “number” contains a dot (.
).
windows_certificate
The windows_certificate
resource now honors the user_store
property to manage certificates in the User store instead of the System store.
Chef Infra Client 16.9.32
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.9.32.mdImprovements
- Resolved orphaned PowerShell processes when using Compliance Remediation content.
- Reduced Chef Infra Client install size by up to 5%.
Chef InSpec 4.26.4
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.25.1 to 4.26.4.
New Features
- You can now directly refer to settings in the
nginx_conf
resource using theits
syntax. Thanks @rgeissert! - You can now specify the shell type for WinRM connections using the
--winrm-shell-type
option. Thanks @catriona1! - Plugin settings can now be set programmatically. Thanks @tecracer-theinen!
Bug Fixes
- Updated the
oracledb_session
to use more general invocation options. Thanks @pacopal! - Fixed an error with the
http
resource in Chef Infra Client by includingfaraday_middleware
in the gemspec. - Fixed an incompatibility between
parslet
andtoml
in Chef Infra Client. - Improved programmatic plugin configuration.
Chef Infra Client 16.9.29
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.9.29.mdChef InSpec 4.25.1
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.24.8 to 4.25.1:
- OpenSSH Client on Windows can now be tested with the ssh_config and sshd_config resources. Thanks @rgeissert!
- The
--reporter-message-truncation
option now also truncates thecode_desc
field, preventing failures when sending large reports to Automate.
Bug Fixes
- Resolved failures from running
chef-client
on some Windows systems. - Compliance Phase: Improved detection of the
audit
cookbook when it is used for compliance reporting. - chef-shell: Added support for loading configs in
client.d
directories - Thanks @jaymzh! - Duplicate gems in our packaging have been removed to further shrink the package sizes and improve load time.
Chef Infra Client 16.9.20
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.9.20.md- Updated the package resource on FreeBSD to work with recent changes to the pkgng executable. Thanks @mrtazz
- Added a missing dependency in the chef-zero binary that could cause failures when running chef-zero.
- Resolved failures when running the audit cookbook from our yet-to-be-fully-released Chef Infra Compliance Phase. As it turns out, this dark launch was not as dark as we had hoped.
Chef Infra Client 16.9.17
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.9.17.mdKnife Improvements
- The
knife bootstrap
command now properly formats thetrusted_certs_dir
configuration value on Windows hosts. Thanks for this fix @axelrtgs! - The
knife bootstrap
command now only specifies the ssh option-o IdentitiesOnly=yes
if keys are present. Thanks for this fix @drbrain! - The
knife status
command with the-F json
flag no longer fails if cloud nodes have no public IP.
Updated Resources
cron_d
The cron_d
resource now respects the use of the sensitive
property. Thanks for this fix @axl89!
dnf
The dnf
resource has received a large number of improvements to provide improved idempotency and to better handle uses of the version
and arch
properties. Thanks for reporting these issues @epilatow and @Blorpy!
homebrew_cask
The homebrew_cask
resource has been updated to work with the latest command syntax requirements in the brew
command. Thanks for reporting this issue @bcg62!
locale
The allowed execution time for the locale-gen
command in the locale
resource has been extended to 1800 seconds to make sure the Chef Infra Client run doesn’t fail before the command completes on slower systems. Thanks for reporting this issue @janskarvall!
plist / macosx_service / osx_profile / macos_userdefaults
Parsing of plist files has been improved in the plist
, macosx_service
, osx_profile
, and macos_userdefaults
resources thanks to updates to the plist gem by @reitermarkus and @tboyko.
user
The user
resource on Windows hosts now properly handles uid
values passed as strings instead of integers. Thanks for reporting this issue @jaymzh!
yum_repository
The yum_repository
resource has been updated with a new reposdir
property to control the path where the Yum repository configuration files will be written. Thanks for suggesting this @wildcrazyman!
Security
- The bundled Nokogiri Ruby gem has been updated to 1.11 resolve CVE-2020-26247.
Chef Infra Client 16.9.16
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.9.16.mdThis release does not have any release notes.
Chef Infra Client 16.8.14
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.8.14.md- Updated openSSL to 1.0.2x to resolve CVE-2020-1971.
- Updated libarchive to 3.5.0, which powers the
archive_file
resource. This new release resolves extraction failures and better handles symlinks in archives. knife ssh
with the--sudo
flag will no longer silently fail. Thanks for the fix @rveznaver!- Resolve failures running the Compliance Phase introduced in the 16.8.9 release. Thanks for reporting this issue @axelrtgs!
Chef Infra Client 16.8.9
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.8.9.mdChef InSpec 4.24
Chef InSpec has been updated to 4.24.8 including the following improvements:
- An unset
HOME
environment variable will not cause execution failures - You can use wildcards in
platform-name
andrelease
in InSpec profiles - The support for arrays in the
WMI
resource, so it can return multiple objects - The
package
resource on Windows properly escapes package names - The
grub_conf
resource succeeds even if without amenuentry
in the grub config - Loaded plugins won’t try to re-load themselves
Updated Resources
dsc_resource / dsc_script
The dsc_resource
and dsc_script
resources have been updated to use the powershell_exec
helper for significantly improved performance executing the PowerShell commands.
hostname
The hostname
resource has been updated to prevent failures when the default system hostname is set on macOS hosts.
remote_file
The remote_file
resource has been updated to use certificates located in Chef Infra Client’s trusted_certificates
directory. Thanks for reporting this issue @carguel!
windows_certificate
The windows_certificate
has been updated with a new exportable
property that marks PFX files as exportable in the certificate store.
Ohai Improvements
- A new optional
Grub2
plugin can be enabled to expose GRUB2 environment variables. - Linode cloud detection has been improved.
Platform Packages
We are once again building packages for Solaris on Sparc and x86 platforms.
Chef Infra Client 16.7.61
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.7.61.mdPerformance Enhancements
In Chef Infra Client 16.7, we’ve put a particular focus on optimizing the performance of the client. We’ve created several dozen minor optimizations that increase performance and reduce overall memory usage across all platforms. On Windows, our work has been particularly pronounced as we’ve improved resource execution and Chef Infra Client installation. Chef Infra Client install times on Windows are now up to 3x faster than previous releases. Resources that use PowerShell to make changes now execute significantly faster. This improvement will be the most noticeable in Chef Infra Client runs that don’t make actual system changes (no-op runs), where determining the current system state was previously resource-intensive.
Windows Bootstrap Improvements
We’ve improved how Windows nodes are bootstrapped when using the knife bootstrap
command. The knife bootstrap
--secret
flag is now respected on Windows hosts, allowing for the proper setup of nodes to use encrypted data bags. Thanks for reporting this issue @AMC-7! Additionally, during the bootstrap we now force connections to use TLS 1.2, preventing failures on Windows 2012-2016. Thanks for this improvement @TimothyTitan!
Chef Vault 4.1
We’ve updated the release of chef-vault
bundled with Chef Infra Client to 4.1. Chef Vault 4.1 properly handles escape strings in secrets and greatly improves performance for users with large numbers of secrets. Thanks for the performance work @Annih!
Updated Resources
build_essential
The build_essential
resource has been updated to resolve idempotency issues and greatly improve performance on macOS hosts.
chef_client_config
The chef_client_config
resource has been updated to no longer produce invalid client.rb
content.
group
The group
resource has been improved to provide log output of changes being made and on Windows now properly translates group SIDs to names in order to operate idempotently.
Thanks for these improvements @jaymzh!
homebrew_update
The homebrew_update
has been updated to resolve failures that would occur when running the resource.
ifconfig
The ifconfig
resource has been updated to better support Linux distributions that are derivatives of either Ubuntu or Debian. Support for setting the BRIDGE
property on RHEL-based systems has also been added.
mount
The mount
resource has been updated to resolve several issues:
- Idempotency failures when using labels on Linux hosts.
- Idempotency failures when using network paths that end with a slash.
- fstab entries being reordered instead of performing in-place updates.
Thanks for reporting these issues @limitusus, @axelrtgs, and @scarpe01!
powershell_package
The powershell_package
resource has been updated to better force connections to use TLS 1.2 when communicating with the PowerShell Gallery on Windows Server 2012-2016. Connections must be forced to use TLS 1.2 as the system default cipher suite because Windows 2012-2016 did not include TLS 1.2.
powershell_script
The powershell_script
resource has been updated to not fail when using a not_if
or only_if
guard when specifying the user
property. Thanks for reporting this issue @Blorpy!
user
The user
resource has been improved to provide log output of changes being made.
Thanks for this improvement @jaymzh!
zypper_package
The zypper_package
resource has been refactored to improve idempotency when specifying a version of the package to either install or downgrade.
Ohai Improvements
- The
Joyent
plugin has been removed as the Joyent public cloud was shutdown 11/2019 pop_os
is now detected as having theplatform_family
ofdebian
. Thanks for this improvement @chasebolt!- Recent
openindiana
releases are now properly detected. - The
Hostnamectl
plugin properly detects hostnames that contain a colon. Thanks for reporting this @ziggythehamster! - The
Zpool
plugin now properly detects ZFS zpools that includenvme
orxvd
drives. Thanks for reporting this @ziggythehamster! - The
Zpool
plugin now properly detects ZFS zpools that use disk labels/guids instead of traditional drive designations. - Performance of system configuration gathering on AIX systems has been improved
- The
Virtualization
plugin on AIX systems now gathers a statestate
per WPAR and properly gathers LPAR names that include spaces
Chef Infra Client 16.6.14
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.6.14.mdpwsh Support
We’ve updated multiple parts of the Chef Infra Client to fully support Microsoft’s pwsh
(commonly known as PowerShell Core) in addition to our previous support for PowerShell
.
powershell_script resource
The powershell_script
resource includes a new interpreter
property that accepts either powershell
or pwsh
.
powershell_script 'check version table' do
code '$PSVersionTable'
interpreter 'pwsh'
end
powershell_out / powershell_exec helpers
The powershell_out
and powershell_exec
helpers for use in custom resources have been updated to support pwsh
with a new argument that accepts either :pwsh
or :powershell
.
powershell_exec('$PSVersionTable', :pwsh)
Enhanced 32-bit Windows Support
The powershell_exec
helper now supports the 32-bit version of Windows. This ensures many of the newer PowerShell based resources in Chef Infra Client will function as expected on 32-bit systems.
New Resources
chef_client_config
The chef_client_config
resource allows you to manage Chef Infra Client’s client.rb
file without the need for the chef-client
cookbook.
Example
chef_client_config 'Create client.rb' do
chef_server_url 'https://chef.example.dmz'
end
chef-client Cookbook Future
With the inclusion of the chef_client_config
resource in Chef Infra Client 16.6, it is now possible to fully manage the Chef Infra Client without the need for the chef-client
cookbook. We highly recommend using the chef_client_config
, chef_client_trusted_certificate
, and chef_client_*
service resources to manage your clients instead of the chef-client
cookbook. In the future we will mark that cookbook as deprecated, at which time it will no longer receive updates.
Here’s a sample of fully managing Linux hosts with the built-in resources:
chef_client_config 'Create client.rb' do
chef_server_url 'https://chef.example.dmz'
end
chef_client_trusted_certificate "chef.example.dmz" do
certificate <<~CERT
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----
CERT
end
chef_client_systemd_timer "Run chef-client as a systemd timer" do
interval "1hr"
cpu_quota 50
end
Target Mode Improvements
Chef Infra Client 16 introduced an experimental Target Mode feature for executing resources remotely against hosts that do not have a Chef Infra Client or even Ruby installed. For Chef Infra Client 16.6 we’ve improved this functionality by converting the majority of the Ohai plugins to run remotely. This means when using Target Mode you’ll have the majority of Ohai data as if the Chef Infra Client was installed on the node. Keep in mind this data collection can be time consuming over high latency network connections, and cloud plugins which fetch metadata cannot currently be run remotely. Ohai also now includes a --target
option for remote data gathering, which accepts a Train URI: ohai --target ssh://foobar.example.org/
. We still consider Target Mode to be an experimental feature, and we’d love your feedback on what works and what doesn’t in your environment. A super huge thanks for the countless hours of work put in by tecRacer, @tecracer-theinen, and burtlo to make this a reality.
Updated Resources
ifconfig
The ifconfig
resource has been updated to no longer add empty blank lines to the configuration files. Thanks for this improvement @jmherbst!
windows_audit_policy
The windows_audit_policy
resource has been updated to fix a bug on failure-only auditing.
Ohai Improvements
Passwd Plugin For Windows
The optional Ohai Passwd
plugin now supports Windows hosts in addition to Unix-like systems. To collect user/group data on Windows hosts you can use the ohai_optional_plugins
property in the new chef_client_config
resource to enable this plugin.
chef_client_config 'Create client.rb' do
chef_server_url 'https://chef.example.dmz'
ohai_optional_plugins [:Passwd]
end
Thanks for adding Windows support to this plugin @jaymzh!
Improved Azure Detection
The Azure
plugin has been improved to better detect Windows hosts running on Azure. The plugin will now look for DHCP with the domain of reddog.microsoft.com
. Thanks for this improvement @jasonwbarnett!
EC2 IAM Role Data
Ohai now collects IAM Role data on EC2 hosts including the role name and info. To address potential security concerns the data we collect is sanitized to ensure we don’t report security credentials to the Chef Infra Server. Thanks for this improvement @kcbraunschweig!
Security
Ruby has been updated to 2.7.2, which includes a fix for CVE-2020-25613.
Chef Infra Client 16.5.77
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.5.77.md- Added missing requires to prevent errors when loading
chef/policy_builder/dynamic
. - The
homebrew_package
resource will now check for the full and short package names. Bothhomebrew_package 'homebrew/core/vim'
andhomebrew_package 'vim'
styles should now work correctly. - Resolved errors that occurred in cookbooks requiring
addressable/uri
. - Improved the license acceptance flow to give helpful information if the user passes an invalid value in the environment variable or command line argument.
- Updated Chef InSpec to 4.23.11 in order to resolve issues when running the new
junit2
reporter. - Additional performance improvements to reduce the startup time of the
chef-client
andknife
commands. knife vault
commands now output proper JSON or YAML when using the-f json
or-f yaml
flags.
Chef Infra Client 16.5.64
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.5.64.mdPerformance Improvements
We continue to reduce the size of the Chef Infra Client install and optimize the performance of the client. With Chef Infra Client 16.5 we’ve greatly reduced the startup time of the chef-client
process. Startup times on macOS, Linux, and Windows hosts are now approximately 2x faster than the 16.4 release.
CLI Improvements
- A new
chef-client
process exit code of 43 has been added to signal that an invalid configuration was specified. Thanks @NaomiReeves! - The
knife ssh
command no longer hangs when connecting to Windows nodes over SSH. - The
knife config
commands have been renamed to make them shorter and table output has been improved:- knife config get-profile -> knife config use
- knife config use-profile [NAME] -> knife config use [NAME]
- knife config list-profiles -> knife config list
- knife config get -> knife config show
Chef InSpec 4.23.4
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.22.1 to 4.23.4. This new release includes the following improvements:
- A new mechanism marks inputs as sensitive: true and replaces their values with
***
. - Use the
--no-diff
CLI option to suppress diff output for textual tests. - Control the order of controls in output, but not execution order, with the
--sort_results_by=none|control|file|random
CLI option. - Disable caching of inputs with a cache_inputs: true setting.
New Resources
chef_client_launchd
The chef_client_launchd
resource allows you to configure Chef Infra Client to run as a global launchd daemon on macOS hosts. This resource mirrors the configuration of other chef_client_*
resources and allows for simple out-of-the-box configuration of the daemon, while also providing advanced tunables. If you’ve used the chef-client
cookbook in the past, you’ll notice a number of improvements in the new resource including configuration update handling, splay times support, nice level support, and an out-of-the-box configuration of low IO priority execution. In order to handle restarting the Chef Infra Client launchd daemon when configuration changes occur, the resource also installs a new com.chef.restarter
daemon. This daemon watches for daemon configuration changes and gracefully handles the restart to ensure the client process continues to run.
chef_client_launchd 'Setup the Chef Infra Client to run every 30 minutes' do
interval 30
action :enable
end
chef_client_trusted_certificate
The chef_client_trusted_certificate
resource allows you to add a certificate to Chef Infra Client’s trusted certificate directory. The resource handles platform-specific locations and creates the trusted certificates directory if it doesn’t already exist. Once a certificate is added, it will be used by the client itself to communicate with the Chef Infra Server and by resources such as remote_file
.
chef_client_trusted_certificate 'self-signed.badssl.com' do
certificate <<~CERT
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----
CERT
end
Resource Updates
chef_client_cron
The chef_client_cron
resource has been updated with a new nice
property that allows you to set the nice level for the chef-client
process. Nice level changes only apply to the chef-client
process and not any subprocesses like ohai
or system utility calls. If you need to ensure that the chef-client
process does not negatively impact system performance, we highly recommend instead using the cpu_quota
property in the chef_client_systemd_timer
resource which applies to all child processes.
chef_client_systemd_timer
The chef_client_systemd_timer
resource has been updated with a new cpu_quota
property that allows you to control the systemd CPUQuota
value for the chef-client
process. This allows you to ensure chef-client
execution doesn’t adversely impact performance on your systems.
launchd
The launchd
resource has been updated to better validate inputs to the nice
property so we can make sure these are acceptable nice values.
mount
The mount
resource on Linux has new improved idempotency in some scenarios by switching to findmnt
to determine the current state of the system. Thanks for reporting this issue @pollosp!
osx_profile
The osx_profile
resource will now allow you to remove profiles from macOS 11 (Big Sur) systems. Due to security changes in macOS 11, it is no longer possible to locally install profiles, but this will allow you to cleanup existing profiles left over after an upgrade from an earlier macOS release. The resource has been updated to resolve a regression introduced in Chef Infra Client 16.4 that caused the resource to attempt to update profiles on each converge. Thanks for reporting these issues @chilcote!
rhsm_register
The rhsm_register
resource has been updated to reduce the load on the RedHat Satellite server when checking if a system is already registered. Thanks for reporting this issue @donwlewis! A new system_name
property has also been added to allow you to register a name other than the system’s hostname. Thanks for this improvement @jasonwbarnett!
windows_ad_join
The windows_ad_join
resource has been updated with a new reboot_delay
property which allows you to control the delay time before restarting systems.
windows_firewall_profile
The windows_firewall_profile
resource was updated to prevent NilClass errors from loading the firewall state.
windows_user_privilege
The windows_user_privilege
resource has been updated to better validate the privilege
property and to allow the users
property to accept String values. Thanks for reporting this issue @jeremyciak!
Windows securable resources
All Windows securable resources now support using SID in addition to user or group name when specifying owner
, group
, or rights
principal. These resources include the template
, file
, remote_file
, cookbook_file
, directory
, and remote_directory
resources. When using a SID, you may use either the standard string representation of a SID (S-R-I-S-S) or one of the SDDL string constants.
Ohai Improvements
- Ohai now uses the same underlying code for shelling out to external commands as Chef Infra Client. This may resolve issues from determining the state on some non-English systems.
- The
Packages
plugin has been updated to gather package installation information on macOS hosts.
Platform Packages
- We are once again building Chef Infra Client packages for RHEL 7 / SLES 12 on the S390x architecture. In addition to these packages, we’ve also added S390x packages for RHEL 8 / SLES 15.
- We now produce packages for Apple’s upcoming macOS 11 Big Sur release.
Security
OpenSSL has been updated to 1.0.2w which includes a fix for CVE-2020-1968.
Chef Infra Client 16.4.41
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.4.41.mdBug Fixes
- Resolved an error that would prevent ipaddress detection on Windows hosts
- Fixed failures running the knife configure command
- Refactored the timezone resource to properly load the existing timezone value in order to improve logging and the data exposed to Automate/handlers.
Chef Infra Client 16.4.38
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.4.38.mdBug Fixes
- Resolve a regression in running the
osx_profile
resource on macOS 10.15. - Fix a failure when removing profiles that don’t exist using the
osx_profile
resource.
Chef Infra Client 16.4.35
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.4.35.mdBug Fixes
- We’ve resolved an issue with knife bootstrap that prevented bootstrapping Windows nodes from a non-Windows workstation
- Resources that set
ignore_failure
true will now report failures to Automate.
Resource Updates
chef_client_systemd_timer
The chef_client_systemd_timer
resource has been updated to prevent failures running the :remove
action.
openssl resource
The various openssl_* resources were refactored to better report the changed state of the resource to Automate or other handlers.
osx_profile
The osx_profile
resource has been refactored as a custom resource internally. This update also better reports the changed state of the resource to Automate or other handlers and no longer silently continues if the attempts to shellout fail.
powershell_package_source
The powershell_package_source
resource no longer requires the url
property to be set when using the :unregister
action. Thanks for this fix @kimbernator!
powershell_script
The powershell_script
resource has been refactored to better report the changed state of the resource to Automate or other handlers.
windows_feature
The windows_feature
resource has been updated to allow installing features that have been removed if a source location is provided. Thanks for reporting this @stefanwb!
windows_font
The windows_font
resource will no longer fail on newer releases of Windows if a font is already installed. Thanks for reporting this @bmiller08!
windows_workgroup
The windows_workgroup
resource has been updated to treat the password
property as a sensitive property. The value of the password
property will no longer be shown in logs or handlers.
Security
CA Root Certificates
The included cacerts
bundle in Chef Infra Client has been updated to the 7-22-2020 release. This new release removes 4 legacy root certificates and adds 4 additional root certificates.
Reduced Dependencies
We’ve audited the included dependencies that we ship with Chef Infra Client to reduce the 3rd party code we ship. We’ve removed many of the embedded binaries that shipped with the client in the past, but were not directly used. We’ve also reduced the feature set built into many of the libraries that we depend on, and removed several Ruby gem dependencies that were no longer necessary. This reduces the future potential for CVEs in the product and reduces package size at the same time.
Chef Infra Client 16.3.45
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.3.45.md- Resolved failures negotiating protocol versions with the Chef Infra Server.
- Improved log output on Windows systems in the
hostname
resource. - Added support to the
archive_file
resource forpzstd
compressed files.
Chef Infra Client 16.3.38
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.3.38.mdRenamed Client Configuration Options
We took a hard look at many of the terms we’ve historically used throughout the Chef Infra Client configuration sub-system and came to the realization that we weren’t living up to the words of our Community Code of Conduct. From the code of conduct: “Be careful in the words that you choose. Be kind to others. Practice empathy”. Terms such as blacklist and sanity don’t meet that bar so we’ve chosen to rename these configuration options:
automatic_attribute_blacklist
->blocked_automatic_attributes
default_attribute_blacklist
->blocked_default_attributes
normal_attribute_blacklist
->blocked_normal_attributes
override_attribute_blacklist
->blocked_override_attributes
automatic_attribute_whitelist
->allowed_automatic_attributes
default_attribute_whitelist
->allowed_default_attributes
normal_attribute_whitelist
->allowed_normal_attributes
override_attribute_whitelist
->allowed_override_attributes
enforce_path_sanity
->enforce_default_paths
Existing configuration options will continue to function for now, but will raise a deprecation warning and will be removed entirely from a future release of Chef Infra Client.
Chef InSpec 4.22.1
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.21.1 to 4.22.1. This new release includes the following improvements:
- The
=
character is now allowed for command line inputs apt-cdrom
repositories are now skipped when parsing out the list of apt repositories- Faulty profiles are now reported instead of causing a crash
- Errors are no longer logged to stdout with the
html2
reporter - macOS Big Sur is now correctly identified as macOS
New Resources
windows_firewall_profile
The windows_firewall_profile
allows you to enable
, disable
, or configure
Windows Firewall profiles. For example, you can now set up default actions and configure rules for the Public
profile using this single resource instead of managing your own PowerShell code in a powershell_script
resource:
windows_firewall_profile 'Public' do
default_inbound_action 'Block'
default_outbound_action 'Allow'
allow_inbound_rules false
display_notification false
action :enable
end
For a complete guide to all properties and additional examples, see the windows_firewall_profile documentation.
Resource Updates
build_essential
Log output has been improved in the build_essential
resource when running on macOS systems.
chef_client_scheduled_task
The chef_client_scheduled_task
resource no longer sets up the schedule task with invalid double quoting around the specified command. Thanks for reporting this issue @tiobagio.
execute
The user
property in the execute
resource can now accept user IDs as Integers.
git
The git
resource will no longer fail if syncing a branch that already exists locally. Thanks for fixing this @lotooo.
macos_user_defaults
The macos_user_defaults
has received a ground-up refactoring with new actions, additional properties, and better overall reliability:
- Improved idempotency by properly loading the current state of domains.
- Improved how we set
dict
andarray
type data. - Improved logging to show the existing key/value pair that is changed, and improved the property state data that the resource sends to handlers and/or Chef Automate.
- Fixed a failure when setting keys or values that included a space.
- Replaced the existing non-functional
global
property with a new default for thedomain
property. To set a key/value pair on theNSGlobalDomain
domain, you can either set that value explicitly or just skip thedomain
property entirely and Chef Infra Client will default toNSGlobalDomain
. The existing property has been marked as deprecated and we will ship a Cookstyle rule to detect cookbooks using this property in the future. - Fixed the
type
property to only accept valid inputs. Previously typos or otherwise incorrect values would just be ignored resulting in unexpected behavior. This may cause failures in your codebase if you previously used incorrect values. We will be shipping a Cookstyle rule to detect and correct these values in the future. - Added a new
delete
action to allow users to remove a key from a domain. - Added a new
host
property that lets you set per-host values. If you set this to:current
it sets the -currentHost flag.
windows_dns_record
The windows_dns_record
resource includes a new optional property, dns_server
, allowing you to make changes against remote servers. Thanks for this addition @jeremyciak.
windows_package
A Chef Infra Client 16 regression within windows_package
that prevented specifying path
in the remote_file_attributes
property has been resolved. Thanks for reporting this issue @asvinours.
windows_security_policy
The windows_security_policy
resource has been refactored to improve idempotency and improve log output when changes are made. You’ll now see more complete change information in logs and any handler consuming this data will also receive more detailed change information.
Knife Improvements
- Ctrl-C can now be used to exit knife even when being prompted for input.
knife bootstrap
will now properly error if attempting to bootstrap an AIX system using an account with an expired password.knife profile
commands will no longer error if an invalid profile was previously set.- The
-o
flag forknife cookbook upload
can now be used on Windows systems. knife ssh
now once again accepts legacy DSS host keys although we highly recommend upgrading to a more secure key algorithm if possible.- Several changes were made to knife to that may prevent intermittent failures running cookbook commands
Habitat Package Improvements
Habitat packages for Windows, Linux and Linux2 are now built and tested against each pull request to Chef Infra Client. Additionally we’ve improved how these packages are built to reduce the size of the package, which reduces network utilization when using the Effortless deployment pattern.
Chef Infra Client 16.2.73
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.2.73.md- Habitat packages for Chef Infra Client 16 are now published with full support for the
powershell_exec
helper now added. - Added a new
clear
action to thewindows_user_privilege
resource. - Resolved a regression in Chef Infra Client 16.1 and later that caused failures running on FIPS enabled systems.
- Resolved failures in the
archive_file
resource when running on Windows hosts. - Resolved a failure when running
chef-apply
with the-j
option. Thanks @komazarari. - Chef Infra Client running within GitHub Actions is now properly identified as running in a Docker container. Thanks @jaymzh.
- SSH connections are now reused, improving the speed of knife bootstrap and remote resources on slow network links. Thanks @tecracer-theinen.
node['network']['interfaces']
data now correctly identifies IPv6 next hops for IPv4 routes. Thanks @cooperlees.- Updated InSpec from 4.20.10 to 4.21.1.
Chef Infra Client 16.2.50
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.2.50.md- Correctly identify the new macOS Big Sur (11.0) beta as platform “mac_os_x”.
- Fix
knife config use-profile
to fail if an invalid profile is provided. - Fix failures running the
windows_security_policy
resource. - Update InSpec from 4.20.6 to 4.20.10.
Chef Infra Client 16.2.44
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.2.44.mdBreaking Change in Resources
In Chef Infra Client 16.0, we changed the way that custom resource names are applied in order to resolve some longstanding edge-cases. This change had several unintended side effects, so we’re further changing how custom names are set in this release of Chef Infra Client.
Previously you could set a custom name for a resource via resource_name
and under the hood this would also magically set the provides
for the resource. Magic is great when it works, but is confusing when it doesn’t. We’ve decided to remove some of this magic and instead rely on more explicit provides
statements in resources. For cookbooks that support just Chef Infra Client 16 and later, you should change any resource_name
calls to provides
instead. If you need to support older releases of Chef Infra Client as well as 16+, you’ll want to include both resource_name
and provides
for full compatibility.
Pre-16 code:
resource_name :foo
Chef Infra Client 16+ code
provides :foo
Chef Infra Client < 16 backwards compatible code
resource_name :foo
provides :foo
We’ve introduced several Cookstyle rules to detect both custom resources and legacy HWRPs that need to be updated for this change:
ChefDeprecations/ResourceUsesOnlyResourceName: detects resources that only set resource_name and automatically adds a provides call as well.
ChefDeprecations/HWRPWithoutProvides: detects legacy HWRPs that don’t include the necessary provides and resource_name calls for Chef Infra Client 16.
Chef InSpec 4.20.6
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.18.114 to 4.2.0.6. This new release includes the following improvements:
- Develop your own Chef InSpec Reporter plugins to control how Chef InSpec will report result data.
- The
inspec archive
command packs your profile into atar.gz
file that includes the profile in JSON form as the inspec.json file. - Certain substrings within a
.toml
file no longer cause unexpected crashes. - Accurate InSpec CLI input parsing for numeric values and structured data, which were previously treated as strings. Numeric values are cast to an
integer
orfloat
andYAML
orJSON
structures are converted to a hash or an array. - Suppress deprecation warnings on inspec exec with the
--silence-deprecations
option.
New Resources
windows_audit_policy
The windows_audit_policy
resource is used to configure system-level and per-user Windows advanced audit policy settings. See the windows_audit_policy Documentation for complete usage information.
For example, you can enable auditing of successful credential validation:
windows_audit_policy "Set Audit Policy for 'Credential Validation' actions to 'Success'" do
subcategory 'Credential Validation'
success true
failure false
action :set
end
homebrew_update
The homebrew_update
resource is used to update the available package cache for the Homebrew package system similar to the behavior of the apt_update
resource. See the homebrew_update Documentation for complete usage information. Thanks for adding this new resource, @damacus.
Resource Updates
All resources now include umask property
All resources, including custom resources, now have a umask
property which allows you to specify a umask for file creation. If not specified the system default will continue to be used.
archive_file
The archive_file
resource has been updated with two important fixes. The resource will no longer fail with uninitialized constant errors under some scenarios. Additionally, the behavior of the mode
property has been improved to prevent incorrect file modes from being applied to the decompressed files. Due to how file modes and Integer values are processed in Ruby, this resource will now produce a deprecation warning if integer values are passed. Using string values lets us accurately pass values such as ‘644’ or ‘0644’ without ambiguity as to the user’s intent. Thanks for reporting these issues @sfiggins and @hammerhead.
chef_client_scheduled_task
The chef_client_scheduled_task
resource has been updated to default the frequency_modifier
property to 30
if the frequency
property is set to minutes
, otherwise it still defaults to 1
. This provides a more predictable schedule behavior for users.
cron / cron_d
The cron
and cron_d
resources have been updated using the new Custom Resource Partials functionality introduced in Chef Infra Client 16. This has allowed us to standardize the properties used to declare cron job timing between the two resources. The timing properties in both resources all accept the same types and ranges, and include the same validation, which makes moving from cron
to cron_d
seamless.
cron_access
The cron_access
resource has been updated to support Solaris and AIX systems. Thanks @aklyachkin.
execute
The execute
resource has a new input
property which allows you to pass stdin
input to the command being executed.
powershell_package
The powershell_package
resource has been updated to use TLS 1.2 when communicating with the PowerShell Gallery on Windows Server 2012-2016. Previously this resource used the system default cipher suite which did not include TLS 1.2. The PowerShell Gallery now requires TLS 1.2 for all communication, which caused failures on Windows Server 2012-2016. Thanks for reporting this issue @Xorima.
remote_file
The remote_file
resource has a new property ssl_verify_mode
which allows you to control SSL validation at the property level. This can be used to verify certificates (Chef Infra Client’s defaults) with :verify_peer
or to skip verification in the case of a self-signed certificate with :verify_none
. Thanks @jaymzh.
script
The various script
resources such as bash
or ruby
now pass the provided script content to the interpreter using system pipes instead of writing to a temporary file and executing it. Executing script content using pipes is faster, more secure as potentially sensitive scripts aren’t written to disk, and bypasses issues around user privileges.
snap_package
Multiple issues with the snap_package
resource have been resolved, including an infinite wait that occurred, and issues with specifying the package version or channel. Thanks @jaymzh.
zypper_repository
The zypper_repository
resource has been updated to work with the newer release of GPG in openSUSE 15 and SLES 15. This prevents failures when importing GPG keys in the resource.
Knife bootstrap updates
- Knife bootstrap will now warn when bootstrapping a system using a validation key. Users should instead use
validatorless bootstrapping
withknife bootstrap
which generates node and client keys using the client key of the user bootstrapping the node. This method is far more secure as an org-wide validation key does not not need to be distributed or rotated. Users can switch tovalidatorless bootstrapping
by removing anyvalidation_key
entries in theirconfig.rb (knife.rb)
file. - Resolved an error bootstrapping Linux nodes from Windows hosts
- Improved information messages during the bootstrap process
Platform Packages
- Debian 8 packages are no longer being produced as Debian 8 is now end-of-life.
- We now produce Windows 8 packages
Chef Infra Client 16.1.16
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.1.16.mdThis release resolves high-priority bugs in the 16.1 release of Chef Infra Client:
- Resolved a critical performance regression in the Rubygems release within Ruby 2.7, which was discovered by a Chef engineer.
- Resolved several Ruby 2.7 deprecation warnings.
- Added
armv6l
andarmv7l
architectures to thearm?
andarmhf?
helpers - Resolved failures in the Windows bootstrap script
- Resolved incorrect paths when bootstrapping Windows nodes
Security Updates
openSSL
openSSL has been updated from 1.0.2u to 1.0.2v which does not address any particular CVEs, but includes multiple security hardening updates.
Chef Infra Client 16.1.0
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.1.0.mdOhai 16.1
Ohai 16.1 includes a new Selinux
plugin which exposes node['selinux']['status']
, node['selinux']['policy_booleans']
, node['selinux']['process_contexts']
, and node['selinux']['file_contexts']
. Thanks @davide125 for this contribution. This new plugin is an optional plugin which is disabled by default. It can be enabled within your client.rb
:
ohai.optional_plugins = [ :Selinux ]
Chef InSpec 4.18.114
InSpec has been updated from 4.18.111 to 4.18.114. This update adds new --reporter_message_truncation
and --reporter_backtrace_inclusion
reporter options to truncate messages and suppress backtraces.
Debian 10 aarch64
Chef Infra Client packages are now produced for Debian 10 on the aarch64 architecture. These packages are available at Chef Downloads.
Bug Fixes
- Resolved a regression in the
launchd
resource that prevented it from converging. - The
:disable
action in thelaunchd
resource no longer fails if the plist was not found. - Several Ruby 2.7 deprecation warnings have been resolved.
Chef Infra Client 16.0.287
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.0.287.mdThe Chef Infra Client 16.0.287 release includes important bug fixes for the Chef Infra Client 16 release:
- Fixes the failure to install Windows packages on the 2nd convergence of the Chef Infra Client.
- Resolves several failures in the
launchd
resource. - Removes an extra
.java
file on Windows installations that would cause a failure in the IIS 8.5 Server Security Technical Implementation Guide audit. - Updates the
windows_printer
resource so that the driver property will only be required when using the:create
action. - Fixes the incorrectly spelled
knife user invite recind
command to beknife user invite rescind
. - Update Chef InSpec to 4.8.111 with several minor improvements.
Chef Infra Client 16.0.275
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.0.275.mdThe Chef Infra Client 16.0.275 release includes important regression fixes for the Chef Infra Client 16 release:
- Resolved failures when using the
windows_package
resource. Thanks for reporting this issue @cookiecurse. - Resolved log warnings when running
execute
resources. - The appropriate
cron
orcron_d
resource call is now called when using the:delete
action in chef_client_cron. Thanks for reporting this issue jimwise. - The
chef_client_cron
resource now creates the log directory with750
permissions not640
. Thanks for this fix DhaneshRaghavan. - The
knife yaml convert
command now correctly converts symbol values. - The
sysctl
,apt_preference
, andcron_d
remove actions no longer fail with missing property warnings.
Chef Infra Client 16.0.257
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/16.0.257.mdBreaking Changes
Log Resource Notification Behavior
The log
resource in a recipe or resource will no longer trigger notifications by default. This allows authors to more liberally use log
resources without impacting the updated resources count or impacting reporting to Chef Automate. This change will impact users that used the log
resource to aggregate notifications from other resources, so they could limit the number of times a notification would fire. If you used the log
resource to aggregate multiple notifications, you should convert to using the notify group
resource, which was introduced in Chef Infra Client 15.8.
Example of notification aggregation with log
resource:
template '/etc/foo' do
source 'foo.erb'
notifies :write, 'log[Aggregate notifications using a single log resource]', :immediately
end
template '/etc/bar' do
source 'bar.erb'
notifies :write, 'log[Aggregate notifications using a single log resource]', :immediately
end
log 'Aggregate notifications using a single log resource' do
notifies :restart, 'service[foo]', :delayed
end
Example of notification aggregation with notify_group
resource:
template '/etc/foo' do
source 'foo.erb'
notifies :run, 'notify_group[Aggregate notifications using a single notify_group resource]', :immediately
end
template '/etc/bar' do
source 'bar.erb'
notifies :run, 'notify_group[Aggregate notifications using a single notify_group resource]', :immediately
end
notify_group 'Aggregate notifications using a single notify_group resource' do
notifies :restart, 'service[foo]', :delayed
end
The ChefDeprecations/LogResourceNotifications
cop in Cookstyle 6.0 and later detects using the log
resource for notifications in cookbooks.
To restore the previous behavior, set count_log_resource_updates true
in your client.rb
.
HWRP Style Resources Now Require resource_name / provides
Legacy HWRP-style resources, written as Ruby classes in the libraries directory of a cookbook, will now require either the use of resource_name
or provides
methods to define the resource names. Previously, Chef Infra Client would infer the desired resource name from the class, but this magic was problematic and has been removed.
The ChefDeprecations/ResourceWithoutNameOrProvides
cop in Cookstyle 6.0 and later detects this deprecation.
build_essential GCC Updated on Solaris
On Solaris systems, we no longer constrain the version of GCC to 4.8.2 in the build_essential
resource to allow for GCC 5 installations.
git Resource Branch Checkout Changes
The git
resource no longer checks out to a new branch named deploy
by default. Many users found this branching behavior confusing and unexpected so we’ve decided to implement a more predictable default. The resource will now default to either checking out the branch specified with the checkout_branch
property or a detached HEAD state. If you’d like to revert to the previous behavior you can set the checkout_branch
to deploy
.
s390x Packaging
As outlined in our blog post at https://blog.chef.io/chef-infra-end-of-life-announcement-for-linux-client-on-ibm-s390x-architecture/, we will no longer be producing s390x platform packages for Chef Infra Client.
filesystem2 Node Data Replaces filesystem on FreeBSD / AIX / Solaris
In Chef Infra Client 14 we introduced a modernized filesystem layout of Ohai data on FreeBSD, AIX, and Solaris at node['fileystem2']
. With the release of 16.0, we are now replacing the existing data at node['filesystem']
with this updated filesystem data. This data has a standardized format that matches Linux and macOS data to make it easier to write cross-platform cookbooks. In a future release of Chef Infra Client we’ll remove the node['filesystem2']
as we complete this migration.
required: true on Properties Now Behaves As Expected
The behavior of required: true
has been changed to better align with the expected behavior. Previously, if you set a property required: true
on a custom resource property and did not explicitly reference the property in an action, then Chef Infra Client would not raise an exception. This meant many users would add their own validation to raise for resources they wanted to ensure they were always set. required: true
will now properly raise if a property has not been set.
We have also expanded the required
field for added flexibility in defining exactly which actions a property is required for. See Improved property require behavior below for more details.
Removal of Legacy metadata.rb depends Version Constraints
Support for the <<
and >>
version constraints in metadata.rb has been removed. This was an undocumented feature from the Chef 0.10 era, which is not used in any cookbooks on the Supermarket. We are mentioning it since it is technically a breaking change, but it unlikely that this change will be impacting.
Examples:
depends 'windows', '<< 1.0'
depends 'windows', '>> 1.0'
Logging Improvements May Cause Behavior Changes
We’ve made low-level changes to how logging behaves in Chef Infra Client that resolves many complaints we’ve heard over the years. With these change you’ll now see the same logging output when you run chef-client
on the command line as you will in logs from a daemonized client run. This also corrects often confusing behavior where running chef-client
on the command line would log to the console, but not to the log file location defined your client.rb
. In that scenario you’ll now see logs in your console and in your log file. We believe this is the expected behavior and will mean that your on-disk log files can always be the source of truth for changes that were made by Chef Infra Client. This may cause unexpected behavior changes for users that relied on using the command line flags to override the client.rb
log location - in this case logging will be sent to both the location in the client.rb
and on the command line. If you have daemons running that log using the command line options you want to make sure that client.rb
log location either matches or isn’t defined.
Red Hat / CentOS 6 Systems Require C11 GCC for Some Gem Installations
The included release of Ruby in Chef Infra Client 16 now requires a C99 compliant compiler when using the chef_gem
resource with gems that require compilation. Some systems, such as RHEL 6, do not ship with a C99 compiler and will fail if the gems they’re attempting to install require compilation. If it is necessary to install compiled gems into the Chef Infra Client installation on one of these systems you can upgrade to a modern GCC release.
CentOS:
yum install centos-release-scl
yum install devtoolset-7
scl enable devtoolset-7 bash
Red Hat:
yum-config-manager --enable rhel-server-rhscl-7-rpms
yum install devtoolset-7
scl enable devtoolset-7 bash
Changes to Improve Gem Source behavior
We’ve improved the behavior for those that use custom rubygem sources, particularly those operating in air-gapped installations. These improvements involved changes to many of the default client.rb
values and gem_package
/chef_gem
properties that require updating your usage of chef_gem
and gem_package
resources
The default value of the clear_sources
property of gem_package
and chef_gem
resources has been changed to nil
. The possible behaviors for clear_sources are now:
true
: Always clear sources.false
: Never clear sources.nil
: Clear sources ifsource
property is set, but don’t clear sources otherwise.
The default value of the include_default_source
property of gem_package
and chef_gem
resources has been changed to nil
. The possible behaviors for include_default_source are now:
true
: Always include the default source.false
: Never include the default source.nil
: Include the default source ifrubygems_url
client.rb
value is set or ifsource
andclear_sources
are not set on the resource.
The default values of the rubygems_url
client.rb
config option has been changed to nil
. Setting to nil previously had similar behavior to setting clear_sources
to true, but with some differences. The new behavior is to always use https://rubygems.org
as the default rubygems repo unless explicitly changed, and whether to use this value is determined by clear_sources
and include_default_source
.
Behavior Changes in Knife
knife status –long uses cloud attribute
The knife status --long
resource now uses Ohai’s cloud data instead of ec2 specific data. This improves, but changes, the data output for users on non-AWS clouds.
knife download role/environment format update
The knife download role
and knife download environment
commands now include all possible data fields including those without any data set. This new output behavior matches the behavior of other commands such as knife role show
or knife environment show
Deprecated knife cookbook site command removed
The previously deprecated knife cookbook site
commands have been removed. Use the knife supermarket
commands instead.
Deprecated knife data bag create -s short option removed
The deprecated knife data bag create -s
option that was not properly honored has been removed. Use the --secret
option instead to set a data bag secret file during data bag creation.
sites-cookbooks directory no longer in cookbook_path
The legacy sites-cookbooks
directory is no longer added to the default cookbook_path
value. With this change, any users with a legacy sites-cookbooks
directory will need to use the -O
flag to override the cookbook directory when running commands such as knife cookbook upload
.
If you have a repository that contains a site-cookbooks
directory, we highly recommend using Policyfiles or Berkshelf to properly resolve these external cookbook dependencies without the need to copy them locally. Alternatively, you can move the contents of this folder into your main cookbook directory and they will continue to be seen by knife commands.
New Resources
alternatives
Use the alternatives
resource to manage symbolic links to specify default command versions on Linux hosts. See the alternatives documentation for full usage information. Thanks @vkhatri for the original cookbook alternatives resource.
chef_client resources
We’ve added new resources to Chef Infra Client for setting the client to run on an interval using native system schedulers. We believe that these native schedulers provide a more flexible and reliable method for running the client than the traditional method of running as a full service. Using the native schedulers reduces hung clients and eases upgrades. This is the first of many steps towards removing the need for the chef-client
cookbook and allowing Chef Infra Client to configure itself out of the box.
chef_client_cron
Use the chef_client_cron
resource to setup the Chef Infra Client to run on a schedule using cron on Linux, Solaris, and AIX systems. See the chef_client_cron documentation for full usage information.
chef_client_systemd_timer
Use the chef_client_systemd_timer
resource to setup the Chef Infra Client to run on a schedule using a systemd timer on systemd based Linux systems (RHEL 7+, Debian 8+, Ubuntu 16.04+ SLES 12+). See the chef_client_systemd_timer documentation for full usage information.
chef_client_scheduled_task
Use the chef_client_scheduled_task
resource to setup the Chef Infra Client to run on a schedule using Windows Scheduled Tasks. See the chef_client_scheduled_task documentation for full usage information.
plist
Use the plist
resource to generate plist files on macOS hosts. See the plist documentation for full usage information. Thanks Microsoft and @americanhanko for the original work on this resource in the macos cookbook.
user_ulimit
Use the user_ulimit
resource to set per user ulimit values on Linux systems. See the user_ulimit documentation for full usage information. Thanks @bmhatfield for the original work on this resource in the ulimit cookbook.
windows_security_policy
Use the windows_security_policy
resource to modify location security policies on Windows hosts. See the windows_security_policy documentation for full usage information.
windows_user_privilege
Use the windows_user_privilege
resource to add users and groups to the specified privileges on Windows hosts. See the windows_user_privilege documentation for full usage information.
Improved Resources
compile_time on all resources
The compile_time
property is now available for all resources so that they can be set to run at compile time without the need to force the action.
Set the compile_time
property instead of forcing the resource to run at compile time:
my_resource "foo" do
action :nothing
end.run_action(:run)
With the simpler compile_time
property:
my_resource "foo" do
compile_time true
end
build_essential
The build_essential
resource includes a new :upgrade
action for macOS systems that allows you to install updates to the Xcode Command Line Tools available via Software Update.
cron
The cron
resource has been updated to use the same property validation for cron times that the cron_d
resource uses. This improves failure messages when invalid inputs are set and also allows for jan
-dec
values to be used in the month
property.
dnf_package
The dnf_package
resource, which provides package
under the hood on any system shipping with DNF, has been greatly refactored to resolve multiple issues. The version behavior and overall resource capabilities now match that of the yum_package
resource.
- The
:lock
action now works on RHEL 8. - Fixes to prevent attempting to install the same package during each Chef Infra Client run.
- Resolved several idempotency issues.
- Resolved an issue where installing a package with
options '--enablerepo=foo'
would fail.
git
The git
resource now fully supports why-run mode and no longer checks out the deploy
branch by default as mentioned in the breaking changes section.
locale
The locale
resource now supports setting the system locale on Windows hosts.
msu_package resource improvements
The msu_package
resource has been improved to work better with Microsoft’s cumulative update packages. Newer releases of these cumulative update packages will not correctly install over the previous versions. We also extended the default timeout for installing MSU packages to 60 minutes. Thanks for reporting the timeout issue, @danielfloyd.
package
The package
resource on macOS and Arch Linux systems now supports passing multiple packages into a single package resource via an array. This allows you to collapse multiple resources into a single resource for simpler cookbook authoring, which is significantly faster as it requires fewer calls to the packaging systems. Thanks for the Arch Linux support, @ingobecker!
Using multiple resources to install a package:
package 'git'
package 'curl'
package 'packer'
or
%w(git curl packer).each do |pkg|
package pkg
end
can now be simplified to:
package %w(git curl packer)
service
The service
resource has been updated to support newer releases of update-rc.d
so that it properly disables sys-v init services on Debian Linux distributions. Thanks @robuye!
windows_firewall_rule
The windows_firewall_rule
resource has been greatly improved thanks to work by @pschaumburg and @tecracer-theinen.
- New
icmp_type
property, which allows setting the ICMP type when setting up ICMP protocol rules. - New
displayname
property, which allows defining the display name of the firewall rule. - New
group
property, which allows you to specify that only matching firewall rules of the indicated group association are copied. - The
description
property will now update if changed. - Fixed setting rules with multiple profiles.
windows_package
The windows_package
resource now considers 3010
to be a valid exit code by default. The 3010
exit code means that a package has been successfully installed, but requires a reboot.
knife-acl is now built-in
The knife-acl
gem is now part of Chef Infra Client. This gives you the ability to manage Chef organizations and ACLs directly.
YAML Recipes
We added support for writing recipes in YAML to provide a low-code syntax for simple use cases. To write recipes in YAML, Chef resources and any user-defined parameters can be added as elements in a resources
hash, such as the example below:
---
resources:
- type: "package"
name: "httpd"
- type: "template"
name: "/var/www/html/index.html"
source: "index.html.erb"
- type: "service"
name: "httpd"
action:
- enable
- start
This implementation is restrictive and does not support arbitrary Ruby code, helper functions, or attributes. However, if the need for additional customization arises, YAML recipes can be automatically converted into the DSL via the knife yaml convert
command.
Custom Resource Improvements
Improved property require behavior
As noted in the breaking changes above, we improved how the required value is set on custom resource properties, in order to give a more predictable behavior. This new behavior now allows you to specify actions where individual properties are required. This is especially useful when :create
actions require certain properties that may not be required for a :remove
type property.
Example required field defining specific actions:
property :password, String, required: [:create]
action :create do
# code to create something
end
action :remove do
# code to remove it that doesn't need a password
end
Resource Partials
Resource partials allow you to define reusable portions of code that can be included in multiple custom resources. This feature is particularly useful when there are common properties, such as authentication properties, that you want to define in a single location, but use for multiple resources. Internally in the Chef Infra Client codebase, we have already used this feature to remove duplicate properties from our subversion
and git
resources and make them easier to maintain.
Resource partials are stored in a cookbook’s /resources
directory just like existing custom resources, but they start with the _
prefix. They’re then called using a new use
helper within the resource where they’re needed:
resources/_api_auth_properties.rb:
property :api_endpoint, String
property :api_key, String
property :api_retries, Integer
resources/mything.rb
:
property :another_property, String
property :yet_another_property, String
use 'api_auth_properties'
action :create do
# some create logic
end
The example above shows a resource partial that contains properties for use in multiple resources. You can also use resource partials to define helper methods that you want to use in your actions instead of defining the same helper methods in each action_class.
resources/_api_auth_helpers.rb:
def make_api_call(endpoint, value)
# API call code here
end
resources/mything.rb
:
property :another_property, String
property :yet_another_property, String
action :create do
# some create logic
end
action_class do
use 'api_auth_helpers'
end
after_resource
A new after_resource
state has been added to resources that allows you to better control the resource state information reported to Chef Automate when a resource converges. If your custom resource uses the load_current_value
helper, then this after state is calculated automatically. If you don’t utilize the load_current_value
helper and would like fine grained control over the state information sent to Chef Automate, you can use a new load_after_resource
helper to load the state of each property for reporting.
identity Improvements
A resource’s name property is now set to be the identity property by default and to have desired_state: false
set by default. This eliminates the need to set identity: true, desired_state: false
on these properties and better exposes identity data to handler and reporting.
compile_time property
The compile_time
property is now defined for all custom resources, so there is no need to add your own compile-time logic to your resource.
Other Improvements
Up to 33% smaller on disk
We optimized the files that ship with Chef Infra Client and eliminated many unnecessary files from the installation, reducing the on-disk size of Chef Infra Client by up to 33%.
Windows Performance Improvements
We’ve optimized the Chef Infra Client for modern Windows releases and improved the performance on these systems.
Simpler Version Comparisons with node[‘platform_version’]
The node['platform_version']
attribute returned from Ohai can now be intelligently compared as a version instead of as a String or Integer. Previously, to compare the platform_version, many users would first convert the version String to a Float with node['platform_version']
. This introduced problems on many platforms, such as macOS, where macOS 10.9 would appear to be a greater version number than 10.15. You can now directly compare the version without converting it first.
Greater than or equal comparison:
node['platform_version'] >= '10.15'
Comparison using Ruby’s pessimistic operator:
node['platform_version'] =~ '~> 10.15'
New helpers for recipes and resources
Several helpers introduced in Chef Infra Client 15.5 are now available for use in any resource or recipe. These helpers include:
sanitized_path
sanitize_path
is a cross-platform method that returns the system’s path along with the Chef Infra Client Ruby bin dir / gem bin dir and common system paths such as /sbin
and /usr/local/bin
.
which(foo)
The which
helper searches the system’s path and returns the first occurrence of a binary, similar to the which
command on *nix systems. It also allows you to pass an extra_path
value for additional directories to search.
which('systemctl')
which('my_app', extra_path: '/opt/my_app/bin')
eager_load_libraries metadata.rb setting
By default, Chef Infra Client eagerly loads all ruby files in each cookbook’s libraries directory at runtime. A new metadata.rb option eager_load_libraries
has been introduced and allows you to control if and when a cookbook library is loaded. Depending on the construction of your libraries, this new option may greatly improve the runtime performance of your cookbook. With eager loading disabled, you may manually load libraries included in your cookbook using Ruby’s standard require
method. Metadata.rb configuration options:
eager_load_libraries false # disable eager loading all libraries
eager_load_libraries 'helper_library.rb' # eager load just the file helper_library.rb
eager_load_libraries %w(helper_library_1.rb helper_library_2.rb) # eager load both helper_library_1.rb and helper_library_2.rb files
Note: Unless you are experiencing performance issues in your libraries, we advise against changing the loading behavior.
always_dump_stacktrace client.rb option
A new always_dump_stacktrace
client.rb configuration option and command line option allows you to have any Ruby stacktraces from Chef Infra Client logged directly to the log file. This may help troubleshooting when used in conjunction with centralized logging systems such as Splunk. To enable this new option, run chef-client --always-dump-stacktrace
or add the following to your client.rb
:
always_dump_stacktrace true
Chef Vault Functionality Out of the Box
Chef Infra Client now ships with built-in Chef Vault functionality, so there’s no need to depend on the chef-vault
cookbook or gem. Chef Vault helpers chef_vault_item
, chef_vault
, and chef_vault_item_for_environment
are included, as well as the chef_vault_secret
resource. Additionally, the Chef Vault knife commands are also available out of the box. We do not recommend new users adopt the Chef Vault workflow due to limitations with autoscaling new systems, so these resources should only be consumed by existing Chef Vault users.
Ruby 2.7
Chef Infra Client’s ruby installation has been updated to from Ruby 2.6 to Ruby 2.7, which includes many features available for use in resources and libraries.
See https://medium.com/rubyinside/whats-new-in-ruby-2-7-79c98b265502 for details on many of the new features.
Ohai 16 Improvements
Ohai has been improved to gather additional system configuration information for use when authoring recipes and resources.
filesystem2 Node Data available on Windows
In previous Chef Infra Clients we’ve introduced a modernized filesystem layout of Ohai data for many platforms. In Chef Infra Client 16.0, Windows now has this layout available in node['filesystem2']
. In Chef Infra Client 17, it will replace node['filesystem']
to match all other platforms.
Extended Azure Metadata
The Azure
Ohai plugin now gathers the latest version of the metadata provided by the Azure metadata endpoint. This greatly expands the information available on Azure instances. See Ohai PR 1427 for an example of the new data gathered.
New Ohai Plugins
New IPC
and Interupts
plugins have been added to Ohai. The IPC plugin exposes SysV IPC shmem information and interupts plugin exposes data from /proc/interrupts
and /proc/irq
. Thanks @jsvana and @davide125 for these new plugins.
Note: Both IPC
and Interupts
plugins are optional plugins, which are disabled by default. They can be enabled via your client.rb
:
ohai.optional_plugins = [
:IPC,
:Interupts
]
Improved Linux Network Plugin Data
The Linux Network plugin has been improved to gather additional information from the ethtool
utility. This includes the number of queues (ethtool -l
), the coalesce parameters (ethtool -c
), and information about the NIC driver (ethtool -i
). Thanks @matt-c-clark for these improvements.
Windows DMI plugin
Windows systems now include a new DMI
plugin which presents data in a similar format to the DMI
plugin on *nix systems. This makes it easier to detect system information like manufacturer, serial number, or asset tag number in a cross-platform way.
New Platforms
Over the last quarter, we worked to greatly expand the platforms that we support with the addition of Chef Infra Client packages for Ubuntu 20.04 amd64, Amazon Linux 2 x86_64/aarch64, and Debian 10 amd64. With the release of Chef Infra Client 16, we expanded our platform support again with the following new platforms:
- RHEL 8 aarch64
- Ubuntu 20.04 aarch64
- SLES 16 aarch64
Newly Introduced Deprecations
Several legacy Windows helpers have been deprecated as they will always return true when running on Chef Infra Client’s currently supported platforms. The helpers previously detected systems prior to Windows 2012 and systems running Windows Nano, which has been discontinued by Microsoft. These helpers were never documented externally so their usage is most likely minimal. A new Cookstyle rule has been introduced to detect the usage of older_than_win_2012_or_8?
: ChefDeprecations/DeprecatedWindowsVersionCheck.
- Chef::Platform.supports_msi?
- Chef::Platform.older_than_win_2012_or_8?
- Chef::Platform.supports_powershell_execution_bypass?
- Chef::Platform.windows_nano_server?
Chef Infra Client 15.17.4
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.17.4.mdChef InSpec 4.32
Updated Chef InSpec from 4.29.3 to 4.32.
New Features
- Commands can now be set to timeout using the command resource or the
--command-timeout
option in the CLI. Commands timeout by default after one hour. - Added the
--docker-url
CLI option, which can be used to specify the URI to connect to the Docker Engine. - Added support for targeting Linux and Windows containers running on Docker for Windows.
- Added ability to pass inputs to InSpec shell using input file and cli. For more information, see How can I set Inputs? in the InSpec documentation.
Bug Fixes
- Hash inputs will now be loaded consistently and accessed as strings or symbols. (#5446)
Security
Ruby
We updated Ruby from 2.6.6 to 2.6.7 to resolve a large number of bugs as well as the following CVEs:
Chef Infra Client 15.16.7
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.16.7.mdBug Fixes
- Resolved failures in producing and promoting Habitat builds of Chef Infra Client.
Chef Infra Client 15.16.4
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.16.4.mdBug Fixes
- Minor internal build fixes.
Chef Infra Client 15.16.2
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.16.2.mdFixes and Improvements
- Improved license acceptance failure messaging if incorrect values are provided.
- License acceptance values are no longer case sensitive.
- Resolved several failures that could occur in the
windows_certificate
resource. - Improved handling of WinRM connections when bootstrapping Windows nodes.
- Switched docker containers back to EL6 packages to prevent failures running the containers with Kitchen Dokken to test RHEL 6 systems.
- Fixed non-0 exit codes in the Yum and DNF helper scripts which caused errors in system logs.
- Fixed package failures in FreeBSD due to changes in
pkgng
exit codes. - Added support for
client.d
configuration files inchef-shell
.
Chef InSpec
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.24.8 to 4.29.3.
New Features
- The JSON metadata pass-through configuration has been moved from the Automate reporter to the JSON Reporter.
- Added the option to filter out empty profiles from reports.
- Exposed the
conf_path
,content
, andparams
properties to theauditd_conf
resource. - You can now directly refer to settings in the
nginx_conf
resource using theits
syntax. Thanks @rgeissert! - Plugin settings can now be set programmatically. Thanks @tecracer-theinen!
- OpenSSH Client on Windows can now be tested with the
ssh_config
andsshd_config
resources. Thanks @rgeissert!
Bug Fixes
- The
--reporter-message-truncation
option now also truncates thecode_desc
field, preventing failures when sending large reports to Automate. - Fixed
skip_control
to work on deeply nested profiles. - The
ssh_config
andsshd_config
resources now correctly use the first value when a setting is repeated. - Fixed the
crontab
resource when passing a username to AIX. - Stopped a backtrace from occurring when using
cmp
to comparenil
with a non-existing file. - The
apt
resource now correctly fetches all package repositories using the-name
flag in an environment where ZSH is the user’s default shell. - The
--controls
option ininspec exec
now correctly filters the controls by name. - Updates how InSpec profiles are created with GCP or AWS providers so they use
inputs
instead ofattributes
. inspec exec
will now fetch profiles via Git regardless of the name of the default branches now correctly use the first value when a setting is repeated.- Updated the
oracledb_session
to use more general invocation options. Thanks @pacopal! - Fixed an error with the
http
resource in Chef Infra Client by includingfaraday_middleware
in the gemspec. - Fixed an incompatibility between
parslet
andtoml
in Chef Infra Client. - Improved programmatic plugin configuration.
Security
Upgraded OpenSSL to 1.0.2y, which resolves the following CVEs:
Platform Updates
With the release of macOS 11, we will no longer produce packages for macOS 10.13 systems. See our Platform End-of-Life Policy for details on the platform lifecycle.
Chef Infra Client 15.15.1
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.15.1.mdBug Fixes
- Resolve internal build failures
Chef Infra Client 15.15.0
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.15.0.mdChef InSpec 4.24.8
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.22.22 to 4.24.8 with the following improvements:
- An unset `HOME environment variable will not cause execution failures
- You can use wildcards in
platform-name
andrelease
in InSpec profiles - The support for arrays in the
WMI
resource, so it can return multiple objects - The
package
resource on Windows properly escapes package names - The
grub_conf
resource succeeds even if without amenuentry
in the grub config - Loaded plugins won’t try to re-load themselves
- A new mechanism marks inputs as sensitive: true and replaces their values with
***
. - Use the
--no-diff
CLI option to suppress diff output for textual tests. - Control the order of controls in output, but not execution order, with the
--sort_results_by=none|control|file|random
CLI option. - Disable caching of inputs with a cache_inputs: true setting.
Chef Vault 4.1
We’ve updated the release of chef-vault
bundled with Chef Infra Client to 4.1. Chef Vault 4.1 properly handles escape strings in secrets and greatly improves performance for users with large numbers of secrets. Thanks for the performance work @Annih!
Resource Improvements
cron_d
The cron_d
resource now respects the use of the sensitive
property. Thanks for this fix @axl89!
homebrew_cask
The homebrew_cask
resource has been updated to work with the latest command syntax requirements in the brew
command. Thanks for reporting this issue @bcg62!
locale
The allowed execution time for the locale-gen
command in the locale
resource has been extended to 1800 seconds to make sure the Chef Infra Client run doesn’t fail before the command completes on slower systems. Thanks for reporting this issue @janskarvall!
plist / macosx_service / osx_profile / macos_userdefaults
Parsing of plist files has been improved in the plist
, macosx_service
, osx_profile
, and macos_userdefaults
resources thanks to updates to the plist gem by @reitermarkus and @tboyko.
Security
- The bundled Nokogiri Ruby gem has been updated to 1.11 resolve CVE-2020-26247.
- openSSL has been updated to 1.0.2x to resolve CVE-2020-1971.
Chef Infra Client 15.14.0
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.14.0.mdChef InSpec 4.22.22
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.22.1 to 4.22.22. This new release includes the following improvements:
- Fix mysql_session stdout, stderr and exit_status parameters. Thanks @ramereth!
- Add new windows_firewall and windows_firewall_rule resources. Thanks @tecracer-theinen!
Fixes and Improvements
- The
knife ssh
command no longer hangs when connecting to Windows nodes over SSH. - Resolved several failures that could occur in the included chef-vault gem.
Resource Updates
hostname
The hostname
resource has been updated to improve logging on Windows systems.
windows_feature
The windows_feature
resource has been updated to allow installing features that have been removed if a source location is provided. Thanks for reporting this @stefanwb!
windows_font
The windows_font
resource will no longer fail on newer releases of Windows if a font is already installed. Thanks for reporting this @bmiller08!
Platform Packages
- We are once again building Chef Infra Client packages for RHEL 7 / SLES 12 on the S390x architecture. In addition to these packages, we’ve also added S390x packages for SLES 15.
- We now produce packages for Apple’s upcoming macOS 11 Big Sur release.
Security
OpenSSL
OpenSSL has been updated to 1.0.2w which includes a fix for CVE-2020-1968.
CA Root Certificates
The included cacerts
bundle in Chef Infra Client has been updated to the 7-22-2020 release. This new release removes 4 legacy root certificates and adds 4 additional root certificates.
Chef Infra Client 15.13.8
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.13.8.mdChef InSpec 4.22.1
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.20.6 to 4.22.1. This new release includes the following improvements:
apt-cdrom
repositories are now skipped when parsing out the list of apt repositories- Faulty profiles are now reported instead of causing a crash
- Errors are no longer logged to stdout with the
html2
reporter - macOS Big Sur is now correctly identified as macOS
- macOS/BSD support added to the interface resource along with new
ipv4_address
,ipv4_addresses
,ipv4_addresses_netmask
,ipv4_cidrs
,ipv6_addresses
, andipv6_cidrs
properties
Fixes and Improvements
- Support for legacy DSA host keys has been restored in
knife ssh
andknife bootstrap
commands. - The collision warning error message when a cookbook includes a resource that now ships in Chef Infra Client has been improved to better explain the issue.
- Package sizes have been reduced with fewer installed files on disk.
- The
archive_file
resource now supportspzstd
compressed files.
New Deprecations
Chef Infra Client 16.2 and later require provides
when assigning a name to a custom resource. In order to prepare for Chef Infra Client 16, make sure to include both resource_name
and provides
in resources when specifying a custom name.
Chef Infra Client 15.12.22
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.12.22.mdChef InSpec 4.20.6
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.18.114 to 4.2.0.6. This new release includes the following improvements:
- Develop your own Chef InSpec Reporter plugins to control how Chef InSpec will report result data.
- The
inspec archive
command packs your profile into atar.gz
file that includes the profile in JSON form as the inspec.json file. - Certain substrings within a
.toml
file no longer cause unexpected crashes. - Accurate InSpec CLI input parsing for numeric values and structured data, which were previously treated as strings. Numeric values are cast to an
integer
orfloat
andYAML
orJSON
structures are converted to a hash or an array. - Suppress deprecation warnings on
inspec exec
with the--silence-deprecations
option.
Resource Updates
archive_file
The archive_file
resource has been updated with two important fixes. The resource will no longer fail with uninitialized constant errors under some scenarios. Additionally, the behavior of the mode
property has been improved to prevent incorrect file modes from being applied to the decompressed files. Due to how file modes and Integer values are processed in Ruby, this resource will now produce a deprecation warning if integer values are passed. Using string values lets us accurately pass values such as ‘644’ or ‘0644’ without ambiguity as to the user’s intent. Thanks for reporting these issues @sfiggins and @hammerhead.
cron_access
The cron_access
resource has been updated to support Solaris and AIX systems. Thanks @aklyachkin.
msu_package resource improvements
The msu_package
resource has been improved to work better with Microsoft’s cumulative update packages. Newer releases of these cumulative update packages will not correctly install over the previous versions. We also extended the default timeout for installing MSU packages to 60 minutes. Thanks for reporting the timeout issue @danielfloyd.
powershell_package
The powershell_package
resource has been updated to use TLS 1.2 when communicating with the PowerShell Gallery on Windows Server 2012-2016. Previously, this resource used the system default cipher suite which did not include TLS 1.2. The PowerShell Gallery now requires TLS 1.2 for all communication, which caused failures on Windows Server 2012-2016. Thanks for reporting this issue @Xorima.
snap_package
Multiple issues with the snap_package
resource have been resolved, including an infinite wait that occurred and issues with specifying the package version or channel. Thanks @jaymzh.
zypper_repository
The zypper_repository
resource has been updated to work with the newer release of GPG in openSUSE 15 and SLES 15. This prevents failures when importing GPG keys in the resource.
Knife bootstrap updates
- Knife bootstrap will now warn when bootstrapping a system using a validation key. Users should instead use
validatorless bootstrapping
withknife bootstrap
which generates node and client keys using the client key of the user bootstrapping the node. This method is far more secure as an org-wide validation key does not not need to be distributed or rotated. Users can switch tovalidatorless bootstrapping
by removing anyvalidation_key
entries in theirconfig.rb (knife.rb)
file. - Resolved an error bootstrapping Linux nodes from Windows hosts
- Improved information messages during the bootstrap process
SSH Improvements
The net-ssh
library used by the knife ssh
and knife bootstrap
commands has been updated bringing improvements to SSH connectivity:
- Support for additional key exchange and transport algorithms
- Support algorithm subtraction syntax in the
ssh_config
file - Support empty lines and comments in
known_hosts
file
Initial macOS Big Sur Support
Chef Infra Client now correctly detects macOS Big Sur (11.0) beta as being platform “mac_os_x”. Chef Infra Client 15.12 has not been fully qualified for macOS Big Sur, but we will continue to validate against this release and provide any additional support updates.
Platform Packages
- Debian 8 packages are no longer being produced as Debian 8 is now end-of-life.
- We now produce Windows 8 packages
Chef Infra Client 15.11.8
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.11.8.mdBug Fixes
- Minor internal knife updates for future compatibility.
Chef Infra Client 15.11.3
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.11.3.mdBootstrapping Bugfixes
This release of Chef Infra Client resolves multiple issues when using knife bootstrap
to bootstrap new nodes to a Chef Infra Server:
- Bootstrapping from a Windows host to a Linux host with an ED25519 ssh key no longer fails
- Resolved failures in the Windows bootstrap script
- Incorrect paths when bootstrapping Windows nodes have been resolved
Chef InSpec 4.18.114
Chef InSpec was updated from 4.18.104 to 4.18.114 with the following improvements:
- Added new
--reporter_message_truncation
and--reporter_backtrace_inclusion
reporter options to truncate messages and suppress backtraces. - Fixed a warning when an input is provided
- Inputs and controls can now have the same name
Resource Improvements
windows_firewall
The windows_firewall
resource has been updated to support firewall rules that are associated with more than one profile. Thanks @tecracer-theinen.
chocolatey_package
The chocolatey_package
resource has been updated to properly handle quotes within the options
property. Thanks for reporting this issue @dave-q.
Platform Support
Additional aarch64 Builds
Chef Infra Client is now tested on Debian 10, SLES 15, and Ubuntu 20.04 on the aarch64 architecture with packages available on the Chef Downloads Page.
Security Updates
openSSL
openSSL has been updated from 1.0.2u to 1.0.2v which does not address any particular CVEs, but includes multiple security hardening updates.
Chef Infra Client 15.10.12
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.10.12.mdImprovements
- The
systemd_unit
resource now respects thesensitive
property and will no longer output the contents of the unit file to logs if this is set. - A new
arm?
helper has been added which can be used in recipes and resources to determine if a system is on the ARM architecture.
Bug Fixes
- Resolved a bug that prevented users from bootstrapping nodes using knife when specifying the
--use_sudo_password
. - Resolved a bug that prevented the
--bootstrap-version
flag from being honored when bootstrapping in knife.
Chef InSpec 4.18.104
- Resolved a regression that prevented the
service
resource from working correctly on Windows. Thanks @Axuba - Implemented VMware and Hyper-V detection on Linux systems
- Implemented VMware, Hyper-V, Virtualbox, KVM and Xen detection on Windows systems
- Added helpers
virtual_system?
andphysical_system?
. Thanks @tecracer-theinen
Ohai 15.9
- Improve the resiliency of the
Shard
plugin whendmidecode
cannot be found on a system. Thanks @jaymzh - Fixed detection of Openstack guests via DMI data. Thanks @ramereth
Platform Support
Amazon Linux 2
Chef Infra Client is now tested on Amazon Linux 2 running on x86_64 and aarch64 with packages available on the Chef Downloads Page.
Chef Infra Client 15.9.17
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.9.17.mdChef InSpec 4.18.100
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.18.85 to 4.18.100:
- Resolved several failures in executing resources
- Fixed
auditd
resource processing of action and list - Fixed platform detection when running in Habitat
- “inspec schema” has been revised to be in the JSON Schema draft 7 format
- Improved the functionality of the
oracledb_session
resource
Ohai 15.8
Ohai has been updated to 15.8.0 which includes a fix for failures that occurred in the OpenStack plugin (thanks @sawanoboly) and improved parsing of data in the optional_plugins
config option (thanks @salzig).
Resource Improvements
build_essential
The build_essential
resource has been updated to better detect if the Xcode CLI Tools package needs to be installed on macOS. macOS 10.15 (Catalina) is now supported with this update. Thank you @w0de for kicking this work off, @jazaval for advice on macOS package parsing, and Microsoft for their work in the macOS cookbook.
rhsm_errata / rhsm_errata_level
The rhsm_errata
and rhsm_errata_level
resources have been updated to properly function on RHEL 8 systems.
rhsm_register
The rhsm_register
resource has a new property https_for_ca_consumer
that enables using https connections during registration. Thanks for this improvement @jasonwbarnett. This resource has also been updated to properly function on RHEL 8.
windows_share
Resolved failures in the windows_share
resource when setting the path
property. Thanks for reporting this issue @Kundan22.
Platform Support
Ubuntu 20.04
Chef Infra Client is now tested on Ubuntu 20.04 (AMD64) with packages available on the Chef Downloads Page.
Ubuntu 18.04 aarch64
Chef Infra Client is now tested on Ubuntu 18.04 aarch64 with packages available on the Chef Downloads Page.
Windows 10
Our Windows 10 Chef Infra Client packages now receive an additional layer of testing to ensure they function as expected.
Security Updates
Ruby
Ruby has been updated from 2.6.5 to 2.6.6 to resolve the following CVEs:
- CVE-2020-16255: Unsafe Object Creation Vulnerability in JSON (Additional fix)
- CVE-2020-10933: Heap exposure vulnerability in the socket library
libarchive
libarchive has been updated from 3.4.0 to 3.4.2 to resolve multiple security vulnerabilities including the following CVEs:
- CVE-2019-19221: archive_wstring_append_from_mbs in archive_string.c has an out-of-bounds read because of an incorrect mbrtowc or mbtowc call
- CVE-2020-9308: archive_read_support_format_rar5.c in libarchive before 3.4.2 attempts to unpack a RAR5 file with an invalid or corrupted header
Chef Infra Client 15.8.23
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.8.23.mdNew notify_group functionality
Chef Infra Client now includes a new notify_group
feature that can be used to extract multiple common notifies out of individual resources to reduce duplicate code in your cookbooks and custom resources. Previously cookbook authors would often use a log
resource to achieve a similar outcome, but using the log resource results in unnecessary Chef Infra Client log output. The notify_group
method produces no additional logging, but fires all defined notifications when the :run
action is set.
Example notify_group that stops, sleeps, and then starts service when a service config is updated:
service "crude" do
action [ :enable, :start ]
end
chef_sleep "60" do
action :nothing
end
notify_group "crude_stop_and_start" do
notifies :stop, "service[crude]", :immediately
notifies :sleep, "chef_sleep[60]", :immediately
notifies :start, "service[crude]", :immediately
end
template "/etc/crude/crude.conf" do
source "crude.conf.erb"
variables node["crude"]
notifies :run, "notify_group[crude_stop_and_start]", :immediately
end
Chef InSpec 4.18.85
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.18.39 to 4.18.85. This release includes a large number of bug fixes in addition to some great resource enhancements:
- The service resource features new support for yocto-based linux distributions. Thank you to @michaellihs for this addition!
- The package resource now includes support for FreeBSD. Thank you to @fzipi for this work!
- We standardized the platform for the etc_hosts, virtualization, ini, and xml resources.
- The oracledb_session resource works again due to a missing quote fix.
- The groups resource on macOS no longer reports duplicates anymore. command.exist? now conforms to POSIX standards. Thanks to @PiQuer!
- Changed the postfix_conf resource’s supported platform to the broader unix. Thank you to @fzipi for this fix!
New Cookbook Helpers
New helpers have been added to make writing cookbooks easier.
Platform Version Helpers
New helpers for checking platform versions have been added. These helpers return parsed version strings so there’s no need to convert the returned values to Integers or Floats before comparing them. Additionally, comparisons with version objects properly understand the order of versions so 5.11
will compare as larger than 5.9
, whereas converting those values to Floats would result in 5.9
being larger than 5.11
.
windows_nt_version
returns the NT kernel version which often differs from Microsoft’s marketing versions. This helper offers a good way to find desktop and server releases that are based on the same codebase. For example, NT 6.3 is both Windows 8.1 and Windows 2012 R2.powershell_version
returns the version of PowerShell installed on the system.platform_version
returns the value of node[‘platform_version’].
Example comparison using windows_nt_version:
if windows_nt_version >= 10
some_modern_windows_things
end
Cloud Helpers
The cloud helpers from chef-sugar have been ported to Chef Infra Client:
cloud?
- if the node is running in any cloud, including internal cloudsec2?
- if the node is running in ec2gce?
- if the node is running in gcerackspace?
- if the node is running in rackspaceeucalyptus?
- if the node is running under eucalyptuslinode?
- if the node is running in linodeopenstack?
- if the node is running under openstackazure?
- if the node is running in azuredigital_ocean?
- if the node is running in digital oceansoftlayer?
- if the node is running in softlayer
Virtualization Helpers
The virtualization helpers from chef-sugar have been ported to Chef Infra Client and extended with helpers to detect hypervisor hosts, physical, and guest systems.
kvm?
- if the node is a kvm guestkvm_host?
- if the node is a kvm hostlxc?
- if the node is an lxc guestlxc_host?
- if the node is an lxc hostparallels?
- if the node is a parallels guestparallels_host?
- if the node is a parallels hostvbox?
- if the node is a virtualbox guestvbox_host?
- if the node is a virtualbox hostvmware?
- if the node is a vmware guestvmware_host?
- if the node is a vmware hostopenvz?
- if the node is an openvz guestopenvz_host?
- if the node is an openvz hostguest?
- if the node is detected as any kind of guesthypervisor?
- if the node is detected as being any kind of hypervisorphysical?
- the node is not running as a guest (may be a hypervisor or may be bare-metal)vagrant?
- attempts to identify the node as a vagrant guest (this check may be error-prone)
include_recipe? helper
chef-sugar’s include_recipe?
has been added to Chef Infra Client providing a simple way to see if a recipe has been included on a node already.
Example usage in a not_if conditional:
execute 'install my_app'
command '/tmp/my_app_install.sh'
not_if { include_recipe?('my_app::install') }
end
Updated Resources
ifconfig
The ifconfig
resource now supports the newer ifconfig
release that ships in Debian 10.
mac_user
The mac_user
resource, used when creating a user on Mac systems, has been improved to work better with macOS Catalina (10.15). The resource now properly looks up the numeric GID when creating a user, once again supports the system
property, and includes a new hidden
property which prevents the user from showing on the login screen. Thanks @chilcote for these fixes and improvements.
sysctl
The sysctl
resource has been updated to allow the inclusion of descriptive comments. Comments may be passed as an array or as a string. Any comments provided are prefixed with ‘#’ signs and precede the sysctl
setting in generated files.
An example:
sysctl 'vm.swappiness' do
value 10
comment [
"define how aggressively the kernel will swap memory pages.",
"Higher values will increase aggressiveness",
"lower values decrease the amount of swap.",
"A value of 0 instructs the kernel not to initiate swap",
"until the amount of free and file-backed pages is less",
"than the high water mark in a zone.",
"The default value is 60."
]
end
which results in /etc/sysctl.d/99-chef-vm.swappiness.conf
as follows:
define how aggressively the kernel will swap memory pages.
Higher values will increase aggressiveness
lower values decrease the amount of swap.
A value of 0 instructs the kernel not to initiate swap
until the amount of free and file-backed pages is less
than the high water mark in a zone.
The default value is 60.
vm.swappiness = 10
Platform Support
- Chef Infra Clients packages are now validated for Debian 10.
macOS Binary Signing
Each binary in the macOS Chef Infra Client installation is now signed to improve the integrity of the installation and ensure compatibility with macOS Catalina security requirements.
Chef Infra Client 15.7.32
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.7.32.mdBug Fixes
- Update cookbook validation code to resolve
berks upload --skip-syntax-check
not honoring the--skip-syntax-check
flag. - Fix
Chef::Cookbook::CookbookVersionLoader
loader deprecations that were too aggressive and causing failures.
Chef Infra Client 15.7.31
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.7.31.mdBug Fixes
- Avoid load method deprecation warnings in knife.
Chef Infra Client 15.7.30
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.7.30.mdUpdated Resources
archive_file
The archive_file
resource will now only change ownership on files and directories that were part of the archive itself. This prevents changing permissions on important high level directories such as /etc or /bin when you extract a file into those directories. Thanks for this fix, @bobchaos.
cron and cron_d
The cron
and cron_d
resources now include a timeout
property, which allows you to configure actions to perform when a job times out. This property accepts a hash of timeout configuration options:
preserve-status
:true
/false
with a default offalse
foreground
:true
/false
with a default offalse
kill-after
:Integer
for the timeout in secondssignal
:String
orInteger
to send to the process such asHUP
launchd
The launchd
resource has been updated to properly capitalize HardResourceLimits
. Thanks for this fix, @rb2k.
sudo
The sudo
resource no longer fails on the second Chef Infra Client run when using a Cmnd_Alias
. Thanks for reporting this issue, @Rudikza.
user
The user
resource on AIX no longer forces the user to change the password after Chef Infra Client modifies the password. Thanks for this fix, @Triodes.
The user
resource on macOS 10.15 has received several important fixes to improve logging and prevent failures.
windows_task
The windows_task
resource is now idempotent when a system is joined to a domain and the job runs under a local user account.
x509_certificate
The x509_certificate
resource now includes a new renew_before_expiry
property that allows you to auto renew certificates a specified number of days before they expire. Thanks @julienhuon for this improvement.
Additional Recipe Helpers
We have added new helpers for identifying Windows releases that can be used in any part of your cookbooks.
windows_workstation?
Returns true
if the system is a Windows Workstation edition.
windows_server?
Returns true
if the system is a Windows Server edition.
windows_server_core?
Returns true
if the system is a Windows Server Core edition.
Notable Changes and Fixes
knife upload
andknife cookbook upload
will now generate a metadata.json file from metadata.rb when uploading a cookbook to the Chef Infra Server.- A bug in
knife bootstrap
behavior that caused failures when bootstrapping Windows hosts from non-Windows hosts and vice versa has been resolved. - The existing system path is now preserved when bootstrapping Windows nodes. Thanks for this fix, @Xorima.
- Ohai now properly returns the drive name on Windows and includes new drive_type fields to allow you to determine the type of attached disk. Thanks for this improvement @sshock.
- Ohai has been updated to properly return DMI data to Chef Infra Client. Thanks for troubleshooting this, @zmscwx and @Sliim.
Platform Support
- Chef Infra Clients packages are no longer produced for Windows 2008 R2 as this release reached its end of life on Jan 14th, 2020.
- Chef Infra Client packages are no longer produced for RHEL 6 on the s390x platform. Builds will continue to be published for RHEL 7 on the s390x platform.
Security Updates
OpenSSL
OpenSSL has been updated to 1.0.2u to resolve CVE-2019-1551
Chef Infra Client 15.6.10
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.6.10.mdUpdated Resources
apt_repository
The apt_repository
resource now properly escapes repository URIs instead of quoting them. This prevents failures when using the apt-file
command, which was unable to parse the quoted URIs. Thanks for reporting this @Seb-Solon
file
The file
resource now shows the output of any failures when running commands specified in the verify
property. This means you can more easily validate config files before potentially writing an incorrect file to disk. Chef Infra Client will shellout to any specified command and will show the results of failures for further troubleshooting.
user
The user
resource on Linux systems now continues successfully when usermod
returns an exit code of 12. Exit code 12 occurs when a user’s home directory is changed and the underlying directory already exists. Thanks @skippyj for this fix.
yum_repository
The yum_repository
now properly formats the repository configuration when multiple baseurl
values are present. Thanks @bugok for this fix.
Performance Improvements
This release of Chef Infra Client ships with several optimizations to our Ruby installation to improve the performance of loading the chef-client and knife commands. These improvements are particularly noticeable on non-SSD hosts and on Windows.
Smaller Install Footprint
We’ve further optimized our install footprint and reduced the size of /opt/chef
by ~7% by removing unnecessary test files and libraries that shipped in previous releases.
filesystem2 Ohai Data on Windows
Ohai 15.6 includes new node['filesystem2']
data on Windows hosts. Filesystem2 presents filesystem data by both mountpoint and by device name. This data structure matches that of the filesystem plugin on Linux and other *nix operating systems. Thanks @jaymzh for this new data structure.
Chef Infra Client 15.5.17
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.5.17.mdBug Fixes
- Resolved build failures.
Chef Infra Client 15.5.16
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.5.16.mdBug Fixes
- Resolved build failures.
Chef Infra Client 15.5.15
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.5.15.mdThe Chef Infra Client 15.5.15 release includes fixes for two regressions. A regression in the build_essential
resource caused failures on rhel
platforms and a second regression caused Chef Infra Client to fail when starting with enforce_path_sanity
enabled. As part of this fix we’ve added a new property, raise_if_unsupported
, to the build-essential
resource. Instead of silently continuing, this property will fail a Chef Infra Client run if an unknown platform is encountered.
We’ve also updated the windows_package
resource. The resource will now provide better error messages if invalid options are passed to the installer_type
property and the checksum
property will now accept uppercase SHA256 checksums.
Chef Infra Client 15.5.9
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.5.9.mdNew Cookbook Helpers
Chef Infra Client now includes a new chef-utils
gem, which ships with a large number of helpers to make writing cookbooks easier. Many of these helpers existed previously in the chef-sugar
gem. We have renamed many of the named helpers for consistency, while providing backwards compatibility with existing chef-sugar
names. Existing cookbooks written with chef-sugar
should work unmodified with any of these new helpers. Expect a Cookstyle rule in the near future to help you update existing chef-sugar
code to use the newer built-in helpers.
For more information all all of the new helpers available, see the chef-utils readme
Chefignore Improvements
We’ve reworked how chefignore files are handled in knife
, which has allowed us to close out a large number of long outstanding bugs. knife
will now traverse all the way up the directory structure looking for a chefignore file. This means you can place a chefignore file in each cookbook or any parent directory in your repository structure. Additionally, we have made fixes that ensure that commands like knife diff
and knife cookbook upload
always honor your chefignore files.
Windows Habitat Plan
Official Habitat packages of Chef Infra Client are now available for Windows. It has all the executables of the traditional omnibus packages, but in Habitat form. You can find it in the Habitat Builder under chef/chef-infra-client.
Performance Improvements
This release of Chef Infra Client ships with several optimizations to our Ruby installation that improve the performance of the chef-client and knife commands, especially on Windows systems. Expect to see more here in future releases.
Chef InSpec 4.18.39
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.17.17 to 4.18.38. This release includes a large number of bug fixes in addition to some great resource enhancements:
- Inputs can now be used within a
describe.one
block - The
service
resource now includes astartname
property for Windows and systemd services - The
interface
resource now includes aname
property - The
user
resource now better supports Windows with the addition ofpasswordage
,maxbadpasswords
, andbadpasswordattempts
properties - The
nginx
resource now includes parsing support for wildcard, dot prefix, and regex - The
iis_app_pool
resource now handles empty app pools - The
filesystem
resource now supports devices with very long names - The
apt
better handles URIs and supports repos with anarch
- The
oracledb_session
has received multiple fixes to make it work better - The
npm
resource now works under sudo on Unix and on Windows with a custom PATH
New Resources
chef_sleep
The chef_sleep
resource can be used to sleep for a specified number of seconds during a Chef Infra Client run. This may be helpful to use with other commands that return a completed status before they are actually ready. In general, do not use this resource unless you truly need it.
Using with a Windows service that starts, but is not immediately ready:
service 'Service that is slow to start and reports as started' do
service_name 'my_database'
action :start
notifies :sleep, chef_sleep['wait for service start']
end
chef_sleep 'wait for service start' do
seconds 30
action :nothing
end
Updated Resources
systemd_unit / service
The systemd_unit
and service
resources (when on systemd) have been updated to not re-enable services with an indirect status. Thanks @jaymzh for this fix.
windows_firewall
The windows_firewall
resource has been updated to support passing in an array of profiles in the profile
property. Thanks @Happycoil for this improvement.
Security Updates
libxslt
libxslt has been updated to 1.1.34 to resolve CVE-2019-13118.
Chef Infra Client 15.4.45
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.4.45.mdconverge_if_changed Improvements
Chef Infra Client will now take into account any default
values specified in custom resources when making converge determinations with the converge_if_changed
helper. Previously, default values would be ignored, which caused necessary changes to be skipped. Note: This change may cause behavior changes for some users, but we believe this original behavior is an impacting bug for enough users to make it outside of a major release. Thanks @ jakauppila for reporting this.
Bootstrap Improvements
Several improvements have been made to the knife bootstrap
command to make it more reliable and secure:
- File creation is now wrapped in a umask to avoid potential race conditions
NameError
andRuntimeError
failures during bootstrap have been resolvedUndefined method 'empty?' for nil:NilClass
during bootstrap have been resolved- Single quotes in attributes during bootstrap no longer result in bootstrap failures
- The bootstrap command no longer appears in PS on the host while bootstrapping is running
knife supermarket list Improvements
The knife supermarket list
command now includes two new options:
--sort-by [recently_updated recently_added most_downloaded most_followed]
: Sort cookbooks returned from the Supermarket API--owned_by
: Limit returned cookbooks to a particular owner
Updated Resources
chocolatey_package
The chocolatey_package
resource no longer fails when passing options with the options
property. Thanks for reporting this issue @kenmacleod.
kernel_module
The kernel_module
resource includes a new options
property, which allows users to set module specific parameters and settings. Thanks @ramereth for this new feature.
Example of a kernel_module resource using the new options property:
kernel_module 'loop' do
options [ 'max_loop=4', 'max_part=8' ]
end
remote_file
The remote_file
resource has been updated to better display progress when using the show_progress
resource. Thanks for reporting this issue @isuftin.
sudo
The sudo
resource now runs sudo config validation against all of the sudo configuration files on the system instead of only the file being written. This allows us to detect configuration errors that occur when configs conflict with each other. Thanks for reporting this issue @drzewiec.
windows_ad_join
The windows_ad_join
has a new :leave
action for leaving an Active Directory domain and rejoining a workgroup. This new action also has a new workgroup_name
property for specifying the workgroup to join upon leaving the domain. Thanks @jasonwbarnett for adding this new action.
Example of leaving a domain
windows_ad_join 'Leave the domain' do
workgroup_name 'local'
action :leave
end
windows_package
The windows_package
resource no longer updates environmental variables before installing the package. This prevents potential modifications that may cause a package installation to fail. Thanks @jeremyhage for this fix.
windows_service
The windows_service
resource no longer updates the service and triggers notifications if the case of the run_as_user
property does not match the user set on the service. Thanks @jasonwbarnett for this fix.
windows_share
The windows_share
resource is now fully idempotent by better validating the provided path
property from the user. Thanks @Happycoil for this fix.
Security Updates
Ruby
Ruby has been updated from 2.6.4 to 2.6.5 in order to resolve the following CVEs:
- CVE-2019-16255: A code injection vulnerability of Shell#[] and Shell#test
- CVE-2019-16254: HTTP response splitting in WEBrick (Additional fix)
- CVE-2019-15845: A NUL injection vulnerability of File.fnmatch and File.fnmatch?
- CVE-2019-16201: Regular Expression Denial of Service vulnerability of WEBrick’s Digest access authentication
Chef Infra Client 15.3.14
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.3.14.mdCustom Resource Unified Mode
Chef Infra Client 15.3 introduces an exciting new way to easily write custom resources that mix built-in Chef Infra resources with Ruby code. Previously custom resources would use Chef Infra’s standard compile and converge phases, which meant that Ruby would be evaluated first and then the resources would be converged. This often results in confusing and undesirable behavior when you are trying to mix resources with Ruby logic. Many custom resource authors would attempt to get around this by forcing resources to run at compile time so that all the code in their resource would execute during the compile phase.
An example of forcing a resource to run at compile time:
resource_name 'foo' do
action :nothing
end.run_action(:some_action)
With unified mode, you opt in to a single phase per resource where all Ruby and Chef Infra resources are executed at once. This makes it far easier to determine how your code will be evaluated and run. Additionally, you no longer need to force any resources to run at compile time, as all code is run in the compile phase. To enable this new mode just add unified_mode true
to your resources like this:
property :Some_property, String
unified_mode true
action :create do
# some code
end
Interval Mode Now Fails on Windows
Chef Infra Client 15.3 will now raise an error if you attempt to keep the chef-client process running long-term by enabling interval runs. Interval runs have already raised failures on non-Windows platforms and we’ve suggested that users move away from them on Windows for many years. The long-running chef-client process on Windows will load and reload cookbooks over each other in memory. This could produce a running state which is not a representation of the cookbook code that the authors wrote or tested, and behavior that may be wildly different depending on how long the chef-client process has been running and on the sequence that the cookbooks were uploaded.
Updated Resources
ifconfig
The ifconfig
resource has been updated to properly support interfaces with a hyphen in their name. This is most commonly encountered with bridge interfaces that are named br-1234
.
archive_file
The archive_file
resource now supports archives in the RAR 5.0 format as well as zip files compressed using xz, lzma, ppmd8 and bzip2 compression.
user
macOS 10.14 / 10.15 support
The user
resource now supports the creation of users on macOS 10.14 and 10.15 systems. The updated resource now complies with macOS TCC policies by using a user with admin privileges to create and modify users. The following new properties have been added for macOS user creation:
admin
sets a user to be an admin.admin_username
andadmin_password
define the admin user credentials required for toggling SecureToken for a user. The value of ‘admin_username’ must correspond to a system user that is part of the ‘admin’ with SecureToken enabled in order to toggle SecureToken.secure_token
is a boolean property that sets the desired state for SecureToken. FileVault requires a SecureToken for full disk encryption.secure_token_password
is the plaintext password required to enable or disablesecure_token
for a user. If no salt is specified we assume the ‘password’ property corresponds to a plaintext password and will attempt to use it in place of secure_token_password if it is not set.
Password property is now sensitive
The password
property is now set to sensitive to prevent the password from being shown in debug or failure logs.
gid property can now be a string
The gid
property now allows specifying the user’s gid as a string. For example:
user 'tim' do
gid '123'
end
Platform Support Updates
macOS 10.15 Support
Chef Infra Client is now validated against macOS 10.15 (Catalina) with packages now available at downloads.chef.io and via the Omnitruck API. Additionally, Chef Infra Client will no longer be validated against macOS 10.12.
AIX 7.2
Chef Infra Client is now validated against AIX 7.2 with packages now available at downloads.chef.io and via the Omnitruck API.
Chef InSpec 4.16
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.10.4 to 4.16.0 with the following changes:
- A new
postfix_conf
has been added for inspecting Postfix configuration files. - A new
plugins
section has been added to the InSpec configuration file which can be used to pass secrets or other configurations into Chef InSpec plugins. - The
service
resource now includes a newstartname
property for determining which user is starting the Windows services. - The
groups
resource now properly gathers membership information on macOS hosts.
Security Updates
Ruby
Ruby has been updated from 2.6.3 to 2.6.4 in order to resolve CVE-2012-6708 and CVE-2015-9251.
openssl
openssl has been updated from 1.0.2s to 1.0.2t in order to resolve CVE-2019-1563 and CVE-2019-1547.
nokogiri
nokogiri has been updated from 1.10.2 to 1.10.4 in order to resolve CVE-2019-5477
Chef Infra Client 15.2.20
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.2.20.mdUpdated Resources
dnf_package
The dnf_package
resource has been updated to fully support RHEL 8.
kernel_module
The kernel_module
now supports a :disable
action. Thanks @tomdoherty.
rhsm_repo
The rhsm_repo
resource has been updated to support passing a repo name of *
in the :disable
action. Thanks for reporting this issue @erinn.
windows_task
The windows_task
resource has been updated to allow the day
property to accept an Integer
value.
zypper_package
The zypper_package
package has been updated to properly upgrade packages if necessary based on the version specified in the resource block. Thanks @foobarbam for this fix.
Platform Support Updates
RHEL 8 Support Added
Chef Infra Client 15.2 now includes native packages for RHEL 8 with all builds now validated on RHEL 8 hosts.
SLES 11 EOL
Packages will no longer be built for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 as SLES 11 exited the ‘General Support’ phase on March 31, 2019. See Chef’s Platform End-of-Life Policy for more information on when Chef ends support for an OS release.
Ubuntu 14.04 EOL
Packages will no longer be built for Ubuntu 14.04 as Canonical ended maintenance updates on April 30, 2019. See Chef’s Platform End-of-Life Policy for more information on when Chef ends support for an OS release.
Ohai 15.2
Ohai has been updated to 15.2 with the following changes:
- Improved detection of Openstack including proper detection of Windows nodes running on Openstack when fetching metadata. Thanks @jjustice6.
- A new
other_versions
field has been added to the Packages plugin when the node is using RPM. This allows you to see all installed versions of packages, not just the latest version. Thanks @jjustice6. - The Linux Network plugin has been improved to not mark interfaces down if
stp_state
is marked as down. Thanks @josephmilla. - Arch running on ARM processors is now detected as the
arm
platform. Thanks @BackSlasher.
Chef InSpec 4.10.4
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.6.4 to 4.10.4 with the following changes:
- Fix handling multiple triggers in the
windows_task
resource - Fix exceptions when resources are used with incompatible transports
- Un-deprecate the
be_running
matcher on theservice
resource - Add resource
sys_info.manufacturer
andsys_info.model
- Add
ip6tables
resource
Security Updates
bzip2
bzip2 has been updated from 1.0.6 to 1.0.8 to resolve CVE-2016-3189 and CVE-2019-12900.
Chef Infra Client 15.1.36
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.1.36.mdNew Resources
chocolatey_feature
The chocolatey_feature
resource allows you to enable and disable Chocolatey features. See the chocolatey_feature documentation for full usage information. Thanks @gep13 for this new resource.
Updated Resources
chocolatey_source
The chocolatey_source
resource has been updated with new enable
and disable
actions, as well as admin_only
and allow_self_service
properties. Thanks @gep13 for this enhancement.
launchd
The launchd
resource has been updated with a new launch_events
property, which allows you to specify higher-level event types to be used as launch-on-demand event sources. Thanks @chilcote for this enhancement.
yum_package
The yum_package
resource’s helper for interacting with the yum subsystem has been updated to always close out the rpmdb lock, even during failures. This may prevent the rpmdb becoming locked in some rare conditions. Thanks for reporting this issue, @lytao.
template
The template
resource now provides additional information on failures, which is especially useful in ChefSpec tests. Thanks @brodock for this enhancement.
Target Mode Improvements
Our experimental Target Mode received a large number of updates in Chef Infra Client 15.1. Target Mode now reuses the connection to the remote system, which greatly speeds up the remote Chef Infra run. There is also now support for Target Mode in the systemd_unit
, log
, ruby_block
, and breakpoint
resources. Keep in mind that when using ruby_block
with Target Mode that the Ruby code in the block will execute locally as there is not necessarily a Ruby runtime on the remote host.
Ohai 15.1
Ohai has been updated to 15.1 with the following changes:
- The
Shard
plugin properly uses the machine’smachinename
,serial
, anduuid
attributes to generate the shard value. The plugin also no longer throws an exception on macOS hosts. Thanks @michel-slm for these fixes. - The
Virtualbox
plugin has been enhanced to gather information on running guests, storage, and networks when VirtualBox is installed on a node. Thanks @freakinhippie for this new capability. - Ohai no longer fails to gather interface information on Solaris in some rare conditions. Thanks @devoptimist for this fix.
Chef InSpec 4.6.4
Chef InSpec has been updated from 4.3.2 to 4.6.4 with the following changes:
- InSpec
Attributes
have now been renamed toInputs
to avoid confusion with Chef Infra attributes. - A new InSpec plugin type of
Input
has been added for defining new input types. See the InSpec Plugins documentation for more information on writing these plugins. - InSpec no longer prints errors to the stdout when passing
--format json
. - When fetching profiles from GitHub, the URL can now include periods.
- The performance of InSpec startup has been improved.
Chef Infra Client 15.0.300
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.0.300.mdThis release includes critical bugfixes for the 15.0 release:
- Fix
knife bootstrap
over SSH whenrequiretty
is configured on the host. - Added the
--chef-license
CLI flag tochef-apply
andchef-solo
commands.
Chef Infra Client 15.0.298
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.0.298.mdThis release includes critical bugfixes for the 15.0 release:
- Allow accepting the license on non-interactive Windows sessions
- Resolve license acceptance failures on Windows 2012 R2
- Improve some
knife
andchef-client
help text - Properly handle session_timeout default value in
knife bootstrap
- Avoid failures due to Train::Transports::SSHFailed class not being loaded in
knife bootstrap
- Resolve failures using the ca_trust_file option with
knife bootstrap
Chef Infra Client 15.0.293
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/15.0.293.mdChef Client is now Chef Infra Client
Chef Client has a new name, but don’t worry, it’s the same Chef Client you’ve grown used to. You’ll notice new branding throughout the application, help, and documentation but the command line name of chef-client
remains the same.
Chef EULA
Chef Infra Client requires an EULA to be accepted by users before it can run. Users can accept the EULA in a variety of ways:
chef-client --chef-license accept
chef-client --chef-license accept-no-persist
CHEF_LICENSE="accept" chef-client
CHEF_LICENSE="accept-no-persist" chef-client
Finally, if users run chef-client
without any of these options, they will receive an interactive prompt asking for license acceptance. If the license is accepted, a marker file will be written to the filesystem unless accept-no-persist
is specified. Once this marker file is persisted, users no longer need to set any of these flags.
See our Frequently Asked Questions document for more information on the EULA and license acceptance.
New Features / Functionality
Target Mode Prototype
Chef Infra Client 15 adds a prototype for a new method of executing resources called Target Mode. Target Mode allows a Chef Infra Client run to manage a remote system over SSH or another protocol supported by the Train library. This support includes platforms that we currently support like Ubuntu Linux, but also allows for configuring other architectures and platforms, such as switches that do not have native builds of Chef Infra Client. Target Mode maintains a separate node object for each target and allows you to manage that node using existing patterns that you currently use.
As of this release, only the execute
resource and guards are supported, but modifying existing resources or writing new resources to support Target Mode is relatively easy. Using Target Mode is as easy as running chef-client --target hostname
. The authentication credentials should be stored in your local ~/.chef/credentials
file with the hostname of the target node as the profile name. Each key/value pair is passed to Train for authentication.
Data Collection Ground-Up Refactor
Chef Infra Client’s Data Collection subsystem is used to report node changes during client runs to Chef Automate or other reporting systems. For Chef Infra Client 15, we performed a ground-up rewrite of this subsystem, which greatly improves the data reported to Chef Automate and ensures data is delivered even in the toughest of failure conditions.
copy_properties_from in Custom Resources
A new copy_properties_from
method for custom resources allows you copy properties from your custom resource into other resources you are calling, so you can avoid unnecessarily repeating code.
To inherit all the properties of another resource:
resource_name :my_resource
property :mode, String, default: '777'
property :owner, String, default: 'app_user'
property :group, String, default: 'admins'
directory '/etc/myapp' do
copy_properties_from new_resource
recursive true
end
To selectively inherit certain properties from a resource:
resource_name :my_resource
property :mode, String, default: '777'
property :owner, String, default: 'app_user'
property :group, String, default: 'admins'
directory '/etc/myapp' do
copy_properties_from(new_resource, :owner, :group, :mode)
mode '755'
recursive true
end
ed25519 SSH key support
Our underlying SSH implementation has been updated to support the new ed25519 SSH key format. This means you will be able to use knife bootstrap
and knife ssh
on hosts that only support this new key format.
Allow Using –delete-entire-chef-repo in Chef Local Mode
Chef Solo’s --delete-entire-chef-repo
option has been extended to work in Local Mode as well. Be warned that this flag does exactly what it states, and when used incorrectly, can result in loss of work.
New Resources
archive_file resource
Use the archive_file
resource to decompress multiple archive formats without the need for compression tools on the host.
See the archive_file documentation for more information.
windows_uac resource
Use the windows_uac
resource to configure UAC settings on Windows hosts.
See the windows_uac documentation for more information.
windows_dfs_folder resource
Use the windows_dfs_folder
resource to create and delete Windows DFS folders.
See the windows_dfs_folder documentation for more information.
windows_dfs_namespace resources
Use the windows_dfs_namespace
resource to create and delete Windows DFS namespaces.
See the windows_dfs_namespace documentation for more information.
windows_dfs_server resources
Use the windows_dfs_server
resource to configure Windows DFS server settings.
See the windows_dfs_server documentation for more information.
windows_dns_record resource
Use the windows_dns_record
resource to create or delete DNS records.
See the windows_dns_record documentation for more information.
windows_dns_zone resource
Use the windows_dns_zone
resource to create or delete DNS zones.
See the windows_dns_zone documentation for more information.
snap_package resource
Use the snap_package
resource to install snap packages on Ubuntu hosts.
See the snap_package documentation for more information.
Resource Improvements
windows_task
The windows_task
resource now supports the Start When Available option with a new start_when_available
property.
locale
The locale
resource now allows setting all possible LC_* environmental variables.
directory
The directory
resource now property supports passing deny_rights :write
on Windows nodes.
windows_service
The windows_service
resource has been improved to prevent accidentally reverting a service back to default settings in a subsequent definition.
This example will no longer result in the MyApp service reverting to default RunAsUser:
windows_service 'MyApp' do
run_as_user 'MyAppsUser'
run_as_password 'MyAppsUserPassword'
startup_type :automatic
delayed_start true
action [:configure, :start]
end
...
windows_service 'MyApp' do
startup_type :automatic
action [:configure, :start]
end
Ruby 2.6.3
Chef now ships with Ruby 2.6.3. This new version of Ruby improves performance and includes many new features to make more advanced Chef usage easier. See https://www.rubyguides.com/2018/11/ruby-2-6-new-features/ for a list of some of the new functionality.
Ohai Improvements
Improved Linux Platform / Platform Family Detection
Platform
and platform_family
detection on Linux has been rewritten to utilize the latest config files on modern Linux distributions before falling back to slower and fragile legacy detection methods. Ohai will now begin by parsing the contents of /etc/os-release
for OS information if available. This feature improves the reliability of detection on modern distros and allows detection of new distros as they are released.
With this change, we now detect sles_sap
as a member of the suse
platform_family
. Additionally, this change corrects our detection of the platform_version
on Cisco Nexus switches where previously the build number was incorrectly appended to the version string.
Improved Virtualization Detection
Hypervisor detection on multiple platforms has been updated to use DMI data and a single set of hypervisors. This greatly improves the detection of hypervisors on Windows, BSD and Solaris platforms. It also means that as new hypervisor detection is added in the future, we will automatically support the majority of platforms.
Fix Windows 2016 FQDN Detection
Ohai 14 incorrectly detected a Windows 2016 node’s fqdn
as the node’s hostname
. Ohai 15 now correctly reports the FQDN value.
Improved Memory Usage
Ohai now uses less memory due to internal optimization of how we track plugin information.
FIPS Detection Improvements
The FIPS plugin now uses the built-in FIPS detection in Ruby for improved detection.
New Deprecations
knife cookbook site deprecated in favor of knife supermarket
The knife cookbook site
command has been deprecated in favor of the knife supermarket
command. knife cookbook site
will now produce a warning message. In Chef Infra Client 16, we will remove the knife cookbook site
command entirely.
locale LC_ALL property
The LC_ALL
property in the locale
resource has been deprecated as the usage of this environmental variable is not recommended by distribution maintainers.
Breaking Changes
Knife Bootstrap
Knife bootstrap has been entirely rewritten. Native support for Windows bootstrapping is now a part of the main knife bootstrap
command. This marks the deprecation of the knife-windows
plugin’s bootstrap
behavior. This change also addresses CVE-2015-8559: The knife bootstrap
command in chef leaks the validator.pem private RSA key to /var/log/messages.
Important: knife bootstrap
can bootstrap all supported versions of Chef Infra Client. Older versions may continue to work as far back as 12.20.
In order to accommodate a combined bootstrap that supports both SSH and WinRM, some CLI flags have been added, removed, or changed. Using the changed options will result in deprecation warnings, but knife bootstrap
will accept those options unless otherwise noted. Using removed options will cause the command to fail.
New Flags
Flag | Description |
---|---|
–max-wait SECONDS | Maximum time to wait for initial connection to be established. |
–winrm-basic-auth-only | Perform only Basic Authentication to the target WinRM node. |
–connection-protocol PROTOCOL | Connection protocol to use. Valid values are ‘winrm’ and ‘ssh’. Default is ‘ssh’. |
–connection-user | User to authenticate as, regardless of protocol. |
–connection-password | Password to authenticate as, regardless of protocol. |
–connection-port | Port to connect to, regardless of protocol. |
–ssh-verify-host-key VALUE | Verify host key. Default is ‘always’. Valid values are ‘accept’, ‘accept_new’, ‘accept_new_or_local_tunnel’, and ’never’. |
Changed Flags
Flag | New Option | Notes |
---|---|---|
–[no-]host-key-verify | –ssh-verify-host-key VALUE | See above for valid values. |
–forward-agent | –ssh-forward-agent | |
–session-timeout MINUTES | –session-timeout SECONDS | New for ssh, existing for winrm. The unit has changed from MINUTES to SECONDS for consistency with other timeouts. |
–ssh-password | –connection-password | |
–ssh-port | –connection-port | knife[:ssh_port] config setting remains available. |
–ssh-user | –connection-user | knife[:ssh_user] config setting remains available. |
–ssl-peer-fingerprint | –winrm-ssl-peer-fingerprint | |
–prerelease | –channel CHANNEL | This now allows you to specify the channel that Chef Infra Client gets installed from. Valid values are stable, current, and unstable. ‘current’ has the same effect as using the old –prerelease. |
–winrm-authentication-protocol=PROTO | –winrm-auth-method=AUTH-METHOD | Valid values: plaintext, kerberos, ssl, negotiate |
–winrm-password | –connection-password | |
–winrm-port | –connection-port | knife[:winrm_port] config setting remains available. |
–winrm-ssl-verify-mode MODE | –winrm-no-verify-cert | Mode is not accepted. When flag is present, SSL cert will not be verified. Same as original mode of ‘verify_none’. [1] |
–winrm-transport TRANSPORT | –winrm-ssl | Use this flag if the target host is accepts WinRM connections over SSL. [1] |
–winrm-user | –connection-user | knife[:winrm_user] config setting remains available. |
–winrm-session-timeout | –session-timeout | Now available for bootstrapping over SSH as well |
[1] These flags do not have an automatic mapping of old flag -> new flag. The new flag must be used.
Removed Flags
Flag | Notes |
---|---|
–kerberos-keytab-file | This option existed but was not implemented. |
–winrm-codepage | This was used under knife-windows because bootstrapping was performed over a cmd shell. It is now invoked from powershell , so this option is no longer used. |
–winrm-shell | This option was ignored for bootstrap. |
–install-as-service | Installing Chef Infra Client as a service is not supported. |
Usage Changes
Instead of specifying protocol with -o
, it is also possible to prefix the target hostname with the protocol in URL format. For example:
knife bootstrap example.com -o ssh
knife bootstrap ssh://example.com
knife bootstrap example.com -o winrm
knife bootstrap winrm://example.com
Chef Infra Client packages remove /opt/chef before installation
Upon upgrading Chef Infra Client packages, the /opt/chef
directory is removed. This ensures any chef_gem
installed gem versions and other modifications to /opt/chef
will removed to prevent upgrade issues. Due to technical details with rpm script execution order, the implementation involves a a pre-installation script that wipes /opt/chef
before every install, and is done consistently this way on every package manager.
Users who are properly managing customizations to /opt/chef
through Chef recipes would not be affected, because their customizations will still be installed by the new package.
You will see a warning that the /opt/chef
directory will be removed during the package installation process.
powershell_script now allows overriding the default flags
We now append powershell_script
user flags to the default flags rather than the other way around, which made user flags override the defaults. This is the correct behavior, but it may cause scripts to execute differently than in previous Chef Infra Client releases.
Package provider allow_downgrade is now true by default
We reversed the default behavior to allow_downgrade true
for our package providers. To override this setting to prevent downgrades, use the allow_downgrade false
flag. This behavior change will mostly affect users of the rpm and zypper package providers.
In this example, the code below should now read as asserting that the package foo
must be version 1.2.3
after that resource is run.:
package "foo" do
version "1.2.3"
end
The code below is now what is necessary to specify that foo
must be version 1.2.3
or higher. Note that the yum provider supports syntax like package "foo > 1.2.3"
, which should be used and is preferred over using allow_downgrade.
package "foo" do
allow_downgrade false
version "1.2.3"
end
Node Attributes deep merge nil values
Writing a nil
to a precedence level in the node object now acts like any other value and can be used to override values back to nil
.
For example:
chef (15.0.53)> node.default["foo"] = "bar"
=> "bar"
chef (15.0.53)> node.override["foo"] = nil
=> nil
chef (15.0.53)> node["foo"]
=> nil
In prior versions of chef-client
, the nil
set in the override level would be completely ignored and the value of node["foo"]
would have been “bar”.
http_disable_auth_on_redirect now enabled
The Chef config http_disable_auth_on_redirect
has been changed from false
to true
. In Chef Infra Client 16, this config option will be removed altogether and Chef Infra Client will always disable auth on redirect.
knife cookbook test removal
The knife cookbook test
command has been removed. This command would often report non-functional cookbooks as functional, and has been superseded by functionality in other testing tools such as cookstyle
, foodcritic
, and chefspec
.
ohai resource’s ohai_name property removal
The ohai
resource contained a non-functional ohai_name
property, which has been removed.
knife status –hide-healthy flag removal
The knife status --hide-healthy
flag has been removed. Users should run knife status --hide-by-mins MINS
instead.
Cookbook shadowing in Chef Solo Legacy Mode Removed
Previously, if a user provided multiple cookbook paths to Chef Solo that contained cookbooks with the same name, Chef Solo would combine these into a single cookbook. This merging of two cookbooks often caused unexpected outcomes and has been removed.
Removal of unused route resource properties
The route
resource contained multiple unused properties that have been removed. If you previously set networking
, networking_ipv6
, hostname
, domainname
, or domain
, they would be ignored. In Chef Infra Client 15, setting these properties will throw an error.
FreeBSD pkg provider removal
Support for the FreeBSD pkg
package system in the freebsd_package
resource has been removed. FreeBSD 10 replaced the pkg
system with pkg-ng
system, so this removal only impacts users of EOL FreeBSD releases.
require_recipe removal
The legacy require_recipe
method in recipes has been removed. This method was replaced with include_recipe
in Chef Infra Client 10, and a FoodCritic rule has been warning to update cookbooks for multiple years.
Legacy shell_out methods removed
In Chef Infra Client 14, many of the more obscure shell_out
methods used in LWRPs and custom resources were combined into the standard shell_out
and shell_out!
methods. The legacy methods were infrequently used and Chef Infra Client 14/Foodcritic both contained deprecation warnings for these methods. The following methods will now throw an error: shell_out_compact
, shell_out_compact!
, shell_out_compact_timeout
, shell_out_compact_timeout!
, shell_out_with_systems_locale
, and shell_out_with_systems_locale!
.
knife bootstrap –identity_file removal
The knife bootstrap --identity_file
flag has been removed. This flag was deprecated in Chef Infra Client 12, and users should now use the --ssh-identity-file
flag instead.
knife user support for Chef Infra Server < 12 removed
The knife user
command no longer supports the open source Chef Infra Server version prior to 12.
attributes in metadata.rb
Chef Infra Client no longer processes attributes in the metadata.rb
file. Attributes could be defined in the metadata.rb
file as a form of documentation, which would be shown when running knife cookbook show COOKBOOK_NAME
. Often, these attribute definitions would become out of sync with the attributes in the actual attributes files. Chef Infra Client 15 will no longer show these attributes when running knife cookbook show COOKBOOK_NAME
and will instead throw a warning message upon upload. Foodcritic has warned against the use of attributes in the metadata.rb
file since April 2017.
Node attributes array bugfix
Chef Infra Client 15 includes a bugfix for incorrect node attribute behavior involving a rare usage of arrays, which may impact users who depend on the incorrect behavior.
Previously, you could set an attribute like this:
node.default["foo"] = []
node.default["foo"] << { "bar" => "baz }
This would result in a Hash, instead of a VividMash, inserted into the AttrArray, so that:
node.default["foo"][0]["bar"] # gives the correct result
node.default["foo"][0][:bar] # does not work due to the sub-Hash not
# converting keys
The new behavior uses a Mash so that the attributes will work as expected.
Ohai’s system_profile plugin for macOS removed
We removed the system_profile
plugin because it incorrectly returned data on modern macOS systems. If you relied on this plugin, you’ll want to update recipes to use node['hardware']
instead, which correctly returns the same data, but in a more easily consumed format. Removing this plugin speeds up Ohai and Chef Infra Client by ~3 seconds, and dramatically reduces the size of the node object on the Chef Infra Server.
Ohai’s Ohai::Util::Win32::GroupHelper class has been removed
We removed the Ohai::Util::Win32::GroupHelper
helper class from Ohai. This class was intended for use internally in several Windows plugins, but it was never marked private in the codebase. If any of your Ohai plugins rely on this helper class, you will need to update your plugins for Ohai 15.
Audit Mode
Chef Infra Client’s Audit mode was introduced in 2015 as a beta that needed to be enabled via client.rb
. Its functionality has been superseded by Chef InSpec and has been removed.
Ohai system_profiler plugin removal
The system_profiler
plugin, which ran on macOS systems, has been removed. This plugin took longer to run than all other plugins on macOS combined, and no longer produced usable information on modern macOS releases. If you’re looking for similar information, it can now be found in the hardware
plugin.
Ohai::Util::Win32::GroupHelper helper removal
The deprecated Ohai::Util::Win32::GroupHelper
helper has been removed from Ohai. Any custom Ohai plugins using this helper will need to be updated.
Ohai::System.refresh_plugins method removal
The refresh_plugins
method in the Ohai::System
class has been removed as it has been unused for multiple major Ohai releases. If you are programmatically using Ohai in your own Ruby application, you will need to update your code to use the load_plugins
method instead.
Ohai Microsoft VirtualPC / VirtualServer detection removal
The Virtualization
plugin will no longer detect systems running on the circa ~2005 VirtualPC or VirtualServer hypervisors. These hypervisors were long ago deprecated by Microsoft and support can no longer be tested.
Chef Infra Client 14.15.6
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.15.6.mdUpdated Resources
ifconfig
The ifconfig
resource has been updated to properly support interfaces with a hyphen in their name. This is most commonly encountered with bridge interfaces that are named br-1234
. Additionally, the ifconfig
resource now supports the latest ifconfig binaries found in OS releases such as Debian 10.
windows_task
The windows_task
resource now supports the Start When Available option with a new start_when_available
property. Issues that prevented the resource from being idempotent on Windows 2016 and 2019 hosts have also been resolved.
Platform Support
New Platforms
Chef Infra Client is now tested against the following platforms with packages available on downloads.chef.io:
- Ubuntu 20.04
- Ubuntu 18.04 aarch64
- Debian 10
Retired Platforms
- Chef Infra Clients packages are no longer produced for Windows 2008 R2 as this release reached its end of life on Jan 14th, 2020.
- Chef Infra Client packages are no longer produced for RHEL 6 on the s390x platform.
Security Updates
OpenSSL
OpenSSL has been updated to 1.0.2u to resolve CVE-2019-1551
Ruby
Ruby has been updated from 2.5.7 to 2.5.8 to resolve the following CVEs:
- CVE-2020-16255: Unsafe Object Creation Vulnerability in JSON (Additional fix)
- CVE-2020-10933: Heap exposure vulnerability in the socket library
Chef Infra Client 14.14.29
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.14.29.mdBug Fixes
- Fixed an error with the
service
andsystemd_unit
resources which would try to re-enable services with an indirect status. - The
systemd_unit
resource now logs at the info level. - Fixed knife config when it returned a
TypeError: no implicit conversion of nil into String
error.
Security Updates
libxslt
libxslt has been updated to 1.1.34 to resolve CVE-2019-13118.
Chef Infra Client 14.14.25
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.14.25.mdBug Fixes
- Resolved a regression introduced in Chef Infra Client 14.14.14 that broke installation of gems in some scenarios
- Fixed Habitat packaging of
chef-client
artifacts - Fixed crash in knife when displaying a missing profile error message
- Fixed knife subcommand –help not working as intended for some commands
- Fixed knife ssh interactive mode exit error
- Fixed for
:day
option not accepting integer value in thewindows_task
resource - Fixed for
user
resource not handling a GID if it is specified as a string - Fixed the
ifconfig
resource to support interfaces with a-
in the name
Chef Infra Client 14.14.14
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.14.14.mdPlatform Updates
Newly Supported Platforms
The following platforms are now packaged and tested for Chef Infra Client:
- Red Hat 8
- FreeBSD 12
- macOS 10.15
- Windows 2019
- AIX 7.2
Deprecated Platforms
The following platforms have reached EOL status and are no longer packaged or tested for Chef Infra Client:
- FreeBSD 10
- macOS 10.12
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11
- Ubuntu 14.04
See Chef’s Platform End-of-Life Policy for more information on when Chef ends support for an OS release.
Updated Resources
dnf_package
The dnf_package
resource has been updated to fully support RHEL 8.
zypper_package
The zypper_package
resource has been updated to properly update packages when using the :upgrade
action.
remote_file
The remote_file
resource now properly shows download progress when the show_progress
property is set to true.
Improvements
Custom Resource Unified Mode
Chef Infra Client 14.14 introduces an exciting new way to easily write custom resources that mix built-in Chef Infra resources with Ruby code. Previously, custom resources would use Chef Infra’s standard compile and converge phases, which meant that Ruby would be evaluated first and then the resources would be converged. This often results in confusing and undesirable behavior when you are trying to mix resources with Ruby logic. Many custom resource authors would attempt to get around this by forcing resources to run at compile time so that all the code in their resource would execute during the compile phase.
An example of forcing a resource to run at compile time:
resource_name 'foo' do
action :nothing
end.run_action(:some_action)
With unified mode, you opt in to a single phase per resource where all Ruby and Chef Infra resources are executed at once. This makes it far easier to determine how your code will be evaluated and run. Additionally, you no longer need to force any resources to run at compile time, as all code is run in the compile phase. To enable this new mode just add unified_mode true
to your resources like this:
property :Some_property, String
unified_mode true
action :create do
# some code
end
New Options for installing Ruby Gems From metadata.rb
Chef Infra Client allows gems to be specified in the cookbook metadata.rb, which can be problematic in some environments. When a cookbook is running in an airgapped environment, Chef Infra Client attempts to connect to rubygems.org even if the gem is already on the system. There are now two additional configuration options that can be set in your client.rb
config:
- gem_installer_bundler_options
: This allows setting additional bundler options for the install such as –local to install from local cache. Example: ["–local", “–clean”].
- skip_gem_metadata_installation
: If set to true skip gem metadata installation if all gems are already installed.
SLES / openSUSE 15 detection
Ohai now properly detects SLES and openSUSE 15.x. Thanks for this fix @balasankarc.
Performance Improvements
We have improved the performance of Chef Infra Client by resolving bundler errors in our packaging.
Bootstrapping Chef Infra Client 15 will no fail
Knife now fails with a descriptive error message when attempting to bootstrap nodes with Chef Infra Client 15. You will need to bootstrap these nodes using Knife from Chef Infra Client 15.x. We recommend performing this bootstrap from Chef Workstation, which includes the Knife CLI in addition to other useful tools for managing your infrastructure with Chef Infra.
Security Updates
Ruby
Ruby has been updated from 2.5.5 to 2.5.7 in order to resolve the following CVEs:
openssl
openssl has been updated from 1.0.2s to 1.0.2t in order to resolve CVE-2019-1563 and CVE-2019-1547.
nokogiri
nokogiri has been updated from 1.10.2 to 1.10.4 in order to resolve CVE-2019-5477.
Chef Infra Client 14.13.11
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.13.11.mdUpdated Resources
directory
The directory
has been updated to properly set the deny_rights
permission on Windows. Thanks @merlinjim for reporting this issue.
service
The service
resource is now idempotent on SLES 11 systems. Thanks @gsingla294 for reporting this issue.
cron
The cron
resource has been updated to advise users to use the specify properties rather than passing values in as part of the environment
property. This avoids a situation where a user could pass the differing values in both locations and receive unexpected results.
link
The link
resource includes improved logging upon failure to help you debug what has failed. Thanks @jaymzh for this improvement.
template
The template
resource now includes additional information when templating failures, which is particularly useful in ChefSpec. Thanks @brodock for this improvement.
delete_resource Fix
The delete_resource
helper now works properly when the resource you are attempting to delete has multiple providers. Thanks @artem-sidorenko for this fix.
Helpers Help Everywhere
Various helpers have been moved into Chef Infra Client’s universal
class, which makes them available anywhere in your cookbook, not just recipes. If you’ve ever been confused why something like search
, powershell_out
, or data_bag_item
didn’t work somewhere in your code, that should be resolved now.
Deprecations
The CHEF-25
deprecation for resource collisions between cookbooks and resources in Chef Infra Client has been removed. Instead you will see a log warning that a collision has occurred, which advises you to update your run_list or cookbooks.
Updated Components
- openssl 1.0.2r -> 1.0.2s (bugfix only release)
- cacerts 2019-01-23 -> 2019-05-15
Chef Infra Client 14.12.9
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.12.9.mdLicense Acceptance Placeholder Flag
In preparation for Chef Infra Client 15.0 we’ve added a placeholder --chef-license
flag to the chef-client command. This allows you to use the new --chef-license
flag on both Chef Infra Client 14.12.9+ and 15+ notes without producing errors on Chef Infra Client 14.
Important Bug Fixes
- Blacklisting and whitelisting default and override level attributes is once again possible.
- You may now encrypt a previously unencrypted data bag.
- Resolved a regression introduced in Chef Infra Client 14.12.3 that resulted in errors when managing Windows services
Chef Infra Client 14.12.3
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.12.3.mdUpdated Resources
windows_service
The windows_service resource no longer resets credentials on a service when using the :start action without the :configure action. Thanks @jasonwbarnett for fixing this.
windows_certificate
The windows_certificate resource now imports nested certificates while importing P7B certs.
Updated Components
- nokogiri 1.10.1 -> 1.10.2
- ruby 2.5.3 -> 2.5.5
- InSpec 3.7.1 -> 3.9.0
- The unused windows-api gem is no longer bundled with Chef on Windows hosts
Chef Infra Client 14.11.21
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.11.21.mdUpdated Resources
chocolatey_package
The chocolatey_package resource now uses the provided options to fetch information on available packages, which allows installation packages from private sources. Thanks @astoltz for reporting this issue.
openssl_dhparam
The openssl_dhparam resource now supports updating the dhparam file’s mode on subsequent chef-client runs. Thanks @anewb for the initial work on this fix.
mount
The mount resource now properly adds a blank line between entries in fstab to prevent mount failures on AIX.
windows_certificate
The windows_certificate resource now supports importing Base64 encoded CER certificates and nested P7B certificates. Additionally, private keys in PFX certificates are now imported along with the certificate.
windows_share
The windows_share resource has improved logic to compare the desired share path vs. the current path, which prevents the resource from incorrectly converging during each Chef run. Thanks @Xorima for this fix.
windows_task
The windows_task resource now properly clears out arguments that are no longer present when updating a task. Thanks @nmcspadden for reporting this.
InSpec 3.7.1
InSpec has been updated from 3.4.1 to 3.7.1. This new release contains improvements to the plugin system, a new config file system, and improvements to multiple resources. Additionally, profile attributes have also been renamed to inputs to prevent confusion with Chef attributes, which weren’t actually related in any way.
Updated Components
- bundler 1.16.1 -> 1.17.3
- libxml2 2.9.7 -> 2.9.9
- ca-certs updated to 2019-01-22 for new roots
Security Updates
OpenSSL
OpenSSL has been updated to 1.0.2r in order to resolve CVE-2019-1559
RubyGems
RubyGems has been updated to 2.7.9 in order to resolve the following CVEs:
- CVE-2019-8320: Delete directory using symlink when decompressing tar
- CVE-2019-8321: Escape sequence injection vulnerability in verbose
- CVE-2019-8322: Escape sequence injection vulnerability in gem owner
- CVE-2019-8323: Escape sequence injection vulnerability in API response handling
- CVE-2019-8324: Installing a malicious gem may lead to arbitrary code execution
- CVE-2019-8325: Escape sequence injection vulnerability in errors
Chef Infra Client 14.10.9
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.10.9.mdUpdated Resources
windows_certificate
The windows_certificate resource is now fully idempotent and properly imports private keys. Thanks @Xorima for reporting these issues.
apt_repository
The apt_repository resource no longer creates .gpg directory in the user’s home directory owned by root when installing repository keys. Thanks @omry for reporting this issue.
git
The git resource no longer displays the URL of the repository if the sensitive
property is set.
InSpec 3.4.1
InSpec has been updated from 3.2.6 to 3.4.1. This new release adds new aws_billing_report
/ aws_billing_reports
resources, resolves multiple bugs, and includes tons of under the hood improvements.
New Deprecations
knife cookbook site
Since Chef Infra Client 13, knife cookbook site
has actually called the knife supermarket
command under the hood. In Chef Infra Client 16 (April 2020), we will remove the knife cookbook site
command in favor of knife supermarket
.
Audit Mode
Chef Infra Client’s Audit mode was introduced in 2015 as a beta that needed to be enabled via client.rb. Its functionality has been superseded by InSpec and we will be removing this beta feature in Chef Infra Client 15 (April 2019).
Cookbook Shadowing
Cookbook shadowing was deprecated in 0.10 and will be removed in Chef Infra Client 15 (April 2019). Cookbook shadowing allowed combining cookbooks within a mono-repo, so long as the cookbooks in question had the same name and were present in both the cookbooks directory and the site-cookbooks directory.
Chef Infra Client 14.9.13
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.9.13.mdUpdated Resources
group
On Windows hosts, the group resource now supports setting the comment field via a new comment
property.
homebrew_cask
Two issues, which caused homebrew_cask to converge on each Chef Infra Client run, have been resolved. Thanks @jeroenj for this fix. Additionally, the resource will no longer fail if the cask_name
property is specified.
homebrew_tap
The homebrew_tap resource no longer fails if the tap_name
property is specified.
openssl_x509_request
The openssl_x509_request resource now properly writes out the CSR file if the path
property is specified. Thank you @cpjones for reporting this issue.
powershell_package_source
powershell_package_source now suppresses warnings, which prevented properly loading the resource state, and resolves idempotency issues when both the name
and source_name
properties were specified. Thanks @Happycoil for this fix.
sysctl
The sysctl resource now allows slashes in the key or block name. This allows keys such as net/ipv4/conf/ens256.401/rp_filter
to be used with this resource.
windows_ad_join
Errors joining the domain are now properly suppressed from the console and logs if the sensitive
property is set to true. Thanks @Happycoil for this improvement.
windows_certificate
The delete action now longer fails if a certificate does not exist on the system. Additionally, certificates with special characters in their passwords will no longer fail. Thank you for reporting this @chadmccune.
windows_printer
The windows_printer resource no longer fails when creating or deleting a printer if the device_id
property is specified.
windows_task
Non-system users can now run tasks without a password being specified.
Minimal Ohai Improvements
The ohai init_package
plugin is now included as part of the minimal_ohai
plugins set, which allows resources such as timezone to continue to function if Chef is running with the minimal number of ohai plugins.
Ruby 2.6 Support
Chef Infra Client 14.9 now supports Ruby 2.6.
InSpec 3.2.6
InSpec has been updated from 3.0.64 to 3.2.6 with improved resources for auditing. See the InSpec changelog for additional details on this new version.
powershell_exec Runtimes Bundled
The necessary VC++ runtimes for the powershell_exec helper are now bundled with Chef Infra Client to prevent failures on hosts that lacked the runtimes.
Chef Infra Client 14.8.12
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.8.12.mdUpdated Resources
apt_package
The apt_package resource now supports using the allow_downgrade
property to enable downgrading of packages on a node in order to meet a specified version. Thank you @whiteley for requesting this enhancement.
apt_repository
An issue was resolved in the apt_repository resource that caused the resource to fail when importing GPG keys on newer Debian releases. Thank you @EugenMayer for this fix.
dnf_package / yum_package
Initial support has been added for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8. Thank you @pixdrift for this fix.
gem_package
gem_package now supports installing gems into Ruby 2.6 or later installations.
windows_ad_join
windows_ad_join now uses the UPN format for usernames, which prevents some failures authenticating to the domain.
windows_certificate
An issue was resolved in the :acl_add action of the windows_certificate resource, which caused the resource to fail. Thank you @shoekstra for reporting this issue.
windows_feature
The windows_feature resource now allows for the installation of DISM features that have been fully removed from a system. Thank you @zanecodes for requesting this enhancement.
windows_share
Multiple issues were resolved in windows_share, which caused the resource to either fail or update the share state on every Chef Infra Client run. Thank you @chadmccune for reporting several of these issues and @derekgroh for one of the fixes.
windows_task
A regression was resolved that prevented ChefSpec from testing the windows_task resource in Chef Infra Client 14.7. Thank you @jjustice6 for reporting this issue.
Ohai 14.8
Improved Virtualization Detection
Hyper-V Hypervisor Detection
Detection of Linux guests running on Hyper-V has been improved. In addition, Linux guests on Hyper-V hypervisors will also now detect their hypervisor’s hostname. Thank you @safematix for contributing this enhancement.
Example node['virtualization']
data:
{
"systems": {
"hyperv": "guest"
},
"system": "hyperv",
"role": "guest",
"hypervisor_host": "hyper_v.example.com"
}
LXC / LXD Detection
On Linux systems running lxc or lxd containers, the lxc/lxd virtualization system will now properly populate the node['virtualization']['systems']
attribute.
BSD Hypervisor Detection
BSD-based systems can now detect guests running on KVM and Amazon’s hypervisor without the need for the dmidecode package.
New Platform Support
- Ohai now properly detects the openSUSE 15.X platform. Thank you @megamorf for reporting this issue.
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop now identified as platform_family ‘suse’
- XCP-NG is now identified as platform ‘xcp’ and platform_family ‘rhel’. Thank you @heyjodom for submitting this enhancement.
- Mangeia Linux is now identified as platform ‘mangeia’ and platform_family ‘mandriva’
- Antergos Linux now identified as platform_family ‘arch’
- Manjaro Linux now identified as platform_family ‘arch’
Security Updates
OpenSSL
OpenSSL has been updated to 1.0.2q in order to resolve:
- Microarchitecture timing vulnerability in ECC scalar multiplication CVE-2018-5407
- Timing vulnerability in DSA signature generation (CVE-2018-0734)
Chef Infra Client 14.7.17
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.7.17.mdNew Resources
windows_firewall_rule
Use the windows_firewall_rule
resource create or delete Windows Firewall rules.
See the windows_firewall_rule documentation for more information.
Thank you Schuberg Philis for transferring us the windows_firewall cookbook and to @Happycoil for porting it to chef-client with a significant refactoring.
windows_share
Use the windows_share
resource create or delete Windows file shares.
See the windows_share documentation for more information.
windows_certificate
Use the windows_certificate
resource add, remove, or verify certificates in the system or user certificate stores.
See the windows_certificate documentation for more information.
Updated Resources
dmg_package
The dmg_package resource has been refactored to improve idempotency and properly support accepting a DMG’s EULA with the accept_eula
property.
kernel_module
Kernel_module now only runs the initramfs
update once per Chef run to greatly speed up chef-client runs when multiple kernel_module resources are used. Thank you @tomdoherty for this improvement.
mount
The supports
property once again allows passing supports data as an array. This matches the behavior present in Chef Infra Client 12.
timezone
macOS support has been added to the timezone resource.
windows_task
A regression in Chef Infra Client 14.6’s windows_task resource which resulted in tasks being created with the “Run only when user is logged on” option being set when created with a specific user other than SYSTEM, has been resolved.
Chef Infra Client 14.6.47
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.6.47.mdSmaller Package and Install Size
Both Chef packages and on disk installations have been greatly reduced in size by trimming unnecessary installation files. This has reduced our package size on macOS/Linux by ~50% and Windows by ~12%. With this change Chef Infra Client 14 is now smaller than a legacy Chef Infra Client 10 package.
New Resources
timezone
Chef now includes the timezone
resource from @dragonsmith’s timezone_lwrp
cookbook. This resource supports setting a Linux node’s timezone. Thank you @dragonsmith for allowing us to include this out of the box in Chef.
Example:
timezone 'UTC'
Updated Resources
windows_task
The windows_task
resource has been updated to support localized system users and groups on non-English nodes. Thanks @jugatsu for making this possible.
user
The user
resource now includes a new full_name
property for Windows hosts, which allows specifying a user’s full name.
Example:
user 'jdoe' do
full_name 'John Doe'
end
zypper_package
The zypper_package
resource now includes a new global_options
property. This property can be used to specify one or more options for the zypper command line that are global in context.
Example:
package 'sssd' do
global_options '-D /tmp/repos.d/'
end
InSpec 3.0
InSpec has been updated to version 3.0 with addition resources, exception handling, and a new plugin system. See https://blog.chef.io/2018/10/16/announcing-inspec-3-0/ for details.
macOS Mojave (10.14)
Chef is now tested against macOS Mojave, and packages are now available at downloads.chef.io.
Important Bugfixes
- Multiple bugfixes in Chef Vault have been resolved by updating chef-vault to 3.4.2
- Invalid yum package names now gracefully fail
windows_ad_join
now properly executes. Thank you @cpjones01 for reporting this.rhsm_errata_level
now properly executes. Thank you @freakinhippie for this fix.registry_key
now properly writes out the correct value whensensitive
is specified. Thank you @josh-barker for this fix.locale
now properly executes on RHEL 6 and Amazon Linux 201X.
Ohai 14.6
Filesystem Plugin on AIX and Solaris
AIX and Solaris now ship with a filesystem2 plugin that updates the filesystem data to match that of Linux, macOS, and BSD hosts. This new data structure makes accessing filesystem data in recipes easier and especially improves the layout and depth of data on ZFS filesystems. In Chef Infra Client 15 (April 2019) we will begin writing this same format of data to the existing node['filesystem']
namespace. In Chef Infra Client 16 (April 2020) we will remove the node['filesystem2']
namespace, completing the transition to the new format. Thank you @jaymzh for continuing the updates to our filesystem plugins with this change.
macOS Improvements
The system_profile plugin has been improved to skip over unnecessary data, which reduces macOS node sizes on the Chef Infra Server. Additionally the CPU plugin has been updated to limit what sysctl values it polls, which prevents hanging on some system configurations.
SLES 15 Detection
SLES 15 is now correctly detected as the platform “suse” instead of “sles”. This matches the behavior of SLES 11 and 12 hosts.
New Deprecations
system_profile Ohai plugin removal
The system_profile plugin will be removed from Chef/Ohai 15 in April 2019. This plugin does not correctly return data on modern Mac systems. Additionally the same data is provided by the hardware plugin, which has a format that is simpler to consume. Removing this plugin will reduce Ohai return by ~3 seconds and greatly reduce the size of the node object on the Chef server.
Security Updates
Ruby 2.5.3
Ruby has been updated to from 2.5.1 to 2.5.3 to resolve multiple CVEs and bugs:
Chef Infra Client 14.5.33
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.5.33.mdThis release resolves a regression that caused the windows_ad_join
resource to fail to run. It also makes the following additional fixes:
- The
ohai
resource’s unusedohai_name
property has been deprecated. This will be removed in Chef Infra Client 15.0. - Error messages in the
windows_feature
resources have been improved. - The
windows_service
resource will no longer log potentially sensitive information if thesensitive
property is used.
Thanks to @cpjones01, @kitforbes, and @dgreeninger for their help with this release.
Chef Infra Client 14.5.27
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.5.27.mdNew Resources
We’ve added new resources to Chef Infra Client 14.5. Cookbooks using these resources will continue to take precedent until the Chef Infra Client 15.0 release
windows_workgroup
Use the windows_workgroup
resource to join or change a Windows host workgroup.
See the windows_workgroup documentation for more information.
Thanks @derekgroh for contributing this new resource.
locale
Use the locale
resource to set the system’s locale.
See the locale documentation for more information.
Thanks @vincentaubert for contributing this new resource.
Updated Resources
windows_ad_join
windows_ad_join
now includes a new_hostname
property for setting the hostname for the node upon joining the domain.
Thanks @derekgroh for contributing this new property.
InSpec 2.2.102
InSpec has been updated from 2.2.70 to 2.2.102. This new version includes the following improvements:
- Support for using ERB templating within the .yml files
- HTTP basic auth support for fetching dependent profiles
- A new global attributes concept
- Better error handling with Automate reporting
- Vendor command now vendors profiles when using path://
Ohai 14.5
Windows Improvements
Detection for the root_group
attribute on Windows has been simplified and improved to properly support non-English systems. With this change, we’ve also deprecated the Ohai::Util::Win32::GroupHelper
helper, which is no longer necessary. Thanks to @jugatsu for putting this together.
We’ve also added a new encryption_status
attribute to volumes on Windows. Thanks to @kmf for suggesting this new feature.
Configuration Improvements
The timeout period for communicating with OpenStack metadata servers can now be configured with the openstack_metadata_timeout
config option. Thanks to @sawanoboly for this improvement.
Ohai now properly handles relative paths to config files when running on the command line. This means commands like ohai -c ../client.rb
will now properly use your config values.
Security updates
Rubyzip
The rubyzip gem has been updated to 1.2.2 to resolve CVE-2018-1000544
Chef Infra Client 14.4.56
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.4.56.mdKnife configuration profile management commands
Several new commands have been added under knife config
to help manage multiple
profiles in your credentials
file.
knife config get-profile
displays the active profile.
knife config use-profile PROFILE
sets the workstation-level default
profile. You can still override this setting with the --profile
command line
option or the $CHEF_PROFILE
environment variable.
knife config list-profiles
displays all your available profiles along with
summary information on each.
$ knife config get-profile
staging
$ knife config use-profile prod
Set default profile to prod
$ knife config list-profiles
Profile Client Key Server
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
staging myuser ~/.chef/user.pem https://example.com/organizations/staging
*prod myuser ~/.chef/user.pem https://example.com/organizations/prod
Thank you @coderanger for this contribution.
New Resources
The following new previous resources were added to Chef Infra Client 14.4. Cookbooks with the same resources will continue to take precedent until the Chef Infra Client 15.0 release
cron_d
Use the cron_d resource to manage cron definitions in /etc/cron.d. This is similar to the cron
resource, but it does not use the monolithic /etc/crontab
. file.
cron_access
Use the cron_access resource to manage the /etc/cron.allow
and /etc/cron.deny
files. This resource previously shipped in the cron
community cookbook and has fully backwards compatibility with the previous cron_manage
definition in that cookbook.
openssl_x509_certificate
Use the openssl_x509_certificate resource to generate signed or self-signed, PEM-formatted x509 certificates. If no existing key is specified, the resource automatically generates a passwordless key with the certificate. If a CA private key and certificate are provided, the certificate will be signed with them. This resource previously shipped in the openssl
cookbook as openssl_x509
and is fully backwards compatible with the legacy resource name.
Thank you @juju482 for updating this resource!
openssl_x509_request
Use the openssl_x509_request resource to generate PEM-formatted x509 certificates requests. If no existing key is specified, the resource automatically generates a passwordless key with the certificate.
Thank you @juju482 for contributing this resource.
openssl_x509_crl
Use the openssl_x509_crll resource to generate PEM-formatted x509 certificate revocation list (CRL) files.
Thank you @juju482 for contributing this resource.
openssl_ec_private_key
Use the openssl_ec_private_key resource to generate ec private key files. If a valid ec key file can be opened at the specified location, no new file will be created.
Thank you @juju482 for contributing this resource.
openssl_ec_public_key
Use the openssl_ec_public_key resource to generate ec public key files given a private key.
Thank you @juju482 for contributing this resource.
Resource improvements
windows_package
The windows_package resource now supports setting the sensitive
property to avoid showing errors if a package install fails.
sysctl
The sysctl resource will now update the on-disk sysctl.d
file even if the current sysctl value matches the desired value.
windows_task
The windows_task resource now supports setting the task priority of the scheduled task with a new priority
property. Additionally windows_task now supports managing the behavior of task execution when a system is on battery using new disallow_start_if_on_batteries
and stop_if_going_on_batteries
properties.
ifconfig
The ifconfig resource now supports setting the interface’s VLAN via a new vlan
property on RHEL platform_family
and setting the interface’s gateway via a new gateway
property on RHEL/Debian platform_family
.
Thank you @tomdoherty for this contribution.
route
The route resource now supports additional RHEL platform_family systems as well as Amazon Linux.
systemd_unit
The systemd_unit resource now supports specifying options multiple times in the content hash. Instead of setting the value to a string you can now set it to an array of strings.
Thank you @dbresson for this contribution.
Security Updates
OpenSSL
OpenSSL updated to 1.0.2p to resolve:
- Client DoS due to large DH parameter (CVE-2018-0732)
- Cache timing vulnerability in RSA Key Generation (CVE-2018-0737)
Chef Infra Client 14.3.37
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.3.37.mdNew Preview Resources Concept
This release of Chef introduces the concept of Preview Resources. Preview resources behave the same as a standard resource built into Chef, except Chef will load a resource with the same name from a cookbook instead of the built-in preview resource.
What does this mean for you? It means we can introduce new resources in Chef without breaking existing behavior in your infrastructure. For instance if you have a cookbook with a resource named manage_everything
and a future version of Chef introduced a preview resource named manage_everything
you will continue to receive the resource from your cookbook. That way outside of a major release your won’t experience a potentially breaking behavior change from the newly included resource.
Then when we perform our yearly major release we’ll remove the preview designation from all resources, and the built in resources will take precedence over resources with the same names in cookbooks.
New Resources
chocolatey_config
Use the chocolatey_config resource to add or remove Chocolatey configuration keys."
Actions
set
- Sets a Chocolatey config value.unset
- Unsets a Chocolatey config value.
Properties
config_key
- The name of the config. We’ll use the resource’s name if this isn’t provided.value
- The value to set.
chocolatey_source
Use the chocolatey_source resource to add or remove Chocolatey sources.
Actions
add
- Adds a Chocolatey source.remove
- Removes a Chocolatey source.
Properties
source_name
- The name of the source to add. We’ll use the resource’s name if this isn’t provided.source
- The source URL.bypass_proxy
- Whether or not to bypass the system’s proxy settings to access the source.priority
- The priority level of the source.
powershell_package_source
Use the powershell_package_source
resource to register a PowerShell package repository.
Actions
register
- Registers and updates the PowerShell package source.unregister
- Unregisters the PowerShell package source.
Properties
source_name
- The name of the package source.url
- The url to the package source.trusted
- Whether or not to trust packages from this source.provider_name
- The package management provider for the source. It supports the following providers: ‘Programs’, ‘msi’, ‘NuGet’, ‘msu’, ‘PowerShellGet’, ‘psl’ and ‘chocolatey’.publish_location
- The url where modules will be published to for this source. Only valid if the provider is ‘PowerShellGet’.script_source_location
- The url where scripts are located for this source. Only valid if the provider is ‘PowerShellGet’.script_publish_location
- The location where scripts will be published to for this source. Only valid if the provider is ‘PowerShellGet’.
kernel_module
Use the kernel_module resource to manage kernel modules on Linux systems. This resource can load, unload, blacklist, install, and uninstall modules.
Actions
install
- Load kernel module, and ensure it loads on reboot.uninstall
- Unload a kernel module and remove module config, so it doesn’t load on reboot.blacklist
- Blacklist a kernel module.load
- Load a kernel module.unload
- Unload kernel module
Properties
modname
- The name of the kernel module.load_dir
- The directory to load modules from.unload_dir
- The modprobe.d directory.
ssh_known_hosts_entry
Use the ssh_known_hosts_entry resource to add an entry for the specified host in /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts or a user’s known hosts file if specified.
Actions
create
- Create an entry in the ssh_known_hosts file.flush
- Immediately flush the entries to the config file. Without this the actual writing of the file is delayed in the Chef run so all entries can be accumulated before writing the file out.
Properties
host
- The host to add to the known hosts file.key
- An optional key for the host. If not provided this will be automatically determined.key_type
- The type of key to store.port
- The server port that the ssh-keyscan command will use to gather the public key.timeout
- The timeout in seconds for ssh-keyscan.mode
- The file mode for the ssh_known_hosts file.owner
- The file owner for the ssh_known_hosts file.group
- The file group for the ssh_known_hosts file.hash_entries
- Hash the hostname and addresses in the ssh_known_hosts file for privacy.file_location
- The location of the ssh known hosts file. Change this to set a known host file for a particular user.
New knife config get
command
The knife config get
command has been added to help with debugging configuration issues with knife
and other tools that use the knife.rb
file.
With no arguments, it will display all options you’ve set:
$ knife config get
Loading from configuration file /Users/.../.chef/knife.rb
chef_server_url: https://...
client_key: /Users/.../.chef/user.pem
config_file: /Users/.../.chef/knife.rb
log_level: warn
log_location: STDERR
node_name: ...
validation_key:
You can also pass specific keys to only display those knife config get node_name client_key
, or use --all
to display everything (including options that are using the default value).
Simplification of shell_out
APIs
The following helper methods have been deprecated in favor of the single shell_out helper:
shell_out_with_systems_locale
shell_out_with_timeout
shell_out_compact
shell_out_compact_timeout
shell_out_with_systems_locale!
shell_out_with_timeout!
shell_out_compact!
shell_out_compact_timeout!
The functionality of shell_out_with_systems_locale
has been implemented using the default_env: false
option that removes the PATH and locale mangling that has been the default behavior of shell_out
.
The functionality of shell_out_compact
has been folded into shell_out
. The shell_out
API when called with varargs has its arguments flatted, compacted and coerced to strings. This style of calling is encouraged over using strings and building up commands using join(" ")
since it avoids shell interpolation and edge conditions in the construction of spaces between arguments. The varargs form is still not supported on Windows.
The functionality of shell_out*timeout
has also been folded into shell_out
. Users writing Custom Resources should be explicit for Chef-14: shell_out!("whatever", timeout: new_resource.timeout)
which will become automatic in Chef-15.
Silencing deprecation warnings
While deprecation warnings have been great for the Chef community to ensure cookbooks are kept up-to-date and to prepare for major version upgrades, sometimes you just can’t fix a deprecation right now. This is often compounded by the recommendation to enable treat_deprecation_warnings_as_errors
mode in your Test Kitchen integration tests, which doesn’t understand the difference between deprecations from community cookbooks and those from your own code.
Two new options are provided for silencing deprecation warnings: silence_deprecation_warnings
and inline chef:silence_deprecation
comments.
The silence_deprecation_warnings
configuration value can be set in your client.rb
or solo.rb
config file, either to true
to silence all deprecation warnings or to an array of deprecations to silence. You can specify which to silence either by the deprecation key name (e.g. "internal_api"
), the numeric deprecation ID (e.g. 25
or "CHEF-25"
), or by specifying the filename and line number where the deprecation is being raised from (e.g. "default.rb:67"
).
An example of setting the silence_deprecation_warnings
option in your client.rb
or solo.rb
:
silence_deprecation_warnings %w{deploy_resource chef-23 recipes/install.rb:22}
or in your kitchen.yml
:
provisioner:
name: chef_solo
solo_rb:
treat_deprecation_warnings_as_errors: true
silence_deprecation_warnings:
- deploy_resource
- chef-23
- recipes/install.rb:22
You can also silence deprecations using a comment on the line that is raising the warning:
erl_call 'something' do # chef:silence_deprecation
We advise caution in the use of this feature, as excessive or prolonged silencing can lead to difficulty upgrading when the next major release of Chef comes out.
Misc Windows improvements
- A new
skip_publisher_check
property has been added to thepowershell_package
resource windows_feature_powershell
now supports Windows 2008 R2- The
mount
resource now supports themount_point
property on Windows windows_feature_dism
no longer errors when specifying the source- Resolved idempotency issues in the
windows_task
resource and prevented setting up a task with bad credentials windows_service
no longer throws Ruby deprecation warnings
Newly Introduced Deprecations
CHEF-26: Deprecation of old shell_out APIs
As noted above, this release of Chef unifies our shell_out helpers into just shell_out and shell_out!. Previous helpers are now deprecated and will be removed in Chef Infra Client 15.
See CHEF-26 Deprecation Page for details.
Legacy FreeBSD pkg provider
Chef Infra Client 15 will remove support for the legacy FreeBSD pkg format. We will continue to support the pkgng format introduced in FreeBSD 10.
Chef Infra Client 14.2.0
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.2.0.mdssh-agent
support for user keys
You can now use ssh-agent
to hold your user key when using knife. This allows storing your user key in an encrypted form as well as using ssh -A
agent forwarding for running knife commands from remote devices.
You can enable this by adding ssh_agent_signing true
to your knife.rb
or ssh_agent_signing = true
in your credentials
file.
To encrypt your existing user key, you can use OpenSSL:
( openssl rsa -in user.pem -pubout && openssl rsa -in user.pem -aes256 ) > user_enc.pem
chmod 600 user_enc.pem
This will prompt you for a passphrase for to use to encrypt the key. You can then load the key into your ssh-agent
by running ssh-add user_enc.pem
. Make sure you add the ssh_agent_signing
to your configuration, and update your client_key
to point at the new, encrypted key (and once you’ve verified things are working, remember to delete your unencrypted key file).
default_env Property in Execute Resource
The shell_out helper has been extended with a new option default_env
to allow disabling Chef from modifying PATH and LOCALE environmental variables as it shells out. This new option defaults to true (modify the env), preserving the previous behavior of the helper.
The execute resource has also been updated with a new property default_env
that allows utilizing this the ENV sanity functionality in shell_out. The new property defaults to false, but it can be set to true in order to ensure a sane PATH and LOCALE when shelling out. If you find that binaries cannot be found when using the execute resource, default_env
set to true may resolve those issues.
Small Size on Disk
Chef now bundles the inspec-core and train-core gems, which omit many cloud dependencies not needed within the Chef client. This change reduces the install size of a typical system by ~22% and the number of files within that installation by ~20% compared to Chef Infra Client 14.1. Enjoy the extra disk space.
Virtualization detection on AWS
Ohai now detects the virtualization hypervisor amazonec2
when running on Amazon’s new C5/M5 instances.
Chef Infra Client 14.1.12
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.1.12.mdThis release resolves a number of regressions in 14.1.1:
git
resource: don’t use--prune-tags
as it’s really new.rhsm_repo
resource: now worksapt_repository
resource: use therepo_name
property to name fileswindows_task
resource: properly handle commands with argumentswindows_task
resource: handle creating tasks as the SYSTEM userremote_directory
resource: restore the default for theoverwrite
property
Ohai 14.1.3
- Properly detect FIPS environments
shard
plugin: work in FIPS compliant environmentsfilesystem
plugin: Handle BSD platforms
Chef Infra Client 14.1.1
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.1.1.mdWindows Task
The windows_task
resource has been entirely rewritten. This resolves a large number of bugs, including being able to correctly set the start time of tasks, proper creation and deletion of tasks, and improves Chef’s validation of tasks. The rewrite will also solve the idempotency problems that users have reported.
build_essential
The build_essential
resource no longer requires a name, similar to the apt_update
resource.
Ignore Failure
The ignore_failure
property takes a new argument, :quiet
, to suppress the error output when the resource does in fact fail.
This release of Chef Infra Client 14 resolves a number of regressions in 14.0
- On Windows, the installer now correctly re-extracts files during repair mode
- Fix a number of issues relating to use with Red Hat Satellite
- Git fetch now prunes remotes before running
- Fix locking and unlocking packages with apt and zypper
- Ensure we don’t request every remote file when running with lazy loading enabled
- The sysctl resource correctly handles missing keys when used with
ignore_error
- –recipe-url apparently never worked on Windows. Now it does.
Security Updates
ffi Gem
- CVE-2018-1000201: DLL loading issue which can be hijacked on Windows OS
Ohai 14.1
Configurable DMI Whitelist
The whitelist of DMI IDs is now user configurable using the additional_dmi_ids
configuration setting, which takes an Array.
Shard plugin
The Shard plugin has been returned to a default plugin rather than an optional one. To ensure we work in FIPS environments, the plugin will use SHA256 rather than MD5 in those environments.
SCSI plugin
A new plugin to enumerate SCSI devices has been added. This plugin is optional.
Platform Additions
Chef Infra Client packages are now produced for Ubuntu 18.04 and Debian 9 platforms.
Chef Infra Client 14.0.202
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.0.202.mdThis release of Chef Infra Client 14 resolves several regressions in the Chef Infra Client 14.0 release.
- Resources contained in cookbooks would be used instead of built-in Chef Infra Client resources causing older resources to run
- Resources failed due to a missing
property_is_set?
andresources
methods yum_package
changed the order ofdisablerepo
andenablerepo
options- Depsolving large numbers of cookbooks with chef zero/local took a very long time
Chef Infra Client 14.0.190
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/14.0.190.mdNew Resources
Chef Infra Client 14 includes a large number of resources ported from community cookbooks. These resources have been tested, improved, and had their functionality expanded. With these new resources in the Chef Infra Client itself, the need for external cookbook dependencies and dependency management has been greatly reduced.
build_essential
Use the build_essential
resource to install packages required for compiling C software from source. This resource was ported from the build-essential
community cookbook.
Note
: This resource no longer configures msys2 on Windows systems.
chef_handler
Use the chef_handler
resource to install or uninstall Chef reporting/exception handlers. This resource was ported from the chef_handler
community cookbook.
dmg_package
Use the dmg_package
resource to install a dmg ‘package’. The resource will retrieve the dmg file from a remote URL, mount it using hdiutil, copy the application (.app directory) to the specified destination (/Applications), and detach the image using hdiutil. The dmg file will be stored in the Chef::Config[:file_cache_path]. This resource was ported from the dmg
community cookbook.
homebrew_cask
Use the homebrew_cask
resource to install binaries distributed via the Homebrew package manager. This resource was ported from the homebrew
community cookbook.
homebrew_tap
Use the homebrew_tap
resource to add additional formula repositories to the Homebrew package manager. This resource was ported from the homebrew
community cookbook.
hostname
Use the hostname
resource to set the system’s hostname, configure hostname and hosts config file, and re-run the Ohai hostname plugin so the hostname will be available in subsequent cookbooks. This resource was ported from the chef_hostname
community cookbook.
macos_userdefaults
Use the macos_userdefaults
resource to manage the macOS user defaults system. The properties of this resource are passed to the defaults command, and the parameters follow the convention of that command. See the defaults(1) man page for details on how the tool works. This resource was ported from the mac_os_x
community cookbook.
ohai_hint
Use the ohai_hint
resource to pass hint data to Ohai to aid in configuration detection. This resource was ported from the ohai
community cookbook.
openssl_dhparam
Use the openssl_dhparam
resource to generate dhparam.pem files. If a valid dhparam.pem file is found at the specified location, no new file will be created. If a file is found at the specified location but it is not a valid dhparam file, it will be overwritten. This resource was ported from the openssl
community cookbook.
openssl_rsa_private_key
Use the openssl_rsa_private_key
resource to generate RSA private key files. If a valid RSA key file can be opened at the specified location, no new file will be created. If the RSA key file cannot be opened, either because it does not exist or because the password to the RSA key file does not match the password in the recipe, it will be overwritten. This resource was ported from the openssl
community cookbook.
openssl_rsa_public_key
Use the openssl_rsa_public_key
resource to generate RSA public key files given a RSA private key. This resource was ported from the openssl
community cookbook.
rhsm_errata
Use the rhsm_errata
resource to install packages associated with a given Red Hat Subscription Manager Errata ID. This is helpful if packages to mitigate a single vulnerability must be installed on your hosts. This resource was ported from the redhat_subscription_manager
community cookbook.
rhsm_errata_level
Use the rhsm_errata_level
resource to install all packages of a specified errata level from the Red Hat Subscription Manager. For example, you can ensure that all packages associated with errata marked at a ‘Critical’ security level are installed. This resource was ported from the redhat_subscription_manager
community cookbook.
rhsm_register
Use the rhsm_register
resource to register a node with the Red Hat Subscription Manager or a local Red Hat Satellite server. This resource was ported from the redhat_subscription_manager
community cookbook.
rhsm_repo
Use the rhsm_repo
resource to enable or disable Red Hat Subscription Manager repositories that are made available via attached subscriptions. This resource was ported from the redhat_subscription_manager
community cookbook.
rhsm_subscription
Use the rhsm_subscription
resource to add or remove Red Hat Subscription Manager subscriptions for your host. This can be used when a host’s activation_key does not attach all necessary subscriptions to your host. This resource was ported from the redhat_subscription_manager
community cookbook.
sudo
Use the sudo
resource to add or remove individual sudo entries using sudoers.d
files. Sudo version 1.7.2 or newer is required to use the sudo resource, as it relies on the #includedir
directive introduced in version 1.7.2. This resource does not enforce installation of the required sudo version. Supported releases of Ubuntu, Debian, SuSE, and RHEL (6+) all support this feature. This resource was ported from the sudo
community cookbook.
swap_file
Use the swap_file
resource to create or delete swap files on Linux systems, and optionally to manage the swappiness configuration for a host. This resource was ported from the swap
community cookbook.
sysctl
Use the sysctl
resource to set or remove kernel parameters using the sysctl command line tool and configuration files in the system’s sysctl.d
directory. Configuration files managed by this resource are named 99-chef-KEYNAME.conf. If an existing value was already set for the value it will be backed up to the node and restored if the :remove action is used later. This resource was ported from the sysctl
community cookbook.
Note
: This resource no longer backs up existing key values to the node when changing values as we have done in the sysctl cookbook previously. The resource has also been renamed from sysctl_param
to sysctl
with backwards compatibility for the previous name.
windows_ad_join
Use the windows_ad_join
resource to join a Windows Active Directory domain and reboot the node. This resource is based on the win_ad_client
resource in the win_ad
community cookbook, but is not backwards compatible with that resource.
windows_auto_run
Use the windows_auto_run
resource to set applications to run at logon. This resource was ported from the windows
community cookbook.
windows_feature
Use the windows_feature
resource to add, remove or delete Windows features and roles. This resource calls the windows_feature_dism
or windows_feature_powershell
resources depending on the specified installation method and defaults to dism, which is available on both Workstation and Server editions of Windows. This resource was ported from the windows
community cookbook.
Note
: These resources received significant refactoring in the 4.0 version of the windows cookbook (March 2018). windows_feature resources now fail if the installation of invalid features is requested and support for installation via server servermanagercmd.exe
has been removed. If you are using a windows cookbook version less than 4.0 you may need to update cookbooks for Chef Infra Client 14.
windows_font
Use the windows_font
resource to install or remove font files on Windows. By default, the font is sourced from the cookbook using the resource, but a URI source can be specified as well. This resource was ported from the windows
community cookbook.
windows_printer
Use the windows_printer
resource to setup Windows printers. Note that this doesn’t currently install a printer driver. You must already have the driver installed on the system. This resource was ported from the windows
community cookbook.
windows_printer_port
Use the windows_printer_port
resource to create and delete TCP/IPv4 printer ports on Windows. This resource was ported from the windows
community cookbook.
windows_shortcut
Use the windows_shortcut
resource to create shortcut files on Windows. This resource was ported from the windows
community cookbook.
windows_workgroup
Use the windows_workgroup
resource to join a Windows Workgroup and reboot the node. This resource is based on the windows_ad_join
resource.
Custom Resource Improvements
We’ve expanded the Chef Language for custom resources with new functionality to better document your resources and help users with errors and upgrades. Many resources in Chef itself are now using this new functionality, and you’ll see more updated to take advantage of this it in the future.
Deprecations in Cookbook Resources
Chef Infra Client 14 provides new primitives that allow you to deprecate resources or properties with the same functionality used for deprecations in Chef Infra Client resources. This allows you make breaking changes to enterprise or community cookbooks with friendly notifications to downstream cookbook consumers directly in the Chef run.
Deprecate the foo_bar resource in a cookbook:
deprecated "The foo_bar resource has been deprecated and will be removed in the next major release of this cookbook scheduled for 12/25/2018!"
property :thing, String, name_property: true
action :create do
# you'd probably have some actual chef code here
end
Deprecate the thing2 property in a resource
property :thing2, String, deprecated: 'The thing2 property has been deprecated and will be removed in the next major release of this cookbook scheduled for 12/25/2018!'
Rename a property with a deprecation warning for users of the old property name
deprecated_property_alias 'thing2', 'the_second_thing', 'The thing2 property was renamed the_second_thing in the 2.0 release of this cookbook. Please update your cookbooks to use the new property name.'
Platform Deprecations
Chef Infra Client packages are no longer produced for OS X 10.10 in accordance with Chef’s EOL policy.
validation_message
Validation messages allow you give the user a friendly error message when any validation on a property fails.
Provide a friendly message when a regex fails:
property :repo_name, String, regex: [/^[^\/]+$/], validation_message: "The repo_name property cannot contain a forward slash '/'",
Resource Documentation
You can now include documentation that describes how a resource is to be used. Expect this data to be consumed by Chef and other tooling in future releases.
A resource which includes description and introduced values in the resource, actions, and properties:
description 'The apparmor_policy resource is used to add or remove policy files from a cookbook file'
introduced '14.1'
property :source_cookbook, String,
description: 'The cookbook to source the policy file from'
property :source_filename, String,
description: 'The name of the source file if it differs from the apparmor.d file being created'
action :add do
description 'Adds an apparmor policy'
# you'd probably have some actual chef code here
end
Improved Resources
Many existing resources now include new actions and properties that expand their functionality.
apt_package
apt_package
includes a new overwrite_config_files
property. Setting this new property to true is equivalent to passing -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confnew"
to apt, and allows you to install packages that prompt the user to overwrite config files. Thanks @ccope for this new property.
env
The env
resource has been renamed to windows_env
as it only supports the Windows platform. Existing cookbooks using env
will continue to function, but should be updated to use the new name.
ifconfig
ifconfig
includes a new family
property for setting the network family on Debian systems. Thanks @martinisoft for this new property.
registry_key
The sensitive
property can now be used in registry_key
to suppress the output of the key’s data from logs and error messages. Thanks @shoekstra for implementing this.
powershell_package
powershell_package
includes a new source
property to allow specifying the source of the package. Thanks @Happycoil for this new property.
systemd_unit
systemd_unit
includes the following new actions:
preset
- Restore the preset enable/disable configuration for a unitrevert
- Revert to a vendor’s version of a unit filereenable
- Reenable a unit file
Thanks @nathwill for these new actions.
windows_service
windows_service
now includes actions for fully managing services on Windows, in addition to the previous actions for starting/stopping/enabling services.
create
- Create a new servicedelete
- Delete an existing serviceconfigure
- Reconfigure an existing service
Thanks @jasonwbarnett for these new actions
route
route
includes a new comment
property.
Thanks Thomas Doherty for adding this new property.
Expanded Configuration Detection
Ohai has been expanded to collect more information than ever. This should make writing cross-platform and cross cloud cookbooks simpler.
Windows Kernel information
The kernel plugin now reports the following information on Windows:
node['kernel']['product_type']
- Workstation vs. Server editions of Windowsnode['kernel']['system_type']
- What kind of hardware are we installed on (Desktop, Mobile, Workstation, Enterprise Server, etc.)node['kernel']['server_core']
- Are we on Windows Server Core edition?
Cloud Detection
Ohai now detects the Scaleway cloud and provides additional configuration information for systems running on Azure.
Virtualization / Container Detection
In addition to detecting if a system is a Docker host, we now provide a large amount of Docker configuration information available at node['docker']
. This includes the release of Docker, installed plugins, network config, and the number of running containers.
Ohai also now properly detects LXD containers and macOS guests running on VirtualBox / VMware. This data is available in node['virtualization']['systems']
.
Optional Ohai Plugins
Ohai now includes the ability to mark plugins as optional, which skips those plugins by default. This allows us to ship additional plugins, which some users may find useful, but not all users want that data collected in the node object on a Chef server. The change introduces two new configuration options; run_all_plugins
which runs everything including optional plugins, and optional_plugins
which allows you to run plugins marked as optional.
By default we will now be marking the lspci
, sessions
shard
and passwd
plugins as optional. Passwd has been particularly problematic for nodes attached to LDAP or AD where it attempts to write the entire directory’s contents to the node. If you previously disabled this plugin via Ohai config, you no longer need to. Hurray!
Other Changes
Ruby 2.5
Ruby has been updated to version 2.5 bringing a 10% performance improvement and improved functionality.
InSpec 2.0
InSpec has been updated to the 2.0 release. InSpec 2.0 brings compliance automation to the cloud, with new resource types specifically built for AWS and Azure clouds. Along with these changes are major speed improvements and quality of life updates. Please visit https://docs.chef.io/inspec/ for more information.
Policyfile Hoisting
Many users of Policyfiles rely on “hoisting” to provide group specific attributes. This approach was formalized in the poise-hoist extension, and is now included in Chef Infra Client 14.
To hoist an attribute, the user provides a default attribute structure in their Policyfile similar to:
default['staging']['myapp']['title'] = "My Staging App" default['production']['myapp']['title'] = "My App"
and then accesses the node attribute in their cookbook as:
node['myapp']['title']
The correct attribute is then provided based on the policy_group of the node, so with a policy_group of staging the attribute would contain “My Staging App”.
yum_package rewrite
yum_package received a ground up rewrite that greatly improves both the performance and functionality while also resolving a dozen existing issues. It introduces a new caching method that runs for the duration of the chef-client process. This caching method speeds up each package install and takes 1/2 the memory of the previous yum-dump.py
process.
yum_package should now take any argument that yum install
does and operate the same way, including version constraints “foo < 1.2.3” and globs “foo-1.2*” along with arches “foo.i386” and in combinations
Package with a version constraint:
yum_package "foo < 1.2.3"
Installing a package via what it provides:
yum_package "perl(Git)"
powershell_exec Mixin
Since our supported Windows platforms can all run .NET Framework 4.0 and PowerShell 4.0 we have taken time to add a new helper that will allow for faster and safer interactions with the system PowerShell. You will be able to use the powershell_exec mixin in most places where you would have previously used powershell_out. For comparison, a basic benchmark test to return the $PSVersionTable 100 times completed 7.3X faster compared to the powershell_out method. The majority of the time difference is because of less time spent in invocation. So we believe it has big future potential where multiple calls to PowerShell are required inside (for example) a custom resource. Many core Chef resources will be updated to use this new mixin in future releases.
Logging Improvements
Chef now includes a new log level of :trace
in addition to the existing :info
, :warn
, and :debug
levels. With the introduction of trace
level logging we’ve moved a large amount of logging that is more useful for Chef developers from debug
to trace
. This makes it easier for Chef Cookbook developers to use debug
level to get useful information.
Security Updates
OpenSSL
OpenSSL has been updated to 1.0.2o to resolve CVE-2018-0739
Ruby
Ruby has been updated to 2.5.1 to resolve the following vulnerabilities:
- CVE-2017-17742
- CVE-2018-6914
- CVE-2018-8777
- CVE-2018-8778
- CVE-2018-8779
- CVE-2018-8780
- Multiple vulnerabilities in rubygems
Breaking Changes
This release completes the deprecation process for many of the deprecations that were warnings throughout the Chef Infra Client 12 and Chef Infra Client 13 releases.
erl_call Resource
The erl_call resource was deprecated in Chef Infra Client 13.7 and has been removed.
deploy Resource
The deploy resource was deprecated in Chef Infra Client 13.6 and been removed. If you still require this resource, it is available in the new deploy_resource
cookbook at https://supermarket.chef.io/cookbooks/deploy_resource
Windows 2003 Support
Support for Windows 2003 has been removed from both Chef Infra Client and Ohai, improving the performance of Chef Infra Client on Windows hosts.
knife deprecations
knife bootstrap
options--distro
and--template_file
flags were deprecated in Chef Infra Client 12 and have now been removed.knife help
functionality that read legacy Chef manpages has been removed as the manpages had not been updated and were often quite wrong. Running knife help will now simply show the help menu.knife index rebuild
has been removed as reindexing Chef Infra Server was only necessary on releases prior to Chef Infra Server 11.- The
knife ssh --identity-file
flag was deprecated and has been removed. Users should use the--ssh_identity_file
flag instead. knife ssh csshx
was deprecated in Chef Infra Client 10 and has been removed. Users should useknife ssh cssh
instead.
Chef Solo -r
flag
The Chef Solo -r
flag has been removed as it was deprecated and replaced with the --recipe-url
flag in Chef Infra Client 12.
node.set and node.set_unless attribute levels removal
node.set
and node.set_unless
were deprecated in Chef Infra Client 12 and have been removed in Chef Infra Client 14. To replicate this same functionality users should use node.normal
and node.normal_unless
, although we highly recommend reading our attribute documentation to make sure normal
is in fact the your desired attribute level.
chocolatey_package :uninstall Action
The chocolatey_package
resource in the chocolatey cookbook supported an :uninstall
action. When this resource was moved into the Chef Infra Client we allowed this action with a deprecation warning. This action is now removed.
Property names not using new_resource.NAME
Previously if a user wrote a custom resource with a property named foo
they could reference it throughout the resource using the name foo
. This caused multiple edge cases where the property name could conflict with resources or methods in Chef Infra Client. Properties now must be referenced as new_resource.foo
. This was already the case when writing LWRPs.
epic_fail
The original name for the ignore_failure
property in resource was epic_fail
. The legacy name has been removed.
Legacy Mixins
Several legacy mixins mostly used in older HWRPs have been removed. Usage of these mixins has resulted in deprecation warnings for several years and they are rarely used in cookbooks available on the Supermarket.
- Chef::Mixin::LanguageIncludeAttribute
- Chef::Mixin::RecipeDefinitionDSLCore
- Chef::Mixin::LanguageIncludeRecipe
- Chef::Mixin::Language
- Chef::DSL::Recipe::FullDSL
cloud_v2 and filesystem2 Ohai Plugins
In Chef Infra Client 13 the cloud_v2
plugin replaced data at node['cloud']
and filesystem2
replaced data at node['filesystem']
. For compatibility with cookbooks that were previously using the “v2” data we continued to write data to both locations (ie: both node[‘filesystem’] and node[‘filesystem2’]). We now no longer write data to the “v2” locations which greatly reduces the amount of data we need to store on the Chef Infra Server.
Ipscopes Ohai Plugin Removed
The ipscopes plugin has been removed as it duplicated data already present in the network plugins and required the user to install an additional gem into the Chef installation.
Ohai libvirt attributes moved
The libvirt Ohai plugin now writes data to node['libvirt']
instead of writing to various locations in node['virtualization']
. This plugin required installing an additional gem into the Chef installation and thus was infrequently used.
Ohai Plugin V6 Support Removed
In 2014 we introduced Ohai v7 with a greatly improved plugin format. With Chef Infra Client 14 we no longer support loading of the legacy “v6” plugin format.
Newly-disabled Ohai Plugins
As mentioned above we now support an optional
flag for Ohai plugins and have marked the sessions
, lspci
, and passwd
plugins as optional, which disables them by default. If you need one of these plugins you can include them using optional_plugins
.
optional_plugins in the client.rb file:
optional_plugins [ "lspci", "passwd" ]
Chef Infra Client 13.12.14
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.12.14.mdBug Fixes
- The mount provider now properly adds blank lines between fstab entries on AIX
- Ohai now reports itself as Ohai well communicating with GCE metadata endpoints
- Property deprecations in custom resources no longer result in an error. Thanks for reporting this martinisoft
- mixlib-archive has been updated to prevent corruption of archives on Windows systems
Updated Components
- libxml2 2.9.7 -> 2.9.9
- ca-certs updated to 2019-01-22 for new roots
- nokogiri 1.8.5 -> 1.10.1
Security Updates
OpenSSL
OpenSSL has been updated to 1.0.2r in order to resolve CVE-2019-1559 and CVE-2018-5407
RubyGems
RubyGems has been updated to 2.7.9 in order to resolve the following CVEs:
- CVE-2019-8320: Delete directory using symlink when decompressing tar
- CVE-2019-8321: Escape sequence injection vulnerability in verbose
- CVE-2019-8322: Escape sequence injection vulnerability in gem owner
- CVE-2019-8323: Escape sequence injection vulnerability in API response handling
- CVE-2019-8324: Installing a malicious gem may lead to arbitrary code execution
- CVE-2019-8325: Escape sequence injection vulnerability in errors
Chef Infra Client 13.12.3
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.12.3.mdSmaller Package and Install Size
We trimmed unnecessary installation files, greatly reducing the sizes of both Chef Infra Client packages and on disk installations. MacOS/Linux/FreeBSD packages are ~50% smaller and Windows are ~12% smaller. Chef Infra Client 13 is now smaller than a legacy Chef Infra Client 10 package.
macOS Mojave (10.14)
Chef Infra Client is now tested against macOS Mojave and packages are now available at downloads.chef.io.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15
- Ohai now properly detects SLES 15
- The Chef package will no longer remove symlinks to chef-client and ohai when upgrading on SLES 15
Updated Chef-Vault
Updating chef-vault to 3.4.2 resolved multiple bugs.
Faster Windows Installations
Improved Windows installation speed by skipping unnecessary steps when Windows Installer 5.0 or later is available.
Ohai 13.12
macOS Improvements
- sysctl commands have been modified to gather only the bare minimum required data, which prevents sysctl hanging in some scenarios
- Extra data has been removed from the system_profile plugin, reducing the amount of data stored on the chef-server for each node
New Deprecations
system_profile Ohai plugin removal
The system_profile
plugin will be removed from Chef Infra Client/Ohai 15 in April, 2019. This plugin incorrectly returns data on modern Mac systems. Further, the hardware plugin returns the same data in a more readily consumable format. Removing this plugin reduces the speed of the Ohai return by ~3 seconds and also greatly reduces the node object size on the Chef Infra Server
ohai_name property in ohai resource
The ohai
resource’s unused ohai_name
property has been deprecated. This will be removed in Chef Infra Client 15.0.
Security Updates
Ruby 2.4.5
Ruby has been updated to from 2.4.4 to 2.4.5 to resolve multiple CVEs as well as bugs:
Chef Infra Client 13.11.3
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.11.3.mdSensitive Properties on Windows
windows_service
no longer logs potentially sensitive information when a service is setupwindows_package
now respects thesensitive
property to avoid logging sensitive data in the event of a package installation failure
Other Fixes
remote_directory
now properly loads files in the root of a cookbook’sfiles
directoryosx_profile
now uses the full path the profiles CLI tool to avoid running other binaries of the same name in a users pathpackage
resources that don’t support theallow_downgrade
property will no longer failknife bootstrap windows
error messages have been improved
Security Updates
OpenSSL
- OpenSSL has been updated to 1.0.2p to resolve CVE-2018-0732 and CVE-2018-0737
Rubyzip
- Updated Rubyzip to 1.2.2 to resolve CVE-2018-1000544
Chef Infra Client 13.10.4
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.10.4.mdBug Fixes
- Don’t error if a local file does not exist when attempting to install a
windows_package
. - Resolve errors unpacking recipes from a tarball.
Chef Infra Client 13.10.0
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.10.0.mdBug Fixes
- Resolves a duplicate logging getting created when redirecting stdout
- Using –recipe-url with a local file on Windows no longer fails
- Service resource no longer throws Ruby deprecation warnings on Windows
Ohai 13.10 Improvements
- Correctly identify the platform_version on the final release of Amazon Linux 2.0
- Detect nodes with the DMI data of “OpenStack Compute” as being OpenStack nodes
Security Updates
ffi Gem
- CVE-2018-1000201: DLL loading issue which can be hijacked on Windows OS
Chef Infra Client 13.9.4
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.9.4.mdPlatform Updates
As Debian 7 is now end of life we will no longer produce Debian 7 Chef Infra Client packages.
Ifconfig on Ubuntu 18.04
Incompatibilities with Ubuntu 18.04 in the ifconfig resource have been resolved.
Ohai Updated to 13.9.1
Virtualization detection on AWS
Ohai now detects the virtualization hypervisor amazonec2
when running on Amazon’s new C5/M5 instances.
Configurable DMI Whitelist
The whitelist of DMI IDs is now user configurable using the additional_dmi_ids
configuration setting, which takes an Array.
Filesystem2 on BSD
The Filesystem2 functionality has been backported to BSD systems to provide a consistent filesystem format.
Security Updates
Ruby updated to 2.4.4
- CVE-2017-17742: HTTP response splitting in WEBrick
- CVE-2018-6914: Unintentional file and directory creation with directory traversal in tempfile and tmpdir
- CVE-2018-8777: DoS by large request in WEBrick
- CVE-2018-8778: Buffer under-read in String#unpack
- CVE-2018-8779: Unintentional socket creation by poisoned NUL byte in UNIXServer and UNIXSocket
- CVE-2018-8780: Unintentional directory traversal by poisoned NUL byte in Dir
- Multiple vulnerabilities in RubyGems
Nokogiri updated to 1.8.2
- Behavior in libxml2 has been reverted which caused CVE-2018-8048 (loofah gem), CVE-2018-3740 (sanitize gem), and CVE-2018-3741 (rails-html-sanitizer gem).
OpenSSL updated to 1.0.2o
- CVE-2018-0739: Constructed ASN.1 types with a recursive definition could exceed the stack.
Chef Infra Client 13.9.1
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.9.1.md- On Windows, the installer now correctly re-extracts files during repair mode
- The mount resource will now not create duplicate entries when the device type differs
- Ensure we don’t request every remote file when running with lazy loading enabled
- Don’t crash when getting the access rights for Windows system accounts
Custom Resource Improvements
We’ve expanded the DSL for custom resources with new functionality to better document your resources and help users with errors and upgrades. Many resources in Chef itself are now using this new functionality, and you’ll see more updated to take advantage of this it in the future.
Deprecations in Cookbook Resources
Chef Infra Client 13 provides new primitives that allow you to deprecate resources or properties with the same functionality used for deprecations in Chef Infra Client resources. This allows you make breaking changes to enterprise or community cookbooks with friendly notifications to downstream cookbook consumers directly in the Chef run.
Deprecate the foo_bar resource in a cookbook:
deprecated "The foo_bar resource has been deprecated and will be removed in the next major release of this cookbook scheduled for 12/25/2018!"
property :thing, String, name_property: true
action :create do
# you'd probably have some actual chef code here
end
Deprecate the thing2 property in a resource
property :thing2, String, deprecated: 'The thing2 property has been deprecated and will be removed in the next major release of this cookbook scheduled for 12/25/2018!'
Rename a property with a deprecation warning for users of the old property name
deprecated_property_alias 'thing2', 'the_second_thing', 'The thing2 property was renamed the_second_thing in the 2.0 release of this cookbook. Please update your cookbooks to use the new property name.'
validation_message
Validation messages allow you give the user a friendly error message when any validation on a property fails.
Provide a friendly message when a regex fails:
property :repo_name, String, regex: [/^[^\/]+$/], validation_message: "The repo_name property cannot contain a forward slash '/'",
Resource Documentation
You can now include documentation that describes how a resource is to be used. Expect this data to be consumed by Chef and other tooling in future releases.
A resource which includes description and introduced values in the resource, actions, and properties:
description 'The apparmor_policy resource is used to add or remove policy files from a cookbook file'
introduced '14.1'
property :source_cookbook, String,
description: 'The cookbook to source the policy file from'
property :source_filename, String,
description: 'The name of the source file if it differs from the apparmor.d file being created'
action :add do
description 'Adds an apparmor policy'
# you'd probably have some actual chef code here
end
Ohai Improvements
- Fix uptime parsing on AIX
- Fix Softlayer cloud detection
- Use the current Azure metadata endpoint
- Correctly detect macOS guests on VMware and VirtualBox
Platform Additions
Chef Infra Client packages are now produced for Ubuntu 18.04 and Debian 9 platforms.
Chef Infra Client 13.8.5
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.8.5.mdThis is a small bug fix release to resolve two issues we found in the 13.8 release:
- chef-client run failures due to a failure in a newer version of the FFI gem on RHEL 6.x and 7.x
- knife failures when running
knife cookbook site install
to install a deprecated cookbook that has no replacement
Chef Infra Client 13.8.3
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.8.3.md This is a small bug fix release that updates Ohai to properly detect and poll SoftLayer metadata now that SoftLayer no longer supports TLS 1.0/1.1. This update is only necessary if you’re running on Softlayer.Chef Infra Client 13.8.0
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.8.0.mdRevert attributes changes from 13.7
Per https://discourse.chef.io/t/regression-in-chef-client-13-7-16/12518/1 , there was a regression in how arrays and hashes were handled in 13.7. In 13.8, we’ve reverted to the same code as 13.6.
Continuing work on windows_task
13.8 has better validation for the idle_time
property, when using the on_idle
frequency.
Security Updates
- Updated libxml2 to 2.9.7; fixes: CVE-2017-15412
Chef Infra Client 13.7.16
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.7.16.mdThe windows_task
Resource should be better behaved
We’ve spent a considerable amount of time testing and fixing the windows_task
resource to ensure that it is properly idempotent and correct in more situations.
Credentials handling
Previously, the knife
CLI used knife.rb
or config.rb
to handle credentials. This didn’t do a great job when interacting with multiple Chef servers, leading to the need for tools like knife_block
. We’ve added support for a credentials file that can contain configuration for many Chef servers (or organizations), and we’ve made it easy to indicate which account you mean to use.
New deprecations
erl_call
Resource
We introduced erl_call
to help us to manage CouchDB servers back in the olden times of Chef. Since then, we’ve noticed that no-one uses it, and so erl_call
will be removed in Chef Infra Client 14. Foodcritic rule [FC105(http://www.foodcritic.io/#FC105) has been introduced to detect usage of erl_call.
epic_fail
The original name for the ignore_failure property in resources was epic_fail. Our documentation hasn’t referred to epic_fail for years and out of the 3500 cookbooks on the Supermarket only one uses epic_fail. In Chef Infra Client 14 we will remove the epic_fail property entirely. Foodcritic rule FC107 has been introduced to detect usage of epic_fail.
Legacy Mixins
In Chef Infra Client 14 several legacy mixins will be removed. Usage of these mixins has resulted in deprecation warnings for several years. They were traditionally used in some HWRPs, but are rarely found in code available on the Supermarket. Foodcritic rules FC097, FC098, FC099, FC100, and FC102 have been introduced to detect these mixins:
Chef::Mixin::LanguageIncludeAttribute
Chef::Mixin::RecipeDefinitionDSLCore
Chef::Mixin::LanguageIncludeRecipe
Chef::Mixin::Language
Chef::DSL::Recipe::FullDSL
:uninstall action in chocolatey_package
The chocolatey cookbook’s chocolatey_package resource originally contained an :uninstall action. When chocolatey_package was moved into core Chef we made :uninstall an alias for :remove. In Chef Infra Client 14 :uninstall will no longer be a valid action. Foodcritic rule FC103 has been introduced to detect the usage of the :uninstall action.
Bug Fixes
- Resolved a bug where knife commands that prompted on Windows would never display the prompt
- Fixed hiding of sensitive resources when converge_if_changed was used
- Fixed scenarios where services would fail to start on Solaris
Security Updates
- OpenSSL has been upgraded to 1.0.2n to resolve CVE-2017-3738, CVE-2017-3737, CVE-2017-3736, and CVE-2017-3735.
- Ruby has been upgraded to 2.4.3 to resolve CVE-2017-17405
Ohai 13.7
Network Tunnel Information
The Network plugin on Linux hosts now gathers additional information on tunnels
LsPci Plugin
The new LsPci plugin provides a node[:pci]
hash with information about the PCI bus based on lspci
. Only runs on Linux.
EC2 C5 Detection
The EC2 plugin has been updated to properly detect the new AWS hypervisor used in the C5 instance types
mdadm
The mdadm plugin has been updated to properly handle arrays with more than 10 disks and to properly handle journal and spare drives in the disk counts
Chef Infra Client 13.6.4
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.6.4.mdBug Fixes
- Resolved a regression in 13.6.0 that prevented upgrading packages on Debian/Ubuntu when the package name contained a tilde.
Security Updates
- OpenSSL has been upgraded to 1.0.2m to resolve CVE-2017-3735 and CVE-2017-3736
- RubyGems has been upgraded to 2.6.14 to resolve CVE-2017-0903
Chef Infra Client 13.6.0
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.6.0.mddeploy
Resource Is Deprecated
The deploy
resource (and its alter ego deploy_revision
) have been deprecated, to be removed in Chef Infra Client 14. This is being done because this resource is considered overcomplicated and error-prone in the modern Chef ecosystem. A compatibility cookbook will be available to help users migrate during the Chef Infra Client 14 release cycle. See the deprecation documentation for more information.
zypper_package supports package downgrades
zypper_package
now supports downgrading installed packages with the allow_downgrade
property.
InSpec updated to 1.42.3
Reserve certain Data Bag names
It’s no longer possible to create data bags named node
, role
, client
, or environment
. Existing data bags will continue to work as before.
Properly use yum on RHEL 7
If both dnf and yum were installed, in some circumstances the yum provider might choose to run dnf, which is not what we intended it to do. It now properly runs yum, all the time.
Ohai 13.6
Critical Plugins
Users can now specify a list of plugins which are critical
. Critical plugins will cause Ohai to fail if they do not run successfully (and thus cause a Chef run using Ohai to fail). The syntax for this is:
ohai.critical_plugins << :Filesystem
Filesystem now has a allow_partial_data
configuration option
The Filesystem plugin now has a allow_partial_data
configuration option. If set, the filesystem will return whatever data it can even if some commands it ran failed.
Rackspace detection on Windows
Windows nodes running on Rackspace will now properly detect themselves as running on Rackspace without a hint file.
Package data on Amazon Linux
The Packages plugin now supports gathering packages data on Amazon Linux
Deprecation updates
In Ohai 13 we replaced the filesystem and cloud plugins with the filesystem2 and cloud_v2 plugins. To maintain compatibility with users of the previous V2 plugins we write data to both locations. We had originally planned to continue writing data to both locations until Chef Infra Client 15. Instead due to the large amount of duplicate node data this introduces we are updating OHAI-11 and OHAI-12 deprecations to remove node[‘cloud_v2’] and node[‘filesystem2’] with the release of Chef Infra Client 14 in April 2018.
Chef Infra Client 13.5.3
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.5.3.md- The
mount
resource’s password property is now marked assensitive
. Passwords passed to mount won’t show up in logs. - The
windows_task
resource now correctly handlesstart_day
Previously, the resource would accept any date that was formatted correctly in the local locale, unlike the Windows cookbook and Windows itself. We now support only the MM/DD/YYYY format, in keeping with the Windows cookbook. - InSpec updated to 1.39.1.
Ohai 13.5
Correctly detect IPv6 routes ending in ::
Previously we would ignore routes that ended ::
, and now we properly detect them.
Plugin run time is now measured
Debug logs will show the length of time each plugin takes to run, making debugging of long ohai runs easier.
Chef Infra Client 13.4.24
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.4.24.md- Fix
windows_task
resource to be idempotent when specifyingstart_time
andstart_day
. - Allow specifying
gateway
in theroute
resource on RHEL and CentOS platforms. - Fix
dsc_script
resource to be idempotent with WMF 5.
Security
This release includes Ruby 2.4.2 to fix the following CVEs:
Chef Infra Client 13.4.19
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.4.19.mdSecurity release of RubyGems
Chef Infra Client 13.4 includes RubyGems 2.6.13 to fix the following CVEs:
Ifconfig provider on Red Hat now supports additional properties
It is now possible to set ETHTOOL_OPTS
, BONDING_OPTS
, MASTER
and SLAVE
properties on interfaces on Red Hat compatible systems. See https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Deployment_Guide/s1-networkscripts-interfaces.html for further information
Properties
ethtool_opts
Ruby types: String
**Platforms:*- Fedora, RHEL, Amazon Linux A string containing arguments to ethtool. The string will be wrapped in double quotes, so ensure that any needed quotes in the property are surrounded by single quotesbonding_opts
Ruby types: String
**Platforms:*- Fedora, RHEL, Amazon Linux A string containing configuration parameters for the bonding device.master
Ruby types: String
**Platforms:*- Fedora, RHEL, Amazon Linux The channel bonding interface that this interface is linked to.slave
Ruby types: String
**Platforms:*- Fedora, RHEL, Amazon Linux Whether the interface is controlled by the channel bonding interface defined bymaster
, above.
Chef Vault is now included
Chef Infra Client 13.4 now includes the chef-vault
gem, making it easier for users of chef-vault to use their encrypted items.
Windows remote_file
resource with alternate credentials
The remote_file
resource now supports the use of credentials on Windows when accessing a remote UNC path on Windows such as \\myserver\myshare\mydirectory\myfile.txt
. This allows access to the file at that path location even if the Chef client process identity does not have permission to access the file. The new properties remote_user
, remote_domain
, and remote_password
may be used to specify credentials with access to the remote file so that it may be read.
Note: This feature is mainly used for accessing files between two nodes in different domains and having different user accounts. In case the two nodes are in same domain, remote_file
resource does not need remote_user
and remote_password
specified because the user has the same access on both systems through the domain.
Properties
The following properties are new for the remote_file
resource:
remote_user
Ruby types: String
Windows only: The user name of a user with access to the remote file specified by thesource
property. Default value:nil
. The user name may optionally be specified with a domain, i.e.domain\user
oruser@my.dns.domain.com
via Universal Principal Name (UPN) format. It can also be specified without a domain simply asuser
if the domain is instead specified using theremote_domain
attribute. Note that this property is ignored ifsource
is not a UNC path. If this property is specified, theremote_password
property *must- be specified.remote_password
*Ruby types- String
Windows only: The password of the user specified by theremote_user
property. Default value:nil
. This property is mandatory ifremote_user
is specified and may only be specified ifremote_user
is specified. Thesensitive
property for this resource will automatically be set totrue
ifremote_password
is specified.remote_domain
*Ruby types- String
Windows only: The domain of the user user specified by theremote_user
property. Default value:nil
. If not specified, the user and password properties specified by theremote_user
andremote_password
properties will be used to authenticate that user against the domain in which the system hosting the UNC path specified viasource
is joined, or if that system is not joined to a domain it will authenticate the user as a local account on that system. An alternative way to specify the domain is to leave this property unspecified and specify the domain as part of theremote_user
property.
Examples
Accessing file from a (different) domain account
remote_file "E://domain_test.txt" do
source "\\\\myserver\\myshare\\mydirectory\\myfile.txt"
remote_domain "domain"
remote_user "username"
remote_password "password"
end
OR
remote_file "E://domain_test.txt" do
source "\\\\myserver\\myshare\\mydirectory\\myfile.txt"
remote_user "domain\\username"
remote_password "password"
end
Accessing file using a local account on the remote machine
remote_file "E://domain_test.txt" do
source "\\\\myserver\\myshare\\mydirectory\\myfile.txt"
remote_domain "."
remote_user "username"
remote_password "password"
end
OR
remote_file "E://domain_test.txt" do
source "\\\\myserver\\myshare\\mydirectory\\myfile.txt"
remote_user ".\\username"
remote_password "password"
end
windows_path resource
windows_path
resource has been moved to core chef from windows cookbook. Use the windows_path
resource to manage the path environment variable on Microsoft Windows.
Actions
:add
- Add an item to the system path:remove
- Remove an item from the system path
Properties
path
- Name attribute. The name of the value to add to the system path
Examples
Add Sysinternals to the system path
windows_path 'C:\Sysinternals' do
action :add
end
Remove 7-Zip from the system path
windows_path 'C:\7-Zip' do
action :remove
end
Ohai 13.4
Windows EC2 Detection
Detection of nodes running in EC2 has been greatly improved and should now detect nodes 100% of the time including nodes that have been migrated to EC2 or were built with custom AMIs.
Azure Metadata Endpoint Detection
Ohai now polls the new Azure metadata endpoint, giving us additional configuration details on nodes running in Azure
Sample data now available under azure:
{
"metadata": {
"compute": {
"location": "westus",
"name": "timtest",
"offer": "UbuntuServer",
"osType": "Linux",
"platformFaultDomain": "0",
"platformUpdateDomain": "0",
"publisher": "Canonical",
"sku": "17.04",
"version": "17.04.201706191",
"vmId": "8d523242-71cf-4dff-94c3-1bf660878743",
"vmSize": "Standard_DS1_v2"
},
"network": {
"interfaces": {
"000D3A33AF03": {
"mac": "000D3A33AF03",
"public_ipv6": [
],
"public_ipv4": [
"52.160.95.99",
"23.99.10.211"
],
"local_ipv6": [
],
"local_ipv4": [
"10.0.1.5",
"10.0.1.4",
"10.0.1.7"
]
}
},
"public_ipv4": [
"52.160.95.99",
"23.99.10.211"
],
"local_ipv4": [
"10.0.1.5",
"10.0.1.4",
"10.0.1.7"
],
"public_ipv6": [
],
"local_ipv6": [
]
}
}
}
Package Plugin Supports Arch Linux
The Packages plugin has been updated to include package information on Arch Linux systems.
Chef Infra Client 13.3.42
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.3.42.mdUnprivileged Symlink Creation on Windows
Chef can now create symlinks without privilege escalation, which allows for the creation of symlinks on Windows 10 Creator Update.
nokogiri Gem
The nokogiri gem is once again bundled with the omnibus install of Chef
zypper_package Options
It is now possible to pass additional options to the zypper in the zypper_package resource. This can be used to pass any zypper CLI option
Example
zypper_package 'foo' do
options '--user-provided'
end
windows_task Improvements
The windows_task
resource now properly allows updating the configuration of a scheduled task when using the :create
action. Additionally the previous :change
action from the windows cookbook has been aliased to :create
to provide backwards compatibility.
apt_preference Resource
The apt_preference resource has been ported from the apt cookbook. This resource allows for the creation of APT preference files controlling which packages take priority during installation.
Further information regarding apt-pinning is available via https://wiki.debian.org/AptPreferences and https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/apt/apt_preferences.5.en.html
Actions
:add
: creates a preferences file under /etc/apt/preferences.d:remove
: Removes the file, therefore unpin the package
Properties
package_name
: name attribute. The name of the packageglob
: Pin by glob() expression or regexp surrounded by /.pin
: The package version/repository to pinpin_priority
: The pinning priority aka “the highest package version wins”
Examples
Pin libmysqlclient16 to version 5.1.49-3:
apt_preference 'libmysqlclient16' do
pin 'version 5.1.49-3'
pin_priority '700'
end
Unpin libmysqlclient16:
apt_preference 'libmysqlclient16' do
action :remove
end
Pin all packages from dotdeb.org:
apt_preference 'dotdeb' do
glob '*'
pin 'origin packages.dotdeb.org'
pin_priority '700'
end
zypper_repository Resource
The zypper_repository resource allows for the creation of Zypper package repositories on SUSE Enterprise Linux and openSUSE systems. This resource maintains full compatibility with the resource in the existing zypper cookbooks
Actions
:add
- adds a repo:delete
- removes a repo
Properties
repo_name
- repository name if different from the resource name (name property)type
- the repository type. default: ‘NONE’description
- the description of the repo that will be shown inzypper repos
baseurl
- the base url of the repopath
- the relative path from thebaseurl
mirrorlist
- the url to the mirrorlist to usegpgcheck
- should we gpg check the repo (true/false). default: truegpgkey
- location of repo key to importpriority
- priority of the repo. default: 99autorefresh
- should the repository be automatically refreshed (true/false). default: truekeeppackages
- should packages be saved (true/false). default: falserefresh_cache
- should package cache be refreshed (true/false). default: trueenabled
- should this repository be enabled (true/false). default: truemode
- the file mode of the repository file. default: “0644”
Examples
Add the Apache repository for openSUSE Leap 42.2
zypper_repository 'apache' do
baseurl 'http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Apache'
path '/openSUSE_Leap_42.2'
type 'rpm-md'
priority '100'
end
Ohai 13.3
Additional Platform Support
Ohai now properly detects the F5 Big-IP platform and platform_version.
- platform: bigip
- platform_family: rhel
Chef Infra Client 13.2.20
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.2.20.mdProperly send policyfile data
When sending events back to the Chef Infra Server, we now correctly expand the run_list for nodes that use Policyfiles. This allows Automate to correctly report the node.
Reconfigure between runs when daemonized
When Chef performs a reconfigure, it re-reads the configuration files. It also re-opens its log files, which facilitates log file rotation.
Chef normally will reconfigure when sent a HUP signal. As of this release if you send a HUP signal while it is converging, the reconfigure happens at the end of the run. This is avoids potential Ruby issues when the configuration file contains additional Ruby code that is executed. While the daemon is sleeping between runs, sending a SIGHUP will still cause an immediate reconfigure.
Additionally, Chef now always performs a reconfigure after every run when daemonized.
New deprecations
Explicit property methods
https://docs.chef.io/deprecations_namespace_collisions
In Chef Infra Client 14, custom resources will no longer assume property methods are being called on new_resource
, and instead require the resource author to be explicit.
Ohai 13.2
Ohai 13.2 has been a fantastic release in terms of community involvement with new plugins, platform support, and critical bug fixes coming from community members. A huge thank you to msgarbossa, albertomurillo, jaymzh, and davide125 for their work.
New Features
Systemd Paths Plugin
A new plugin has been added to expose system and user paths from systemd-path (see https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd-path.html for details).
Linux Network, Filesystem, and Mdadm Plugin Resilience
The Network, Filesystem, and Mdadm plugins have been improved to greatly reduce failures to collect data. The Network plugin now better finds the binaries it requires for shelling out, filesystem plugin utilizes data from multiple sources, and mdadm handles arrays in bad states.
Zpool Plugin Platform Expansion
The Zpool plugin has been updated to support BSD and Linux in addition to Solaris.
RPM version parsing on AIX
The packages plugin now correctly parses RPM package name / version information on AIX systems.
Additional Platform Support
Ohai now properly detects the Clear and ClearOS Linux distributions.
Clear Linux
- platform: clearlinux
- platform_family: clearlinux
ClearOS
- platform: clearos
- platform_family: rhel
New Deprecations
Removal of IpScopes plugin. (OHAI-13)
https://docs.chef.io/deprecations_ohai_ipscopes
In Chef/Ohai 14 (April 2018) we will remove the IpScopes plugin. The data returned by this plugin is nearly identical to information already returned by individual network plugins and this plugin required the installation of an additional gem into the Chef installation. We believe that few users were installing the gem and users would be better served by the data returned from the network plugins.
Chef Infra Client 13.1.31
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.1.31.mdSocketless local mode by default
For security reasons we are switching Local Mode to use socketless connections by default. This prevents potential attacks where an unprivileged user or process connects to the internal Zero server for the converge and changes data.
If you use Chef Provisioning with Local Mode, you may need to pass --listen
to chef-client
.
New Deprecations
Removal of support for Ohai version 6 plugins (OHAI-10)
https://docs.chef.io/deprecations_ohai_v6_plugins
In Chef/Ohai 14 (April 2018) we will remove support for loading Ohai v6 plugins, which we deprecated in Ohai 7/Chef Infra Client 11.12.
Chef Infra Client 13.0.118
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.0.118.mdBug Fixes
- Resolve a regression that prevented installing gems on Windows in 13.0.113.
- Resolve a regression that prevented passing
options
to theyum_package
resource in 13.0.113. - Resolved a regression that made cookbooks uploaded from Chef Infra Client 13.0.113 incompatible with early Chef Infra Client releases.
- Fixed detection failures in the Ohai OpenStack and Eucalyptus plugins.
Chef Infra Client 13.0.113
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/13.0.113.mdIt is now possible to blacklist node attributes
Blacklist Attributes
Warning
When attribute blacklist settings are used, any attribute defined in a
blacklist will not be saved and any attribute that is not defined in a
blacklist will be saved. Each attribute type is blacklisted
independently of the other attribute types. For example, if
automatic_attribute_blacklist
defines attributes that will not be
saved, but normal_attribute_blacklist
, default_attribute_blacklist
,
and override_attribute_blacklist
are not defined, then all normal
attributes, default attributes, and override attributes will be saved,
as well as the automatic attributes that were not specifically excluded
through blacklisting.
Attributes that should not be saved by a node may be blacklisted in the client.rb file. The blacklist is a Hash of keys that specify each attribute to be filtered out.
Attributes are blacklisted by attribute type, with each attribute type
being blacklisted independently. Each attribute type—automatic
,
default
, normal
, and override
—may define blacklists by using the
following settings in the client.rb file:
Setting | Description |
---|---|
automatic_attribute_blacklist | A hash that blacklists automatic attributes, preventing blacklisted attributes from being saved. For example: ['network/interfaces/eth0'] . Default value: nil , all attributes are saved. If the array is empty, all attributes are saved. |
default_attribute_blacklist | A hash that blacklists default attributes, preventing blacklisted attributes from being saved. For example: ['filesystem/dev/disk0s2/size'] . Default value: nil , all attributes are saved. If the array is empty, all attributes are saved. |
normal_attribute_blacklist | A hash that blacklists normal attributes, preventing blacklisted attributes from being saved. For example: ['filesystem/dev/disk0s2/size'] . Default value: nil , all attributes are saved. If the array is empty, all attributes are saved. |
override_attribute_blacklist | A hash that blacklists override attributes, preventing blacklisted attributes from being saved. For example: ['map - autohome/size'] . Default value: nil , all attributes are saved. If the array is empty, all attributes are saved. |
Warning
The recommended practice is to use only automatic_attribute_blacklist
for blacklisting attributes. This is primarily because automatic
attributes generate the most data, but also that normal, default, and
override attributes are typically much more important attributes and are
more likely to cause issues if they are blacklisted incorrectly.
For example, automatic attribute data similar to:
{
"filesystem" => {
"/dev/disk0s2" => {
"size" => "10mb"
},
"map - autohome" => {
"size" => "10mb"
}
},
"network" => {
"interfaces" => {
"eth0" => {...},
"eth1" => {...},
}
}
}
To blacklist the filesystem
attributes and allow the other attributes
to be saved, update the client.rb file:
automatic_attribute_blacklist ['filesystem']
When a blacklist is defined, any attribute of that type that is not
specified in that attribute blacklist will be saved. So based on the
previous blacklist for automatic attributes, the filesystem
and
map - autohome
attributes will not be saved, but the network
attributes will.
For attributes that contain slashes (/
) within the attribute value,
such as the filesystem
attribute '/dev/diskos2'
, use an array. For
example:
automatic_attribute_blacklist [['filesystem','/dev/diskos2']]
RubyGems provider sources behavior changed.
The behavior of gem_package
and chef_gem
is now to always apply the Chef::Config[:rubygems_url]
sources, which may be a String uri or an Array of Strings. If additional sources are put on the resource with the source
property those are added to the configured :rubygems_url
sources.
This should enable easier setup of rubygems mirrors particularly in “airgapped” environments through the use of the global config variable. It also means that an admin may force all rubygems.org traffic to an internal mirror, while still being able to consume external cookbooks which have resources which add other mirrors unchanged (in a non-airgapped environment).
In the case where a resource must force the use of only the specified source(s), then the include_default_source
property has been added -* setting it to false will remove the Chef::Config[:rubygems_url]
setting from the list of sources for that resource.
The behavior of the clear_sources
property is now to only add --clear-sources
and has no magic side effects on the source options.
Ruby version upgraded to 2.4.1
We’ve upgraded to the latest stable release of the Ruby programming language. See the Ruby 2.4.0 Release Notes for an overview of what’s new in the language.
Resource can now declare a default name
The core apt_update
resource can now be declared without any name argument, no need for apt_update "this string doesn't matter but why do i have to type it?"
.
This can be used by any other resource by just overriding the name property and supplying a default:
property :name, String, default: ""
Notifications to resources with empty strings as their name is also supported via either the bare resource name (apt_update
– matches what the user types in the DSL) or with empty brackets (apt_update[]
– matches the resource notification pattern).
The knife ssh command applies the same fuzzifier as knife search node
A bare name to knife search node will search for the name in tags
, roles
, fqdn
, addresses
, policy_name
or policy_group
fields and will match when given partial strings (available since Chef Infra Client 11). The knife ssh
search term has been similarly extended so that the search API matches in both cases. The node search fuzzifier has also been extracted out to a fuzz
option to Chef::Search::Query for re-use elsewhere.
Cookbook root aliases
Rather than attributes/default.rb
, cookbooks can now use attributes.rb
in the root of the cookbook. Similarly for a single default recipe, cookbooks can use recipe.rb
in the root of the cookbook.
knife ssh supports gateways with ssh key authentication
The new gateway_identity_file
option allows the operator to specify the key to access ssh gateways with.
Windows Task resource added
The windows_task
resource has been ported from the windows cookbook. Use the windows_task resource to create, delete or run a Windows scheduled task. Requires Windows Server 2008 due to API usage.
Note: :change
action has been removed from windows_task
resource. :create
action can be used to update an existing task.
Solaris SMF services can now be started recursively
It is now possible to load Solaris services recursively, by ensuring the new options
property of the service
resource contains -r
.
The guard interpreter for powershell_script
is PowerShell, again
When writing not_if
or only_if
statements, by default we now run those statements using powershell, rather than forcing the user to set guard_interpreter
each time.
Zypper GPG checks by default
Zypper now defaults to performing gpg checks of packages.
The InSpec gem is now shipped by default
The inspec
and train
gems are shipped by default in the chef omnibus package, making it easier for users in airgapped environments to use InSpec.
Properly support managing Sys-V services on Debian systemd hosts
Chef now properly supports managing sys-v services on hosts running systemd. Previously Chef would incorrectly attempt to fallback to Upstart even if upstart was not installed.
New default encrypted databag format
The default encrypted databag format is now 3.0, which was introduced in
Chef Infra Client 12.0. Encrypted databag version 3.0 format uses the aes-256-gcm
cipher for enhanced security. All nodes using encrypted data bags in
your environment will need to be upgraded to Chef Infra Client 12.0 or later before
creating encrypted data bags in this new format.
Backwards Compatibility Breaks
Resource Cloning has been removed
When Chef compiles resources, it will no longer attempt to merge the properties of previously compiled resources with the same name and type in to the new resource. See the deprecation page for further information.
It is an error to specify both default
and name_property
on a property
Chef Infra Client 12 made this work by picking the first option it found, but it was always an error and has now been disallowed.
The path property of the execute resource has been removed
It was never implemented in the provider, so it was always a no-op to use it, the remediation is to simply delete it.
Using the command property on any script resource (including bash, etc) is now a hard error
This was always a usage mistake. The command property was used internally by the script resource and was not intended to be exposed to users. Users should use the code property instead (or use the command property on an execute resource to execute a single command).
Omitting the code property on any script resource (including bash, etc) is now a hard error
It is possible that this was being used as a no-op resource, but the log resource is a better choice for that until we get a null resource added. Omitting the code property or mixing up the code property with the command property are also common usage mistakes that we need to catch and error on.
The chef_gem resource defaults to not run at compile time
The compile_time true
flag may still be used to force compile time.
The Chef::Config[:chef_gem_compile_time] config option has been removed
In order to for community cookbooks to behave consistently across all users this optional flag has been removed.
The supports[:manage_home]
and supports[:non_unique]
API has been removed
The remediation is to set the manage_home and non_unique properties directly.
creates
without cwd
is a hard error
Using relative paths in the creates
property of an execute resource with specifying a cwd
is now a hard error Without a declared cwd the relative path was (most likely?) relative to wherever chef-client happened to be invoked which is not deterministic or easy to intuit behavior.
Chef::PolicyBuilder::ExpandNodeObject#load_node has been removed
This change is most likely to only affect internals of tooling like chefspec if it affects anything at all.
PolicyFiles failback
PolicyFile failback to create non-policyfile nodes on Chef Infra Server < 12.3 has been removed. PolicyFile users on Chef Infra Client 13 should be using Chef Infra Server 12.3 or higher.
Cookbooks with self dependencies are no longer allowed
The remediation is removing the self-dependency depends
line in the metadata.
Removed supports
API from Chef::Resource
Retained only for the service resource (where it makes some sense) and for the mount resource.
Removed retrying of non-StandardError exceptions for Chef::Resource
Exceptions not descending from StandardError (e.g. LoadError, SecurityError, SystemExit) will no longer trigger a retry if they are raised during the execution of a resources with a non-zero retries setting.
Removed deprecated method_missing
access from the Chef::Node object
Previously, the syntax node.foo.bar
could be used to mean node["foo"]["bar"]
, but this API had sharp edges where methods collided with the core ruby Object class (e.g. node.class
) and where it collided with our own ability to extend the Chef::Node
API. This method access has been deprecated for some time, and has been removed in Chef-13.
Changed declare_resource
API
Dropped the create_if_missing
parameter that was immediately supplanted by the edit_resource
API (most likely nobody ever used this) and converted the created_at
parameter from an optional positional parameter to a named parameter. These changes are unlikely to affect any cookbook code.
Node deep-duping fixes
The node.to_hash
/node.to_h
and node.dup
APIs have been fixed so that they correctly deep-dup the node data structure including every string value. This results in a mutable copy of the immutable merged node structure. This is correct behavior, but is now more expensive and may break some poor code (which would have been buggy and difficult to follow code with odd side effects before).
For example:
node.default["foo"] = "fizz"
n = node.to_hash # or node.dup
n["foo"] << "buzz"
before this would have mutated the original string in-place so that node["foo"]
and node.default["foo"]
would have changed to “fizzbuzz” while now they remain “fizz” and only the mutable n["foo"]
copy is changed to “fizzbuzz”.
Freezing immutable merged attributes
Since Chef Infra Client 11 merged node attributes have been intended to be immutable but the merged strings have not been frozen. In Chef Infra Client 13, in the process of merging the node attributes strings and other simple objects are dup’d and frozen. In order to get a mutable copy, you can now correctly use the node.dup
or node.to_hash
methods, or you should mutate the object correctly through its precedence level like node.default["some_string"] << "appending_this"
.
The Chef::REST API has been removed
It has been fully replaced with Chef::ServerAPI
in chef-client code.
Properties overriding methods now raise an error
Defining a property that overrides methods defined on the base ruby Object
or on Chef::Resource
itself can cause large amounts of confusion. A simple example is property :hash
which overrides the Object#hash method which will confuse ruby when the Custom Resource is placed into the Chef::ResourceCollection which uses a Hash internally which expects to call Object#hash to get a unique id for the object. Attempting to create property :action
would also override the Chef::Resource#action method which is unlikely to end well for the user. Overriding inherited properties is still supported.
chef-shell
now supports solo and legacy solo modes
Running chef-shell -s
or chef-shell --solo
will give you an experience consistent with chef-solo
. chef-shell --solo-legacy-mode
will give you an experience consistent with chef-solo --legacy-mode
.
Chef::Platform.set and related methods have been removed
The deprecated code has been removed. All providers and resources should now be using Chef >= 12.0 provides
syntax.
Remove sort
option for the Search API
This option has been unimplemented on the server side for years, so any use of it has been pointless.
Remove Chef::ShellOut
This was deprecated and replaced a long time ago with mixlib-shellout and the shell_out mixin.
Remove method_missing
from the Chef Infra Language
The core of chef hasn’t used this to implement the Chef Infra Language since 12.5.1 and its unlikely that any external code depended upon it.
Simplify Chef Infra Language wiring
Support for actions with spaces and hyphens in the action name has been dropped. Resources and property names with spaces and hyphens most likely never worked in Chef-12. UTF-8 characters have always been supported and still are.
easy_install
resource has been removed
The Python easy_install
package installer has been deprecated for many years, so we have removed support for it. No specific replacement for pip
is being included with Chef at this time, but a pip
-based python_package
resource is available in the poise-python
cookbooks.
Removal of run_command and popen4 APIs
All the APIs in chef/mixlib/command have been removed. They were deprecated by mixlib-shellout and the shell_out mixin API.
Iconv has been removed from the ruby libraries and chef omnibus build
The ruby Iconv library was replaced by the Encoding library in ruby 1.9.x and since the deprecation of ruby 1.8.7 there has been no need for the Iconv library but we have carried it forwards as a dependency since removing it might break some chef code out there which used this library. It has now been removed from the ruby build. This also removes LGPLv3 code from the omnibus build and reduces build headaches from porting iconv to every platform we ship chef-client on.
This will also affect nokogiri, but that gem natively supports UTF-8, UTF-16LE/BE, ISO-8851-1(Latin-1), ASCII and “HTML” encodings. Users who really need to write something like Shift-JIS inside of XML will need to either maintain their own nokogiri installs or will need to convert to using UTF-8.
Deprecated cookbook metadata has been removed
The recommends
, suggests
, conflicts
, replaces
and grouping
metadata fields are no longer supported, and have been removed, since they were never used. Chef will ignore them in existing metadata.rb
files, but we recommend that you remove them. This was proposed in RFC 85.
All unignored cookbook files will now be uploaded.
We now treat every file under a cookbook directory as belonging to a cookbook, unless that file is ignored with a chefignore
file. This is a change from the previous behavior where only files in certain directories, such as recipes
or templates
, were treated as special. This change allows chef to support new classes of files, such as Ohai plugins or InSpec tests, without having to make changes to the cookbook format to support them.
DSL-based custom resources and providers no longer get module constants
Up until now, creating a mycook/resources/thing.rb
would create a Chef::Resources::MycookThing
name to access the resource class object. This const is no longer created for resources and providers. You can access resource classes through the resolver API like:
Chef::Resource.resource_for_node(:mycook_thing, node)
Accessing a provider class is a bit more complex, as you need a resource against which to run a resolution like so:
Chef::ProviderResolver.new(node, find_resource!("mycook_thing[name]"), :nothing).resolve
Default values for resource properties are frozen
A resource declaring something like:
property :x, default: {}
will now see the default value set to be immutable. This prevents cases of modifying the default in one resource affecting others. If you want a per-resource mutable default value, define it inside a lazy{}
helper like:
property :x, default: lazy { {} }
ResourceCollection and notifications
Resources which later modify their name during creation will have their name changed on the ResourceCollection and notifications
some_resource "name_one" do
name "name_two"
end
The fix for sending notifications to multipackage resources involved changing the API which inserts resources into the resource collection slightly so that it no longer directly takes the string which is typed into the DSL but reads the (possibly coerced) name off of the resource after it is built. The end result is that the above resource will be named some_resource[name_two]
instead of some_resource[name_one]
. Note that setting the name (not the name_property
, but actually renaming the resource) is very uncommon. The fix is to simply name the resource correctly in the first place (some_resource "name_two" do ...
)
use_inline_resources
is always enabled
The use_inline_resources
provider mode is always enabled when using the action :name do ... end
syntax. You can remove the use_inline_resources
line.
knife cookbook site vendor
has been removed
Please use knife cookbook site install
instead.
knife cookbook create
has been removed
Please use chef generate cookbook
from ChefDK instead.
Verify commands no longer support “%{file}”
Chef has always recommended %{path}
, and %{file}
has now been removed.
The partial_search
recipe method has been removed
The partial_search
method has been fully replaced by the filter_result
argument to search
, and has now been removed.
The logger and formatter settings are more predictable
The default now is the formatter. There is no more automatic switching to the logger when logging or when output is sent to a pipe. The logger needs to be specifically requested with --force-logger
or it will not show up.
The --force-formatter
option does still exist, although it will probably be deprecated in the future.
If your logfiles switch to the formatter, you need to include --force-logger
for your daemonized runs.
Redirecting output to a file with chef-client > /tmp/chef.out
now captures the same output as invoking it directly on the command line with no redirection.
Path Sanity disabled by default and modified
The chef client itself no long modifies its ENV['PATH']
variable directly. When using the shell_out
API now, in addition to setting up LANG/LANGUAGE/LC_ALL variables that API will also inject certain system paths and the ruby bindir and gemdirs into the PATH (or Path on Windows). The shell_out_with_systems_locale
API still does not mangle any environment variables. During the Chef-13 lifecycle changes will be made to prep Chef-14 to switch so that shell_out
by default behaves like shell_out_with_systems_locale
. A new flag will get introduced to call shell_out(..., internal: [true|false])
to either get the forced locale and path settings (“internal”) or not. When that is introduced in Chef Infra Client 13.x the default will be true
(backwards-compat with 13.0) and that default will change in 14.0 to ‘false’.
The PATH changes have also been tweaked so that the ruby bindir and gemdir PATHS are prepended instead of appended to the PATH. Some system directories are still appended.
Some examples of changes:
which ruby
in 12.x will return any system ruby and fall back to the embedded ruby if using omnibuswhich ruby
in 13.x will return any system ruby and will not find the embedded ruby if using omnibusshell_out_with_systems_locale("which ruby")
behaves the same aswhich ruby
aboveshell_out("which ruby")
in 12.x will return any system ruby and fall back to the embedded ruby if using omnibusshell_out("which ruby")
in 13.x will always return the omnibus ruby first (but will find the system ruby if not using omnibus)
The PATH in shell_out
can also be overridden:
shell_out("which ruby", env: { "PATH" => nil })
- behaves like shell_out_with_systems_locale()shell_out("which ruby", env: { "PATH" => [...include PATH string here...] })
- set it arbitrarily however you need
Since most providers which launch custom user commands use shell_out_with_systems_locale
(service, execute, script, etc) the behavior will be that those commands that used to be having embedded omnibus paths injected into them no longer will. Generally this will fix more problems than it solves, but may causes issues for some use cases.
Default guard clauses (not_if/only_if) do not change the PATH or other env vars
The implementation switched to shell_out_with_systems_locale
to match execute
resource, etc.
Chef Infra Client will now exit using the RFC062 defined exit codes
Chef Infra Client will only exit with exit codes defined in RFC 062. This allows other tooling to respond to how a Chef run completes. Attempting to exit Chef Infra Client with an unsupported exit code (either via Chef::Application.fatal!
or Chef::Application.exit!
) will result in an exit code of 1 (GENERIC_FAILURE) and a warning in the event log.
When Chef Infra Client is running as a forked process on unix systems, the standardized exit codes are used by the child process. To actually have Chef Infra Client return the standard exit code, client_fork false
will need to be set in Chef Infra Client’s configuration file.
Chef Infra Client 12.22.5
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.22.5.mdBug Fixes
- Prevented failures in cookbooks that need to support both Chef Infra Client 12.x and 13.x by removing the legacy
state
property that is now removed in 13.x.
Resource Updates
ifconfig
The ifconfig
resource has been updated to support Ubuntu 18.04.
Chef Infra Client 12.22.3
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.22.3.md This release fixes an issue in our Windows security support code that would occasionally cause heap corruption on Windows. This would manifest as Chef Infra Client runs that terminated without any logging or errors. Since the issue was located within the commonget_account_right
method, this could affect a number of different recipes, but was most often seen when using the windows_service
resource.Chef Infra Client 12.22.1
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.22.1.mdSecurity Updates
Ruby
Ruby has been updated from 2.3.5 to 2.3.6 to resolve CVE-2017-17405.
libxml2
The libxml2 library has been updated from 2.9.5 to 2.9.7 to resolve CVE-2017-15412
System Configuration Detection
EC2 detection on C5/M5
Ohai now provides EC2 metadata configuration information on the new C5/M5 instance types running on Amazon’s new hypervisor.
LsPci Plugin
The new Ohai LsPci
plugin provides a node[:pci]
hash with information about the PCI bus based on lspci. Only runs on Linux.
Docker Detection
The virtualization plugin has been updated to properly detect when running on Docker CE
Chef Infra Client 12.21.31
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.21.31.mdBug Fixes
- The Ohai
Mdadm
plugin now supports arrays with more than 10 disks
Platform Support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux on AArch64
We now produce packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux on AArch64.
Security
OpenSSL 1.0.2n
OpenSSL has been updated from 1.0.2j to 1.0.2n to resolve the following CVEs:
libxml 2.9.5
The libxml2 library has been updated from 2.9.4 to 2.9.5 to resolve the following CVEs:
- CVE-2017-9050
- CVE-2017-9049
- CVE-2017-9048
- CVE-2017-9047
- CVE-2017-8872
- CVE-2017-5969
- CVE-2016-9318
- CVE-2016-5131
libxslt 1.1.30
The libxslt library has been updated from 1.1.29 to 1.1.30 to resolve the following CVEs:
libyaml 0.1.7
The libyaml library has been updated from 0.1.6 to 0.1.7 to resolve CVE-2014-9130
Chef Infra Client 12.21.26
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.21.26.mdBug Fixes
- Restore compatibility with Ruby 2.2.
- Resolve failures to detect the ip address on some Solaris systems.
Security
Rubygems
Rubygems has been updated from 2.6.13 to 2.6.14, fixing 4 CVEs:
Ohai Critical Plugins Functionality
Users can now specify a list of plugins which are critical for the Chef run. Critical plugins will cause Ohai to fail if they do not run successfully (and thus cause a Chef run using Ohai to fail). The syntax for this is:
ohai.critical_plugins << :Filesystem
Chef Infra Client 12.21.20
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.21.20.mdResource Updates
dnf_package / package
The dnf_package
resource and the DNF Provider for the package
resource have been improved to better run only when DNF is present on the system.
dsc_script
The dsc_script
resource logging has been improved.
Chef Infra Client 12.21.14
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.21.14.mdBug Fixes
- Fix the
apt_repository
now now correctly checks APT key fingerprints on newer systems
Chef Infra Client 12.21.12
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.21.12.mdResource Updates
dsc_script
The dsc_script
resource now supports Windows Management Framework 5.
Security
Ruby 2.3.5
Ruby has been updated from 2.3.4 to 2.3.5 to resolve the following CVEs:
Chef Infra Client 12.21.10
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.21.10.mdBug Fixes
- Ensure the
dnf_package
resource is only used on systems RHEL 8 and later. - Attribute performance has been improved when utilizing large numbers of merged attributes.
Security
Rubygems 2.6.13
Rubygems has been updated from 2.6.12 to 2.6.13 to resolve the following CVEs:
Chef Infra Client 12.21.4
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.21.4.mdBug Fixes
- Chef Infra Client now properly sends expanded run list events on nodes using PolicyFiles.
Chef Infra Client 12.21.3
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.21.3.mdBug Fixes
- Improve the resource reporters ability to determine identity and state properties in resources to prevent failures.
- Update Ruby from 2.3.1 to 2.3.4 to resolve a large number of bugs.
- Fix segfaults installing gems on Windows systems.
Chef Infra Client 12.21.1
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.21.1.mdOn Debian prefer Systemd to Upstart
On Debian systems, packages that support systemd will often ship both an old style init script and a systemd unit file. When this happened, Chef Infra Client would incorrectly choose Upstart rather than systemd as the service provider. Chef Infra Client will now prefer systemd where available.
Handle the ‘supports’ property better
Chef Infra Client 13 removed the supports
property from core resources. Chef Infra Client 12 was incorrectly giving a deprecation notice for another property called support
, which prevented users from properly testing their cookbooks for upgrades.
Don’t crash if downgrading from Chef Infra Client 13 to 12
On systems where Chef Infra Client 13 had been run, Chef Infra Client 12 would crash as the on-disk cookbook format has changed. Chef Infra Client 12 now correctly ignores the unexpected files.
Provide better information during failures
When Chef Infra Client fails, the output now includes details about the platform and version of Chef Infra Client that was running, so that a bug report has more detail.
Chef Infra Client 12.20.3
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.20.3.mdServer Enforced Recipe
This release adds support for Server Enforced Recipe, as described in RFC 896 and implemented in Chef Infra Server 12.15. Complete release documentation of this feature will be coming soon.
Bug Fixes
- Fixes issue where the apt_repository resource couldn’t identify key fingerprints when gnupg 2.1.x was used.
Chef Infra Client 12.19.36
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.19.36.mdBug Fixes
- Resolve a regression in 12.19.33 that prevented setting the
options
property theapt_package
resource.
Chef Infra Client 12.19.33
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.19.33.mdknife ssh / knife bootstrap ed25519 support
The knife bootstrap
and knife ssh
commands now support ed25519 SSH keys.
Windows alternate user identity execute support
The execute
resource and similar resources such as script
, batch
, and powershell_script
now support the specification of credentials on Windows so that the resulting process is created with the security identity that corresponds to those credentials.
Note: When Chef Infra Client is running as a service, this feature requires that the user that Chef Infra Client runs as has ‘SeAssignPrimaryTokenPrivilege’ (aka ‘SE_ASSIGNPRIMARYTOKEN_NAME’) user right. By default only LocalSystem and NetworkService have this right when running as a service. This is necessary even if the user is an Administrator.
This right can be added and checked in a recipe using this example:
Add 'SeAssignPrimaryTokenPrivilege' for the user
Chef::ReservedNames::Win32::Security.add_account_right('<user>', 'SeAssignPrimaryTokenPrivilege')
Check if the user has 'SeAssignPrimaryTokenPrivilege' rights
Chef::ReservedNames::Win32::Security.get_account_right('<user>').include?('SeAssignPrimaryTokenPrivilege')
Properties
The following properties are new or updated for the execute
, script
, batch
, and powershell_script
resources and any resources derived from them:
user
Ruby Type: String The user name of the user identity with which to launch the new process. The user name may optionally be specified with a domain, i.e.
domain\user
oruser@my.dns.domain.com
via Universal Principal Name (UPN) format. It can also be specified without a domain simply asuser
if the domain is instead specified using thedomain
attribute. On Windows only, if this property is specified, thepassword
property must be specified.password
Ruby types String Windows only: The password of the user specified by the
user
property. This property is mandatory ifuser
is specified on Windows and may only be specified ifuser
is specified. Thesensitive
property for this resource will automatically be set totrue
ifpassword
is specified.domain
Ruby types String Windows only: The domain of the user specified by the
user
property. If not specified, the user name and password specified by theuser
andpassword
properties will be used to resolve that user against the domain in which the system running Chef client is joined, or if that system is not joined to a domain it will resolve the user as a local account on that system. An alternative way to specify the domain is to leave this property unspecified and specify the domain as part of theuser
property.
Usage
The following examples explain how alternate user identity properties can be used in the execute resources:
powershell_script 'create powershell-test file' do
code <<-EOH
$stream = [System.IO.StreamWriter] "#{Chef::Config[:file_cache_path]}/powershell-test.txt"
$stream.WriteLine("In #{Chef::Config[:file_cache_path]}...word.")
$stream.close()
EOH
user 'username'
password 'password'
end
execute 'mkdir test_dir' do
cwd Chef::Config[:file_cache_path]
domain "domain-name"
user "user"
password "password"
end
script 'create test_dir' do
interpreter "bash"
code "mkdir test_dir"
cwd Chef::Config[:file_cache_path]
user "domain-name\\username"
password "password"
end
batch 'create test_dir' do
code "mkdir test_dir"
cwd Chef::Config[:file_cache_path]
user "username@domain-name"
password "password"
end
Bug Fixes
- Systemd unit files are now verified before being installed.
- Ensure that the Windows Administrator group can access the chef-solo nodes directory
- When loading a cookbook in Chef Solo, use
metadata.json
in preference tometadata.rb
Packaging Updates
Cisco NX-OS and IOS XR
As of version 12.19, Chef Infra Client packages for Cisco NX-OS and IOS XR platforms will no longer be produced.
System Configuration Detection
Cumulus Linux Platform
Cumulus Linux will now be detected as platform cumulus
instead of debian
and the platform_version
will be properly set to the Cumulus Linux release.
Virtualization Detection
Windows / Linux / BSD guests running on the Veertu hypervisors will now be detected
Windows guests running on Xen and Hyper-V hypervisors will now be detected
New Sysconf Plugin
A new plugin parses the output of the sysconf command to provide information on the underlying system.
AWS Account ID
The EC2 plugin now fetches the AWS Account ID in addition to previous instance metadata
GCC Detection
GCC detection has been improved to collect additional information, and to not prompt for the installation of Xcode on macOS systems
New deprecations
Ohai::Config removed
- Deprecation ID: OHAI-1
- Remediation Docs: https://docs.chef.io/deprecations_ohai_legacy_config
- Expected Removal: Ohai 13 (April 2017)
sigar gem based plugins removed
- Deprecation ID: OHAI-2
- Remediation Docs: https://docs.chef.io/deprecations_ohai_sigar_plugins
- Expected Removal: Ohai 13 (April 2017)
run_command and popen4 helper methods removed
- Deprecation ID: OHAI-3
- Remediation Docs: https://docs.chef.io/deprecations_ohai_run_command_helpers
- Expected Removal: Ohai 13 (April 2017)
libvirt plugin attributes moved
- Deprecation ID: OHAI-4
- Remediation Docs: https://docs.chef.io/deprecations_ohai_libvirt_plugin
- Expected Removal: Ohai 13 (April 2017)
Windows CPU plugin attribute changes
- Deprecation ID: OHAI-5
- Remediation Docs: https://docs.chef.io/deprecations_ohai_windows_cpu
- Expected Removal: Ohai 13 (April 2017)
DigitalOcean plugin attribute changes
- Deprecation ID: OHAI-6
- Remediation Docs: https://docs.chef.io/deprecations_ohai_digitalocean/
- Expected Removal: Ohai 13 (April 2017)
Chef Infra Client 12.18.31
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.18.31.mdWindows Scheduled Task Execution
You can now specify Chef Infra Client to run as a scheduled task directly in the install MSI.
Resource Updates
chocolatey_package
The chocolatey_package
resource has been updated to allow specifying the acceptable return codes with a new returns
property.
package
The package
resource has been updated to support installation via DNF on Fedora hosts as well as upcoming RHEL releases that ship with DNF by default.
New deprecations
Chef Infra Client 12.17.44
https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/chef/12.17.44.mdThe following items are new for Chef Infra Client 12.17 and/or are changes from previous versions. The short version:
- Added msu_package resource
- Added alias unmount to umount action for mount resource
- Can now delete multiple nodes/clients in knife
- Haskell language plugin added to Ohai
msu_package resource
The msu_package resource installs or removes Microsoft Update(MSU) packages on Microsoft Windows machines. Here are some examples:
Using local path in source