salt/doc/topics/releases/2014.1.0.rst

===============================================
Salt 2014.1.0 Release Notes - Codename Hydrogen
===============================================

:release: 2014-02-24

The 2014.1.0 release of Salt is a major release which not only increases
stability but also brings new capabilities in virtualization, cloud
integration, and more. This release brings a great focus on the expansion of
testing making roughly double the coverage in the Salt tests, and comes with
many new features.

2014.1.0 is the first release to follow the new date-based release naming
system.

Major Features
==============

Salt Cloud Merged into Salt
---------------------------

Salt Cloud is a tool for provisioning salted minions across various cloud
providers. Prior to this release, Salt Cloud was a separate project but this
marks its full integration with the Salt distribution. A Getting Started guide
and additional documentation for Salt Cloud can be found :doc:`here
</topics/cloud/index>`:


Google Compute Engine
---------------------

Alongside Salt Cloud comes new support for the Google Compute Engine. Salt Stack
can now deploy and control GCE virtual machines and the application stacks that
they run.

For more information on Salt Stack and GCE, please see `this blog post`_.

Documentation for Salt and GCE can be found :doc:`here </topics/cloud/gce>`.

.. _this blog post: http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com/2013/12/saltstack-for-google-compute-engine.html


Salt Virt
---------

Salt Virt is a cloud controller that supports virtual machine deployment,
inspection, migration and integration with many aspects of Salt.

Salt Virt has undergone a major overhaul with this release and now supports
many more features and includes a number of critical improvements.


Docker Integration
------------------

Salt now ships with :mod:`states <salt.states.dockerio>` and an :mod:`execution
module <salt.states.dockerio>` to manage Docker containers.


Substantial Testing Expansion
-----------------------------

Salt continues to increase its unit/regression test coverage. This release
includes over 300 new tests.


BSD Package Management
----------------------

BSD package management has been entirely rewritten. FreeBSD 9 and older now
default to using pkg_add, while FreeBSD 10 and newer will use pkgng. FreeBSD 9
can be forced to use pkgng, however, by specifying the following option in the
minion config file:

.. code-block:: yaml

    providers:
      pkg: pkgng

In addition, support for installing software from the ports tree has been
added. See the documentation for the ports :mod:`state <salt.states.ports>` and
:mod:`execution module <salt.modules.freebsdports>` for more information.


Network Management for Debian/Ubuntu
------------------------------------

Initial support for management of network interfaces on Debian-based distros
has been added. See the documentation for the :mod:`network state
<salt.states.network>` and the :mod:`debian_ip <salt.modules.debian_ip>` for
more information.


IPv6 Support for iptables State/Module
--------------------------------------

The iptables :mod:`state <salt.states.iptables>` and :mod:`module
<salt.modules.iptables>` now have IPv6 support. A new parameter ``family`` has
been added to the states and execution functions, to distinguish between IPv4
and IPv6. The default value for this parameter is ``ipv4``, specifying ``ipv6``
will use ip6tables to manage firewall rules.


GitFS Improvements
------------------

Several performance improvements have been made to the :mod:`Git fileserver
backend <salt.fileserver.gitfs>`. Additionally, file states can now use any
any SHA1 commit hash as a fileserver environment:

.. code-block:: yaml

    /etc/httpd/httpd.conf:
      file.managed:
        - source: salt://webserver/files/httpd.conf
        - saltenv: 45af879

This applies to the functions in the :mod:`cp module <salt.modules.cp>` as
well:

.. code-block:: yaml

    salt '*' cp.get_file salt://readme.txt /tmp/readme.txt saltenv=45af879


MinionFS
--------

This new fileserver backend allows files which have been pushed from the minion
to the master (using :mod:`cp.push <salt.modules.cp.push>`) to be served up
from the salt fileserver. The path for these files takes the following format::

    salt://minion-id/path/to/file

``minion-id`` is the id of the "source" minion, the one from which the files
were pushed to the master. ``/path/to/file`` is the full path of the file.

The :doc:`MinionFS Walkthrough </topics/tutorials/minionfs>` contains a more
thorough example of how to use this backend.


saltenv
-------

To distinguish between fileserver environments and execution functions which
deal with environment variables, fileserver environments are now specified
using the ``saltenv`` parameter. ``env`` will continue to work, but is
deprecated and will be removed in a future release.


Grains Caching
--------------

A caching layer has been added to the Grains system, which can help speed up
minion startup. Disabled by default, it can be enabled by setting the minion
config option ``grains_cache``:

.. code-block:: yaml

    grains_cache: True

    # Seconds before grains cache is considered to be stale.
    grains_cache_expiration: 300

If set to ``True``, the grains loader will read from/write to a
msgpack-serialized file containing the grains data.

Additional command-line parameters have been added to salt-call, mainly for
testing purposes:

* ``--skip-grains`` will completely bypass the grains loader when salt-call is
  invoked.
* ``--refresh-grains-cache`` will force the grains loader to bypass the grains
  cache and refresh the grains, writing a new grains cache file.


Improved Command Logging Control
--------------------------------

When using the :mod:`cmd module <salt.modules.cmdmod>`, either on the CLI or
when developing Salt execution modules, a new keyword argument
``output_loglevel`` allows for greater control over how (or even if) the
command and its output are logged. For example:

.. code-block:: bash

    salt '*' cmd.run 'tail /var/log/messages' output_loglevel=debug

The package management modules (``apt``, ``yumpkg``, etc.) have been updated to
log the copious output generated from these commands at loglevel ``debug``.


.. note::

    To keep a command from being logged, ``output_loglevel=quiet`` can be used.

    Prior to this release, this could be done using ``quiet=True``. This
    argument is still supported, but will be removed in a future Salt release.


PagerDuty Support
-----------------

Initial support for firing events via PagerDuty_ has been added. See the
documentation for the :mod:`pagerduty <salt.modules.pagerduty>` module.

.. _PagerDuty: http://pagerduty.com


Virtual Terminal
----------------

Sometimes the subprocess module is not good enough, and, in fact, not even 
``askpass`` is. This virtual terminal is still in it's infant childhood, needs 
quite some love, and was originally created to replace ``askpass``, but, while 
developing it, it immediately proved that it could do so much more. It's 
currently used by salt-cloud when bootstrapping salt on clouds which require 
the use of a password.


Proxy Minions
-------------

Initial basic support for Proxy Minions is in this release. Documentation can
be found :doc:`here </topics/proxyminion/index>`.

Proxy minions are a developing feature in Salt that enables control of devices
that cannot run a minion. Examples include network gear like switches and
routers that run a proprietary OS but offer an API, or "dumb" devices that just
don't have the horsepower or ability to handle a Python VM.

Proxy minions can be difficult to write, so a simple REST-based example proxy
is included. A Python bottle-based webserver can be found at
http://github.com/cro/salt-proxy-rest as an endpoint for this proxy.

This is an ALPHA-quality feature. There are a number of issues with it
currently, mostly centering around process control, logging, and inability to
work in a masterless configuration.


Additional Bugfixes (Release Candidate Period)
----------------------------------------------

Below are many of the fixes that were implemented in salt during the release
candidate phase.

- Fix mount.mounted leaving conflicting entries in fstab (:issue:`7079`)
- Fix mysql returner serialization to use json (:issue:`9590`)
- Fix ``ZMQError: Operation cannot be accomplished in current state`` errors (:issue:`6306`)
- Rbenv and ruby improvements
- Fix quoting issues with mysql port (:issue:`9568`)
- Update mount module/state to support multiple swap partitions (:issue:`9520`)
- Fix ``archive`` state to work with ``bsdtar``
- Clarify logs for minion ID caching
- Add numeric revision support to git state (:issue:`9718`)
- Update ``master_uri`` with ``master_ip`` (:issue:`9694`)
- Add comment to Debian ``mod_repo`` (:issue:`9923`)
- Fix potential undefined loop variable in rabbitmq state (:issue:`8703`)
- Fix for salt-virt runner to delete key on VM deletion
- Fix for ``salt-run -d`` to limit results to specific runner or function (:issue:`9975`)
- Add tracebacks to jinja renderer when applicable (:issue:`10010`)
- Fix parsing in monit module (:issue:`10041`)
- Fix highstate output from syndic minions (:issue:`9732`)
- Quiet logging when dealing with passwords/hashes (:issue:`10000`)
- Fix for multiple remotes in git_pillar (:issue:`9932`)
- Fix npm installed command (:issue:`10109`)
- Add safeguards for utf8 errors in zcbuildout module
- Fix compound commands (:issue:`9746`)
- Add systemd notification when master is started
- Many doc improvements