Ansible 2.3.0 FINAL has been released!

[James Cammarata]

Hi all, we're very happy to announce that Ansible 2.3.0 has been released!

This release includes many new features and improvements:

* Shared code for modules can now be placed in "module_utils" directories local to your playbook and/or roles to make it easier to share code across locally developed modules.

* Allow async tasks to work when an action plugin is used.

* Added a new "dense" callback to produce a more condensed output.

* ~140 new modules, including:

  - A new group of modules to aid in automating your Ansible Tower instances.

  - A new group of modules for managing oVirt.

  - A few new modules for AWS, including support for KMS and ECS/ECR.

In the network space:

* We’ve introduced new performance upgrades and additional vendor support. For more information about what’s new with Ansible Networking, take a look at our blog post (https://www.ansible.com/blog/networking-features-in-ansible-2-3), and check out the expanded list of Network Modules now available here: http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/list_of_network_modules.html.

* This release brings the total number of networking modules up to 267.

For Windows:

* Pipelining support for faster module execution (~20-50% performance boost for many modules).

* Support for the "runas" become method to execute as a different user and allow for transparent second-hop authentication in many cases.

* Many other improvements for existing WIndows modules such as check mode, and other fixes for the winrm connection type.

* Fourteen new modules, including:

  - win_domain

  - win_domain_controller

  - win_domain_membership

  - win_path

  - win_region

  - win_shortcut

Here is the official announcement on our website:

https://www.ansible.com/press/advanced-network-automation-with-2-3

As always, this update is available via PyPi and releases.ansible.com now, and packages for distros will be available as soon as possible.

Thanks and enjoy!

James Cammarata

Ansible Lead/Sr. Principal Software Engineer

Ansible by Red Hat

twitter: @thejimic, github: jimi-c

[J Hawkesworth]

Congratulations and thanks to the core team and contributors.

Also worth mentioning for windows users is the built in integration with kinit, which allows seamless use of windows domain logins for the first time.

Jon