Release announcement: Ansible community package 9.5.1

[Felix Fontein]

Hello everyone,

We're happy to announce the release of the Ansible 9.5.1 package!

Ansible 9.5.1 depends on ansible-core 2.16.6 and includes a curated set
of Ansible collections that provide a vast number of modules, plugins,
and roles.

How to get it
-------------

This release is available on PyPI and can be installed with pip:

```console
python3 -m pip install ansible==9.5.1 --user
```

The sources for this release can be found here:

Release tarball:

https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/dd/d6/728e1423af98ee08f05a341792abb053b73c30a5a978fc3e0777a87037a4/ansible-9.5.1.tar.gz

SHA256:

3c278bc9642b97fc953b2ba05b99cd80801e75bf3567dfaa1cb5131fe0ec1ecd

Wheel package:

https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/ac/40/a2c6f948559339e15f6c6fe4b793fb741a50f5ca6c9ba63b5d961029e269/ansible-9.5.1-py3-none-any.whl

SHA256:

aed2f4208a75836a27c13555ec5d8d942fe3b089a8b1fc44e8234fadd9e649fd


Some important details
----------------------

Please note that this release replaces a mistakenly released 9.5.0 that
included a breaking change. The 9.5.0 release has been yanked from PyPI
and is not part of the official release history.

ansible-core is a separate package on which ansible depends. `pip
install ansible` installs `ansible-core`, but it can also be installed
independently of the ansible package.

Collections that have opted to join the Ansible 9 unified changelog
will have an entry on this page:

https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/9.5.1/9/CHANGELOG-v9.md

For collections which have not opted-in to the unified changelog, you
may find more information on

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections

or on the collection source repository. For example, the
community.crypto collection is available at

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/crypto/index.html

and you can find a link to the source repository under the “Repository
(Sources)” button.

The changelog for ansible-core 2.16 installed by this release of
Ansible 9 can be found here:

https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/v2.16/changelogs/CHANGELOG-v2.16.rst

What's the schedule for new Ansible releases after 9.5.1?
---------------------------------------------------------

The next release roadmap can be found at

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/roadmap/ansible_roadmap_index.html

The Ansible community package release schedule follows the Ansible Core
release schedule, including, for example, delays for holidays. This
means Ansible releases happen every four weeks through most of the
year, but release dates may be delayed when Ansible Core releases are.

Subscribe to the Bullhorn for all future release dates, announcements,
and Ansible contributor community news.

Visit this link to subscribe: https://bit.ly/subscribe-bullhorn

You can find all past Bullhorn issues on the Ansible Community Forum at:

https://forum.ansible.com/c/news/bullhorn/17

Join the new Ansible Community Forum to follow along and participate in
all the project and release related discussions and announcements. Feel
free to share your thoughts, feedback, ideas and concerns there.

Register here to join the Ansible Forum:

https://forum.ansible.com

Porting Help
------------

A unified porting guide for collections that have opted in is available
here:

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/porting_guides/porting_guide_9.html

Getting collection updates from Ansible 9 with older releases of
ansible-core
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ansible 9 depends on ansible-core 2.16. Depending on your needs, you
can get collection updates as they ship in the Ansible “batteries
included” package while continuing to use older versions of
ansible-core.

See the ansible-galaxy requirements file based on the collections from
Ansible 9 for this use case:

https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/9.5.1/9/galaxy-requirements.yaml

After you download the requirements file, you can install the
collections by running the following command:

```console
ansible-galaxy collection install -r galaxy-requirements.yaml
```

On behalf of the Ansible community, thank you and happy automating!

Cheers,
Ansible Release Management Working Group