Value reporting

A new values API reports details about automated changes that PE makes to nodes, and provides an estimate of time freed by each type of change based on intelligent defaults or values you provide. You can also specify an average hourly salary and see an estimate of cost savings for all automated changes.

Console navigation and workflow improvements

Compiler conversion runs in parallel

When you convert all compilers at one time with puppet infrastructure run convert_legacy_compiler all=true, the process is now noticeably faster due to streamlining in when Puppet runs occur on target hosts.

Console displays enum and boolean plan parameter values in select menu

You can select plan parameters that are boolean or enum types from a drop down menu in the Value field.

Updates to metrics endpoints

Access to endpoints under /metrics are now controlled by trapperkeeper-authorization and configured in the Puppet Serverauth.conf file. The default rule allows remote access with a valid Puppet certificate.

Setting the v2 metrics endpoint to debug no longer displays debug messages from Jolokia. In order to see debugging messages, set a configuration value in addition to the usual logback changes.

Application orchestration features in the Puppet language

Upgrading Windows agents using the puppet_agent module could restart non-Puppet services

If you're using a log aggregator, upgrading Windows agents using the puppet_agent module could cause non-Puppet services to restart.

Upgrading agents using the puppet_agent module could produce non-breaking errors

Upgrading agents from versions 6.14 or 6.15 using the puppet-agent module could produce errors about an unavailable file resource or unknown HTTP resource. These errors occurred only during the initial Puppet agent run, when the agent was still using versions 6.14 or 6.15 with an updated master. The error resolved after the puppet-agent service restarted.

Pre-upgrade check produced inaccurate errors on standalone PE-PostgreSQL nodes

## Pre-Upgrade Checks
                    Warning: Puppet agent is not running.
                    Error: No configuration file found at /etc/puppetlabs/client-tools/services.conf. This
                    file is installed automatically on Puppet Server nodes. Make sure you are
                    running the command on a primary master, primary master replica, or compile
                    master.
                    Error: Try 'puppet infrastructure help status' for usage

The error occurred because the pre-upgrade check verified services running on the master which were not present on standalone PE-PostgreSQL nodes.

Upgrade could fail with custom structured facts

If you use custom facts that use structured facts, upgrade could fail with an error related to your custom fact, for example: undefined method '[]' for nil:NilClass (Puppet::Error).

Upgrade commands failed if PXP agents were configured to connect to load balancers

In installations with load balancers, the puppet infrastructure upgrade commands could fail if the PXP agent on infrastructure nodes connected to load balancers instead of to the master. The upgrade plan now verifies configuration and prompts you to fix any issues before continuing with the upgrade.

Compiler upgrade could fail to upgrade Puppet Server

The puppet infrastructure upgrade compiler command could fail to upgrade Puppet Server depending on how the catalog was built for performing the upgrade.

Converting all legacy compilers failed in disaster recovery installations

With disaster recovery enabled, the command to convert legacy compilers with the option all=true failed.

Converting legacy compilers failed with autosigning enabled

Running puppet infrastructure run convert_legacy_compiler with autosigning enabled caused the conversion to fail during certificate regeneration.

Converting legacy compilers could fail with DNS alternative names

If dns_alt_names were specified in the [agent] section of puppet.conf, the puppet infrastructure run convert_legacy_compiler command failed because it didn't recognize the alternative names. As a temporary workaround, we recommended moving dns_alt_names to the [main] section of puppet.conf on the compilers to be converted, however [agent] is the preferred section to specify this parameter. The compiler conversion command now recognizes DNS alternative in either the [agent] or [main] section of puppet.conf.

Missing package dependencies for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server agent nodes

On agent nodes running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15, the libyaml-cpp package and operating system packages prefixed with libboost_ were no longer bundled with Puppet agent, and also might not have been included in the operating system.

Command to regenerate agent certificates didn't work with nodes behind a load balancer

In large and extra-large installations with load balancers, the command puppet infrastructure run regenerate_agent_certificate failed because compilers didn't have the tasks needed to run the command, and agent nodes don't communicate directly with the master.

With lockless code deploy enabled, deleted branches could increase disk use

If you deleted a branch from your control repository with lockless deploys enabled, some artifacts could remain on disk and increase your disk use.

With lockless code deploy enabled, deploying with --wait could produce an erroneous timeout

Deploying code from the command line or API with the --wait flag produced a timeout error, even though the code deploy completed.

The blackout_windows parameter in pe_patch class couldn't handle time zones with negative UTC offset

If you used a negative value to offset the timezone when setting the blackout_windows parameter for patching node groups, the pe_patch fact would return an error.

The pe_patch fact wouldn't generate if there was a parsing error

The pe_patch fact couldn't be generated if there was an error when parsing the latest cached catalog for the node. Additionally, if you did not have puppetlabs-stdlib installed, packages that were fixed to a particular version in the node's catalog were not recognized by pe_patch.

Node search input didn't respond to Enter key

The node name search bar on the Nodes page in the console didn't respond to the Enter key to search for a node and you had to select Submit manually. You can now use Enter to search for nodes.

Console radiator bars had a width of zero

In the console, the colored bars in the radiator were broken and didn't show the correct layout. The radiator has been fixed.

Patch management

You can now manage patches on *nix and Windows nodes in the Patch Management section of the console. After setting up patching node groups, you can view the patch status for your nodes, filter available patches by type and operating system, and run a pre-filled task to apply patches to selected nodes from the Patches page. For information on configuring patch management and applying patches, see Managing patches.

Lockless code deploys

Using Code Manager, you can now optionally deploy code to versioned code directories rather than the live code directory. This change enables Puppet Server to continue serving catalog requests even as you deploy code.

You can enable lockless code deploys by setting puppet_enterprise::profile::master::versioned_deploys to true. For more information about lockless code deploys, see Deploy code without blocking requests to Puppet Server.

Improvements to puppet infrastructure upgrade commands

When you specify more than one compiler to upgrade, the puppet infrastructure upgrade compiler command now upgrades all compilers at the same time, rather than sequentially. Additionally, with both the compiler and replica upgrade commands, you can now specify the location of an authentication token other than the default. For example: puppet infrastructure upgrade compiler --token-file=<PATH_TO_TOKEN>.

More secure code deploys

Permissions for the Puppet code directory are now managed by file sync directly, instead of relying on symlinks. This change improves security during code deployment.

Logging for puppet infrastructure commands that use the orchestrator

A new log file located at /var/log/puppetlabs/installer/orchestrator_info.log contains run details about puppet infrastructure commands that use the orchestrator, including the commands to provision and upgrade compilers, convert legacy compilers, and regenerate agent and compiler certificates.

Improved error handling for plans

Before running plans, the built-in check for node connectivity now provides more descriptive error messages, such as host key verification failures.

Unspecified default values for tasks and plans are supplied automatically

New scheduling options in the console

You can now specify scheduled tasks and Puppet jobs to run every two weeks or every four weeks.

Plan support for apply() on pcp transports

Plans now support using the apply_prep() function and blocks of Puppet code within calls to apply(). The feature is only available on targets connected to PE using the PCP transport and does not work on nodes connected over SSH or WinRM.

Support for new options in the command/deploy endpoint

Platform support

This version adds support for these platforms

Razor removed

Support for bolt.yaml settings in plans removed

Settings from bolt.yaml are no longer read from the environment directory. The modulepath setting is only configurable from environment.conf.

Platforms removed

Support for these platforms is removed in this release:

Upgrade removed custom classification rules from PE Master node group

Custom rules that you used to classify compilers in the PE Master node group were removed upon upgrade, or when you ran puppet infrastructure configure.

Upgrade failed with a Could not retrieve facts error

Could not retrieve facts ... undefined method `split' for nil:NilClass (Puppet::Error)from /opt/puppetlabs/installer/lib/ruby/gems/2.5.0/gems/facter-4.0.20/lib/custom_facts/util/loader.rb:125:in `load'

Upgrading a replica could temporarily lock the agent on the master

If you tried to run Puppet on your master before the puppet infrastructure upgrade replica command completed, you could encounter an error that a Puppet run was already in progress.

FIPS installs didn't fully support cert chain validation

In FIPS environments, RBAC could not connect to LDAP using a pem or jks file.

Command to remove old PostgreSQL versions failed on Ubuntu

When run on Ubuntu nodes, the puppet infrastructure run remove_old_postgresql_versions command failed, erroneously reporting that PostgreSQL wasn't installed.

Enabling a replica could fail immediately after provisioning

When running puppet infrastructure provision replica --enable, the command could fail after the replica was provisioned but before it was enabled if services on the replica were still starting up. The command now waits for services to start and verifies that replication has completed before enabling the replica.

Ubuntu 20.04 couldn't be installed with PE package management

Ubuntu 20.04 wasn't available for installation as a pe_repo class, even though it was a supported agent platform.

Loading plan lists crashed console services

When plan run results were large, the console crashed due to high memory usage on the Plan details page. An optional results query parameter has been added to the GET/plan_jobs endpoint. This parameter keeps you from experiencing high memory usage in the console when loading results for large plan runs.

Default value for tasks and plans dropped in middleware

When a task had a default value of false or null, the console metadata panel did not display the default value.

Event inspector displayed wrong table types

Browsing the event inspector sometimes created inconsistencies in tables and errors in table links.