Newton Series Release Notes

14.0.0

New Features

  • LXC containers will now have a proper RFC1034/5 hostname set during post build tasks. A localhost entry for 127.0.1.1 will be created by converting all of the “_” in the inventory_hostname to “-”. Containers will be created with a default domain of openstack.local. This domain name can be customized to meet your deployment needs by setting the option lxc_container_domain.

  • A new variable has been added to allow a deployer to control the restart of containers via the handler. This new option is lxc_container_allow_restarts and has a default of yes. If a deployer wishes to disable the auto-restart functionality they can set this value to no and automatic container restarts that are not absolutely required will be disabled.

  • The lxc-container-create role now consumes the variable lxc_container_bind_mounts which should contain a list of bind mounts to apply to a newly created container. The appropriate host and container directory will be created and the configuration applied to the container config. This feature is designed to be used in group_vars to ensure that containers are fully prepared at the time they are created, thus cutting down the number of times containers are restarted during deployments and upgrades.

  • The lxc-container-create role now consumes the variable lxc_container_config_list which should contain a list of the entries which should be added to the LXC container config file when the container is created. This feature is designed to be used in group_vars to ensure that containers are fully prepared at the time they are created, thus cutting down the number of times containers are restarted during deployments and upgrades.

  • The lxc-container-create role now consumes the variable lxc_container_commands which should contain any shell commands that should be executed in a newly created container. This feature is designed to be used in group_vars to ensure that containers are fully prepared at the time they are created, thus cutting down the number of times containers are restarted during deployments and upgrades.

  • The container creation process now allows copy-on-write to be set as the lxc_container_backing_method when the lxc_container_backing_store is set to lvm. When this is set it will use a snapshot of the base container to build the containers.

  • The container creation process now allows overlayfs to be set as the lxc_container_backing_store. When this is set it will use a snapshot of the base container to build the containers. The overlayfs backing store is not recommended to be used for production unless the host kernel version is 3.18 or higher.

  • LXC containers will now generate a fixed mac address on all network interfaces when the option lxc_container_fixed_mac is set to true. This feature was implemented to resolve issues with dynamic mac addresses in containers generally experienced at scale with network intensive services.

  • The lxc_container_create role will now build a container based on the distro of the host OS.

  • The lxc_container_create role now supports Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04, and RHEL/CentOS 7

  • The LXC container creation process now has a configurable delay for the task which waits for the container to start. The variable lxc_container_ssh_delay can be set to change the default delay of five seconds.

  • The LXC container creation and modification process now supports online network additions. This ensures a container remains online when additional networks are added to a system.

  • Support added to allow deploying on ppc64le architecture using the Ubuntu distributions.

Upgrade Notes

  • LXC containers will now have a proper RFC1034/5 hostname set during post build tasks. A localhost entry for 127.0.1.1 will be created by converting all of the “_” in the inventory_hostname to “-”. Containers will be created with a default domain of openstack.local. This domain name can be customized to meet your deployment needs by setting the option lxc_container_domain.

  • The lxc_container_create role no longer uses the distro specific lxc container create template.

  • The following variable changes have been made in the lxc_host role:

    • lxc_container_template: Removed because the template option is now contained within the operating system specific variable file loaded at runtime.

    • lxc_container_template_options: This option was renamed to lxc_container_download_template_options. The deprecation filter was not used because the values provided from this option have been fundamentally changed and old overrides will cause problems.

    • lxc_container_release: Removed because image is now tied with the host operating system.

    • lxc_container_user_name: Removed because the default users are no longer created when the cached image is created.

    • lxc_container_user_password: Removed because the default users are no longer created when the cached image is created.

    • lxc_container_template_main_apt_repo: Removed because this option is now being set within the cache creation process and is no longer needed here.

    • lxc_container_template_security_apt_repo: Removed because this option is now being set within the cache creation process and is no longer needed here.

Bug Fixes

  • LXC containers will now have the ability to use a fixed mac address on all network interfaces when the option lxc_container_fixed_mac is set true. This change will assist in resolving a long standing issue where network intensive services, such as neutron and rabbitmq, can enter a confused state for long periods of time and require rolling restarts or internal system resets to recover.