v8.4.0

Ansible Collection: checkmk.general

For information about this collection and how to install it, refer to the README.

Release Summary

Quality-of-life improvements across all plugins.

Minor Changes

• All lookup modules - REST API errors now include the detail Checkmk reports about them, instead of only the generic message belonging to the HTTP status code. This makes validation failures diagnosable without inspecting the API by hand.
• All modules - The REST API base URL is now built by base_api_url() in module_utils/utils.py, instead of CheckmkAPI and the four modules that do not use it each assembling it by hand. The trailing-slash handling therefore lives in one place on the module side too. This only affects code importing from module_utils, not playbooks or roles.
• Lookup modules - Terms can now be passed as a single list, not only as separate arguments. Previously lookup('checkmk.general.host', my_host_list) failed with can only concatenate str (not "_AnsibleLazyTemplateList"), and the Activation lookup module silently built an invalid URL instead.
• Lookup plugins, Inventory plugin - CheckMKLookupAPI gained a post() method alongside get(), as groundwork for the monitoring collection endpoints, whose GET variants Checkmk 3.0 removes. None of the endpoints the lookup and inventory plugins currently use is a monitoring collection, so all of them keep using GET and nothing changes for playbooks or roles.
• Lookup plugins, Inventory plugin - CheckMKLookupAPI now encodes list valued query parameters as repeated keys, e.g. columns=name&columns=state, which is the form the REST API expects. No plugin passes a list yet, so this only affects code importing the class directly from module_utils, not playbooks or roles.
• Lookup plugins, Inventory plugin - CheckMKLookupAPI now takes server_url and site separately and joins them itself, instead of every caller building the site URL by hand. This only affects code importing the class directly from module_utils, not playbooks or roles.

Bugfixes

• All modules, lookup plugins and the inventory plugin - Normalize a trailing slash on server_url. The documentation consistently showed the https://myserver/ form, which built request URLs with a doubled slash in front of the site name. The Checkmk REST API tolerates that, but other consumers of the same variable do not.
• contact_group module - Fix idempotency and creation when "title" is omitted.
• host_group module - Fix idempotency and creation when "title" is omitted.
• service_group module - Fix idempotency and creation when "title" is omitted.

For a detailed changelog, refer to the CHANGELOG.

v8.3.0

Ansible Collection: checkmk.general

For information about this collection and how to install it, refer to the README.

Release Summary

Tag along for these features and fixes.

Minor Changes

• Add support in server role for optional parameter OMD create UID and GID
• Agent role - Add missing tags to several tasks and fix consistency issues.
• Agent role - Ten role variables are now declared in meta/argument_specs.yml and are therefore type checked when the role starts, which they were not before. Most values are converted automatically, but a value that cannot be converted now fails the run instead of being passed through unchecked. A non numeric entry in checkmk_agent_port for example now aborts the role.
• Server role - Add missing tags to several tasks and fix consistency issues.
• Server role - Ten role variables are now declared in meta/argument_specs.yml and are therefore type checked when the role starts, which they were not before. Most values are converted automatically, but a value that cannot be converted now fails the run instead of being passed through unchecked. A non numeric entry in checkmk_server_ports for example now aborts the role.

Bugfixes

• Agent role - Raise min_ansible_version in meta/main.yml from 2.4 to 2.18, matching requires_ansible in meta/runtime.yml. This is no functional change, just an alignment.
• Server role - Fix MKP management tasks failing when connecting as an unprivileged user without ACL support, by using su to switch to the site user instead of relying on become_user.
• Server role - Raise min_ansible_version in meta/main.yml from 2.4 to 2.18, matching requires_ansible in meta/runtime.yml. This is no functional change, just an alignment.

For a detailed changelog, refer to the CHANGELOG.

v8.2.0

Ansible Collection: checkmk.general

For information about this collection and how to install it, refer to the README.

Release Summary

Inventories and Chameleons.

Minor Changes

• Inventory plugin - Add domain_map option to append a domain suffix to hostnames based on host tags.
• Inventory plugin - Add exclude_tags option to exclude hosts with certain tags from the inventory.
• Inventory plugin - Add folder and recursive options to restrict the inventory to a Checkmk folder and optionally its subfolders.
• Inventory plugin - Add lowercase_hosts option to convert hostnames to lowercase.
• Server role - Add support for SLES 16.
• Server role - Switch web server handler from httpd` to Apache2`` for SLES 16.

For a detailed changelog, refer to the CHANGELOG.

v8.1.0

Ansible Collection: checkmk.general

For information about this collection and how to install it, refer to the README.

Release Summary

Quality of life and security improvements for the server role.

Minor Changes

• Remove the unused dependency on the ansible.utils collection.
• Server role - Apply the OMD site configuration before starting the site. Previously, a stopped site (e.g. freshly created or just updated) with omd_config defined was started first, only to be stopped again immediately to apply the configuration. Now the configuration is applied while the site is still stopped and the site is started only once.
• Server role - Use the site or package name as the loop label in the site and MKP management tasks for cleaner output. The no_log logic was also improved to be as little obstructive as possible.

Security Fixes

• Server role - The MKP management tasks no longer show the whole package dictionary, including a potentially configured download_password, as the loop label. Additionally, the MKP download task now honors checkmk_server_no_log when a download_password is configured.

Bugfixes

• Server role - Only update the site admin password when it actually differs from the configured one.

For a detailed changelog, refer to the CHANGELOG.

v8.0.0

Ansible Collection: checkmk.general

For information about this collection and how to install it, refer to the README.

Breaking Changes / Porting Guide

• User module - The parameter auth_type no longer defaults to password. Playbooks that create a new user and rely on this default must now set auth_type explicitly. Existing playbooks that already pass auth_type are unaffected.

Bugfixes

• User module - Fix editing of users that authenticate via LDAP or SAML. Since 7.1.0, the parameter auth_type defaulted to password, so every edit of an existing user silently reset LDAP- or SAML-authenticated users to local authentication. The default has been removed and the authentication option is now only changed when auth_type, password or enforce_password_change is set explicitly.

For a detailed changelog, refer to the CHANGELOG.

v7.8.0

Ansible Collection: checkmk.general

For information about this collection and how to install it, refer to the README.

Minor Changes

• Discovery module - Add option to update service parameters for bulk discovery.
• Discovery module - Add support for Checkmk 3.0.

For a detailed changelog, refer to the CHANGELOG.

v7.7.0

Ansible Collection: checkmk.general

For information about this collection and how to install it, refer to the README.

Major Changes

• Role lookup - Add lookup plugin to fetch a single role's configuration.
• Role module - Add module to manage roles and permissions.
• Roles lookup - Add lookup plugin to list all configured roles.

Bugfixes

• Role module - When creating a role with permissions, a failure while applying the permissions left the cloned role without adjusted permissions. The module now fails with changed=true and a message explaining that the role exists but the permissions have not been applied. Re-running the task with fixed permissions will fix this state.

New Plugins

Lookup

- checkmk.general.role - Get the configuration of a role
- checkmk.general.roles - Get a list of all roles

New Modules
-----------

- checkmk.general.role - Manage roles in Checkmk

For a detailed changelog, refer to the [CHANGELOG](https://github.com/Checkmk/ansible-collection-checkmk.general/blob/main/CHANGELOG.rst).

v7.6.0

Ansible Collection: checkmk.general

For information about this collection and how to install it, refer to the README.

Minor Changes

• All modules - Cookie-based authentication can now be used without providing api_user and api_secret. Bearer and basic authentication still require them.
• Checkmk inventory plugin - Credentials can now be provided via CHECKMK_VAR_* environment variables, checkmk_var_* Ansible variables, or the [checkmk_lookup] section in ansible.cfg. Cookie-based authentication is also supported via the new api_auth_type and api_auth_cookie options.

Deprecated Features

• Password module - The owner parameter was renamed to editable_by. We keep owner as an alias, but the old name will be removed in a future release. Update your configuration to use editable_by.

Bugfixes

• Module utils - Fix basic authentication being broken due to an indentation error that left auth_str unassigned.
• Module utils - Fix version comparison to reliably handle patch release numbers greater than 10.
• Password module - Make the module compatible with Checkmk 3.0.0.

For a detailed changelog, refer to the CHANGELOG.

v7.5.0

Ansible Collection: checkmk.general

For information about this collection and how to install it, refer to the README.

Release Summary

Finalizing the new Checkmk edition names.

Minor Changes

• Both the agent and server role got some updated task titles. There are no functional changes, but the titles were aligned and improved for accessibility and readability.
• Finalize new edition naming in line with Checkmk 2.5. All modules and roles now support the new edition naming. Old names and identifiers continue to work but will now trigger a warning to start using the new names.

For a detailed changelog, refer to the CHANGELOG.

v7.4.0

Ansible Collection: checkmk.general

For information about this collection and how to install it, refer to the README.

Release Summary

Mother's Day is still two weeks out, but we care about parents nevertheless.

Minor Changes

• Agent role - Enable automatically adding the folder a host will be put in. This is disabled by default. With this feature enabled, the folder you want to put your host in will be created if it does not exist.
• Folder module - Enable creating folders including their parents. This enables creating complex folder structures without having to create every single folder on their own.

For a detailed changelog, refer to the CHANGELOG.