Ansible 2.16.0: Major Enhancements and Updates — Video Tutorial

Introduction Ansible, the open-source automation platform, has released a new version with numerous enhancements, bug fixes, and security updates. Ansible has become a fundamental tool for managing IT infrastructure and applications, streamlining workflows, and maintaining infrastructure as code (IaC) principles. Ansible 2.16 Let’s delve into the key changes introduced in this release: Important Changes: - Drop Python 3.5 support for module execution. - Drop Python 3.9 support for the controller. - Add Python 3.12 support. - Preserve display context when proxying display over the queue. - Update `TaskExecutor` to not unnecessarily establish persistent `ansible-connection` when not needed. Ansible Enhancements - Collection Path The INI config option “collections_paths” has been deprecated; please use the singular form “collections_path” instead. Additionally, the environment variable “ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_PATHS” is now deprecated, and you should use the singular form “ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_PATH” instead. - Removed Support for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 as Microsoft’s support end of life on October 10th, 2023. - Remote Support New remotes have been added, including Alpine 3.18, Fedora 38, Fedora 38 container, FreeBSD 13.2 remote, RHEL 8.8 remotes, and RHEL 9.2 remotes, expanding compatibility across various platforms. - Python 3.12 Support Support for testing with Python 3.12 has been introduced, keeping Ansible up-to-date with the latest Python version. - Improved Container Naming Containers created by ansible-test now include the current test session ID in their name, avoiding conflicts between concurrent ansible-test invocations. - Improved Test Provisioning RHEL 8.8 and RHEL 9.2 provisioning can now be used with the `--python 3.11` option, improving testing flexibility. - Streamlined Code Coverage Thread code coverage has been enabled alongside existing multiprocessing coverage, enhancing code quality assurance. - RHEL 8.8 and RHEL 9.2 Support Provisioning for RHEL 8.8 and RHEL 9.2 has been added, expanding compatibility for Red Hat Enterprise Linux users. - Deprecated Features Removal Several deprecated features have been removed, including the ‘smart’ connection option, deprecated INI config options, and support for older Windows Server versions. CLI Improvements - Improved CLI Argument Parsing Support for automatically prepending with the help of CLI arguments that support being specified multiple times has been added, streamlining the command-line interface. - Default Transport `DEFAULT_TRANSPORT` now defaults to ‘ssh,’ while the ‘smart’ option is deprecated due to the decreasing relevance of control persist in newer OpenSSH versions. Porting Guide - Python Type Hints One notable update is the addition of Python-type hints to the `Display` class, contributing to improved code readability and maintainability. - Galaxy Collection Warning To enhance user control, a new option, `GALAXY_COLLECTIONS_PATH_WARNING`, allows d