MAAS 1.8.0

1.8.0
=====

Important announcements
-----------------------

**Region Controller now running on twisted.**
 The MAAS Region Controller is now running as a twisted daemon. It is
 no longer dependent on Apache in order to run. The MAAS Region
 controller is now controlled by ``maas-regiond`` upstart job or systemd
 unit. The ``maas-regiond`` daemon is available in port ``5240``.

**Firewall ports for Region and Cluster controller communication**
 The communication between Region and Cluster controller is now limited
 to use the ports between ``5250`` and ``5259``. For all of those users who
 are using a remote cluster (not running on the same machine as the
 MAAS Region Controller), need to ensure that these ports are open in
 the firewall.

Major new features
------------------

**Web UI Re-design**
 MAAS now includes a newly re-designed Web UI. The new Web UI features
 a new design and a lot of usability improvements. Some of the UI new
 features include:

 * Live Updating

   The new UI now allows users to view the current status of the
   various nodes of MAAS in real-time and without having to manually
   refresh the browser.

 * Bulk Actions

   Quickly select multiple nodes or devices and perform actions. If
   nodes or devices are not in a state where that action can be
   performed MAAS will alert you to the machines allowing you to
   modify your selection before performing the action.

 * Live Searching

   View the matching nodes or devices as you search. Just type and the
   nodes will start to filter, no reloading or waiting for the page to
   load.

 * Better Filtering

   Easily filter through the list of nodes and devices in MAAS to find
   the specific nodes that match your search. Examples:

   * All nodes that are Ready and have at least 2 disks::

      status:Ready disks:2

   * All nodes that are not Ready::

      status:!Ready

   * All nodes that have Failed to complete an action::

      status:Failed

   * All nodes that are deployed but their power is off::

      status:Deployed power:off

 * Node & Storage Tag Management

   Administrators can now add and remove tags for both Machine and
   Storage. This is now possible via the Web UI from the `Node Details`
   page.

 * Add Chassis

   A new `Add Chassis` feature has been added to the UI. This is an
   option of `Add Hardware`. This not only allows administrators to
   add machines that belong to a single chassis, but also allows
   administrators to add Virtual Machines for both KVM and VMWare
   based products.

**Support for Devices**
 MAAS adds a new concept for a different type of machines, called
 `Devices`. `Devices` are machines that MAAS does not fully manage;
 this means that MAAS can not power manage nor properly control.
 `Devices` are machines in the Network that MAAS can provide network
 services for (DHCP/DNS), or can track for inventory.

 Administrators can assign three different types of IP Address to a
 device:

 * `External`, which can be any IP address on the network.
 * `Static`, which can be selected manually or automatically, and
   belongs to Subnetwork that MAAS can control.
 * `Dynamic`, any IP address that is automatically assigned by MAAS
   via DHCP. MAAS will automatically create a DNS mapping for any of
   the IP addresses belonging to a Device.

**Storage Discovery**
 Storage that is attached to a node in MAAS is now a first class
 citizen. Easily view and filter nodes based on the number of disks
 and the size of each disk attached to a node. Information retrieved
 from a storage device includes its name, model, serial, size,
 block size, and extra information that is applied to a storage device
 as a tag. MAAS will auto tag devices including tags for solid state
 device (ssd), rotary, rpm speed, and connected bus.

**Twisted Daemons**
 The MAAS Region Controller no longer requires an Apache frontend. It
 is still used by default to be backward compatible, but the MAAS
 Region Controller is now a standalone Twisted process (the twisted
 daemon for the Cluster Controller, ``maas-clusterd``, was introduced
 in MAAS 1.7). The MAAS Region Controller is now ``maas-regiond``.

 Starting from MAAS 1.8 the Region Controller and Cluster Controller
 are noq controlled only by two daemons. (``maas-regiond`` and
 ``maas-clusterd`` respectively)

**DB Isolation**
 Previously PostgreSQL was used in the default READ COMMITTED
 transaction isolation mode. It has now been increased to
 REPEATABLE READ. PostgreSQL thus provides extra support to ensure
 that changes in MAAS are logically consistent, a valuable aid in a
 busy distributed system.

**VMware support**
 VMware products are now supported in MAAS. This allows MAAS to register
 all the Virtual Machines that the VMWare product is running (or a subset
 whose name matches a specified prefix), set them up to PXE boot, and
 configure them for power management.

 This feature requires the ``python-pyvmomi`` package to be installed.
 (This is a suggested package, so be sure to use ``--install-suggests`` on
 your ``apt-get`` command line when installing the MAAS cluster, or install
 it manually.)

 The following VMware products have been tested: vSphere Hypervisor 5.5,
 ESXi 5.5, and Workstation 11. This feature supports both i386 and amd64
 virtual machines.

Minor notable changes
---------------------
**RPC Communication & Ports**
 RPC communication between the Region Controller and the
 Cluster Controller has now been limited to use the ports between 5250
 and 5259, inclusive.

**Discovered virtual machine names are imported into MAAS**
 When using the new `Add Chassis` functionality (or the
 ``probe_and_enlist`` API), virtual machines (VMs) imported into MAAS will
 now use the names defined within the Hypervisor as hostnames in MAAS.
 This feature works with KVM (virsh or PowerKVM) and VMWare VMs.

 The names of the virtual machines will be converted into valid
 hostnames, if possible. For example, if a VM called `Ubuntu 64-bit`
 is imported, it will become `ubuntu-64-bit`.

 Note that only the hostname portion of the name is used. For example,
 if a VM is called `maas1.example.com`, only the “mass1” portion of the
 name will be used as the node name. (The cluster configuration
 determines the remainder of the DNS name.)

**Virtual machine boot order is now set automatically**
 When using the new `Add Chassis` functionality (or the
 `probe_and_enlist` API) to add KVM or VMware virtual machines, MAAS
 will automatically attempt to set each virtual machine’s boot order so
 that the network cards (PXE) are attempted first. (This increases the
 repeatability of VM deployments, because a VM whose boot order is
 incorrectly set may work *once*, but subsequently fail to deploy.)

**Systemd Support**
 MAAS now supports systemd, allowing all of the MAAS daemons to run
 with Systemd, if the Ubuntu system is running systemd by default
 instead Upstart. These daemons include ``maas-regiond``,
 ``maas-clusterd``, ``maas-dhcpd``, ``maas-dhcpd6``, ``maas-proxy``.

**Upstart & Systemd improvements**
 Both Upstart Jobs and Systemd Units now run and supervise various
 instances of the ``maas-regiond`` in order to be able to effectively
 handle all requests.

Known Problems & Workarounds
----------------------------

**Disk space is not reclaimed when MAAS boot images are superseded**
 Whenever new boot images are synced to ``maas-regiond``, new large
 objects in the database are created for them, which may replace older
 versions of the same image (for the specified version/architecture
 combination). Unfortunately, the standard postgresql `autovacuum`
 does not remove large objects that are no longer used; a
 “full vacuum” is required for this. Therefore, a new command has
 been introduced which will run the appropriate postgresql vacuum
 command (See bug `1459876`_)::

 maas-region-admin db_vacuum_lobjects

 This command should be run with care (ideally, during a scheduled
 maintenance period), since it could take a long time (on the order
 of minutes) if there are a large number of superseded images.

.. _1459876:
  https://launchpad.net/bugs/1459876

**MAAS logs to maas.log.1 instead of maas.log**
 The `/var/log/maas/maas.log` is a rsyslog based log file, that gets
 rotated in the form of `maas.log.1`, `maas.log.2.gz`, etc. In one
 situation it has been seen that `maas.log` is empty, and rsyslog
 was sending logs to `maas.log.1` instead. This has been identified
 as an issue in rsyslog rather than maas. See bug `1460678`_.

.. _1460678:
  https://launchpad.net/bugs/1460678