3.6.0 Confluent release
Genesis profiles must be re-generated
The new genesis has an incompatibility with existing genesis profile. osdeploy initialize -g must
be done to re-do the genesis profile, after moving or removing the existing genesis profile.
A self-check has been added to help identify common configuration issues
A new command confluent_selfcheck has been added to examine and highlight configuration issues that
are commonly encountered.
Remote discovery through new affluent version
The new affluent offers expanded capabilities for auto-detect and enhanced security of discovery. This also enables
the switch to extend the reach of confluent discovery to routed networks. With this feature, confluent can discover Lenovo SMMv2 and xClarity Controller 2 systems, regardless of VLAN or VRF.
In order to use, update affluent on the switch and use nodediscover subscribe <switchname> to subscribe to discovery updates from a switch.
New verified discovery.policy
When using the aforementioned switch driven discovery through subscribe on nodediscover, a new policy verified is available for discovery.policy. This allows for a node replacement to be fully automated,
if and only if the new node certificate is vetted by the directly attached ethernet switch running affluent. This only works with Lenovo SMMv2 and Lenovo xClarity 2 based systems.
Registration of remote subnets in discovery
xClarity Controller devices may now be added by IP or Subnet to scan using nodediscover register. This brings such
devices into the nodediscover list for potential assignment. This can take an IP address, subnet (address/prefix syntax), or
range of IP addresses (address1-address2).
The hardwaremanagement.manager now accepts CIDR syntax
To facilitate remote setup with static addressing, the hardwaremanagement.manager attribute can now have CIDR to indicate
the subnet prefix length (1.2.3.4/24). This can be used with either the register or subscribe discovery targets.
Remote networks may now be used for operating system deployment
A new attribute trusted.subnets can be used to indicate remote subnets that are allowed to acquire a node API token when the deployment api is armed. Additionally, a standalone network may redirect boot services to a remote confluent server by offering the IP of a confluent server as ‘next-server’, and also sending ‘PXEClient’ as the vendor client identifier. Alternatively, a
number of URLs have been added to facilitate delegated HTTP boot (confluent-api/boot/by-mac/${mac:hexhyp}/ipxe or confluent-api/boot/by-uuid/${uuid}/ipxe). In the latter case the DHCP server can offer an ipxe client that url and confluent will handle
routing to the correct profile. This is supported in select profiles, and currently requires confluent=
New attribute to automatically execute nodeconfig on discovery
The new attribute discovery.nodeconfig allows specifying arguments to nodeconfig to automatically apply upon discovery
of a new or replaced system.
New ipv4_method to suppress any PXE or HTTP boot offers
Setting net.ipv4_method to firmwarenone will now suppress any offer, even if the deployment situation indicates an offer
should be made. This enables a fully externally managed DHCP configuration including boot filename for those that desire
to externally manage it.
Support rebase of OS profiles moving forward
When updating confluent, to date there has been no mechanism to help bring updates to existing OS profiles. From 3.6 forward,
the osdeploy rebase facility is added to enable an administrator to ask that the profile be analyzed for updated content
from rpm, skipping any customized files.
Add support for custom roles on BMC devices
In addition to the defined roles for users on BMCs, support use of custom.rolename to enable user to use custom roles created on BMCs.
Suse 15 confluent is moved to python 3
Migration has been implemented to take Python 2 data and convert to Python 3 on upgrade. With this, Suse 15 has been changed to go to python 3 for new and upgraded installations.
Support for systems with xClarity Controller 2 has been added
New Lenovo servers featuring xClarity Controller 2 are now supported by discovery.
ESXi 8 deployment added
Confluent can now deploy ESXi 8 systems
Support opening consoles in standalone windows
The nodeconsole command now has a -w argument to request that the target nodes be opened in separate windows.
Fixes for IPv4-free deployment
Deployment was failing for some IPv6-only environments, this has been corrected to enable an IPv6 deployment to fully complete without an IPv4 address in place at all.
The Web UI port forwarding feature is now anchored from port 3900
Previously, when doing port forwarding for a GUI client, a random port assigned by the OS was used. The behavior is changed to now go from port 3900 until the next available port, making firewall rules more reasonable for those that want to preserve the forwarding feature. Firewall rules may now specify from port 3900 to some number based on how many forwards they anticipate needing.
Package repositories may now be available while modifying a diskless image.
When running imgutil exec, an attempt is made to connect the build package repositories to the runtime environment.
Point dnf to the configuration directory in /tmp/ to leverage the external repositories.
Improve memory consumption in networks with large numbers of misbehaving SSDP implementations
Large numbers of poorly behaving SSDP implementations could induce memory pressure on confluent. Improve confluent’s SSDP snooping to perform better in such circumstances.