ibm.ibm_zhmc Release Notes 

v1.10.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2025-09-24. Functional enhancements and bug fixes. This version contains all fixes up to version 1.9.6.

Major Changes 

Added support for the following properties and input parameters in the ‘zhmc_user’ and ‘zhmc_user_list’ modules (user-template related, primary-mfa-server-definition related, backup-mfa-server-definition related, default-group related)
Support for ansible-core 2.18, by adding an ignore file for the sanity tests.
zhmc_nic - Added properties ‘adapter-id’, ‘adapter-name’ and ‘adapter-port’ to the properties returned by the NIC in the zhmc_nic module.
zhmc_nic_list - Added properties ‘adapter_id’, ‘adapter_name’ and ‘adapter_port’ to the properties returned for each NIC listed by the zhmc_nic_list module. The inclusion of these properties is controlled with a new ‘expand_names’ input parameter of that module.
zhmc_partition - Lifted the size limit of 2GB for ISO images that can be mounted with the ‘zhmc_partition’ module using ‘state=mount_iso’.
zhmc_user - Added a boolean ‘expand_names’ parameter to the ‘zhmc_user’ module. This allows disabling the addition of names for referenced objects. For backwards compatibility, this parameter is True by default.
zhmc_user - Added a logged warning if the deprecated parameter ‘expand’ is used for the ‘zhmc_user’ module.
zhmc_user_list - Added a boolean ‘expand_names’ parameter to the ‘zhmc_user_list’ module. This allows enabling the addition of names for referenced objects, which improves the performance compared to a loop of calls to the ‘zhmc_user’ module with ‘expand_names’, because the data needed for translating the URIs to names is retrieved only once. To save these extra retrieval operations by default, this parameter is False by default.

Minor Changes 

Added missing dependencies to the minimum constraints files. They now contain all direct and indirect dependencies.
Added support for checking with Mend Renovate.
Dev - Added commit message checker to test workflow. (issue 1137)
Dev - Added display of environment variables and platform details in test workflow.
Dev - Added to the release instructions to roll back fixes for safety issues, dependabot issues and Mend issues, into any maintained stable branches.
Dev - Brought the list of dependent files for the distribution archive in the Makefile back in sync with its content.
Dev - Cleaned up preparation of sanity test in Makefile.
Dev - Relaxed the conditions when safety issues are tolerated. Issues in development dependencies are now tolerated in normal and scheduled test workflow runs (but not in local make runs and release test workflow runs). Issues in installation dependencies are now tolerated in normal test workflow runs (but not in local make runs and scheduled/release test workflow runs).
Docs - Added CHANGELOG.rst file and changed to fragments based change log (issue 731).
Docs - Added CHANGELOG.rst file and changed to fragments based change log (issue 731).
Docs - In the parameter documentation for the ‘zhmc_user’ and ‘zhmc_user_list’ modules, made the language more explicit that states under which conditions each parameter is present.
In order to reduce dependencies to other packages, the MarkupSafe, importlib-metadata, python-dateutil and jsonschema packages have been removed from the requirements.txt file, since they are indirect dependencies.
In order to reduce dependencies to other packages, the use of the pytz package was removed, by replacing ‘pytz.utc’ with the built-in ‘datetime.timezone.utc’.
In order to reduce dependencies to other packages, the use of the urllib3 package was removed. The urllib3 package was used to disable its warnings, but for an Ansible module that is not needed.
Increased minimum version of zhmcclient to 1.23.1 to pick up fixes and new functionality.
Moved the Python package dependencies for ‘ansible’ and ‘ansible-core’ from requirements.txt to a separate file requirements-ansible.txt that is not part of the collection package, because Ansible EE does not expect them to be in the install dependencies.
Removed the ‘collections’ directory from the distribution archive, because it is not needed there.
Removed the unnecessary .pylintrc file from the distribution archive of the collection.
Replaced our own extended version of ‘missing_required_lib()’ with the standard version from ‘ansible.module_utils.basic’ because the extensions were not used.
Test - Accommodated rollout of Ubuntu 24.04 on GitHub Actions by using ubuntu-22.04 as the OS image for Python 3.8 based test runs.
Test - Added Python 3.13 to the tests in GitHub Actions.
Test - Added an initial set of end2end testcases for the zhmc_nic module.
Test - Added end2end testcases for the zhmc_nic_list module.
Test - In test_common.py, replaced use of the “immutable-views” package with “immutabledict”.
Test - Removed the invalid combinations of type and auth-type from the end2end test ‘test_zhmc_user_facts()’.
Test - Speed up end2end test function test_zhmc_partition_properties() by combining properties that are updated, to groups.
The ‘hmc_auth’ input parameter is no longer completely removed from the module entry log, but instead its sensitive items ‘password’ and ‘session_id’ are now blanked out.
Updated authors in the collection metadata to be in sync with contributions to the repo, and changed from showing Github nicknames to showing email addresses.
Updated collection description in the collection metadata to be in sync with the overview description in the README.md file.

Breaking Changes 

Removed the ability to install this collection on Ansible < 8 (ansible-core < 2.15). This increases the minimum Python version to 3.9, because Ansible 8 requires Python >= 3.9. Note that Ansible versions < 8 were already unsupported by this collection since its version 1.9.

Bugfixes 

Added check for missing imports in ‘module_utils/common.py’, in the modules ‘zhmc_adapter_list.py’ and ‘zhmc_session.py’.
Circumvention for HTTP error 500.12 when creating NICs on Hipersocket adapters on z16 when the PartitionLink feature is enabled. This is a temporary circumvention until the defect will be fixed.
Dev - Fixed new issue ‘too-many-positional-arguments’ reported by Pylint 3.3.0.
Dev - Fixed removal of some files in the Makefile.
Dev - Made order of names in AUTHORS.md reliable. (issue 1141)
Dev - Removed the pinning of typer version to <0.17.0 with the new release of safety 3.6.1 and also upgraded minimum version of safety to be 3.6.1 to fix the issue with typer>=0.17.0, see https://github.com/pyupio/safety/issues/778
Dev - The test workflow now tolerates linkcheck errors. It now succeeds if there are linkcheck errors, but they are still displayed in the Actions summary.
Dev - Upgrade nltk to 3.9.1 to fix the wordnet error, see https://github.com/nltk/nltk/issues/3416
Docs - Fixed Ansible Galaxy badge on README page. (issue 1136)
Docs - Fixed broken links in the documentation. Fixed the description of commit message checking in the development section of the documentation to remove the mentioning of the GitCop service which is no longer used.
Docs - Fixed broken links to IBM documentation and updated permanently redirected links.
Docs - Fixed incorrect module name in examples for the ‘zhmc_nic’ module. (issue 1058)
Docs - Ignored www.ansible.com in linkcheck, because it occasionally times out.
Docs - Updates in Bibliography section - Collapsed the HMC WS-API books to a single version (2.17), Added link to HMC Help, Updated HMC Security book to 2.17, Removed the HMC Operations Guide which no longer exists.
Fixed missing dependencies for development.
Fixed safety issues up to 2025-07-23.
Fixed that all password-like input parameters that were added to the module return value in clear text for ‘state’ values that created or updated the resource are now removed from the return value. This affected the following modules zhmc_ldap_server_definition, zhmc_lpar, zhmc_partition.
Fixed that all password-like input parameters that were written in clear text to the module entry log are now blanked out. This affected the following modules zhmc_ldap_server_definition, zhmc_lpar, zhmc_partition, zhmc_user.
Fixed that for z17 CPCs, NICs backed by OSA or HiperSocket adapters could not be created or updated to change their backing adapter. (issue 1178)
Fixed that resource objects for which the user has no access permission but that are referenced via URIs in other objects do not cause errors anymore. Such cases are now tolerated and the referenced objects are shown with their URI, with name “(unknown)” and with ‘None’ for their properties in any module results that show objects. (issue 1173)
Increased zhmcclient version to 1.18.2 to pick up fixes. (issue 1074)
Increased zhmcclient version to 1.24.0 to pick up fixes.
Sanity test - Fixed the sanity test on AutomationHub which failed because the “compile” and “import” tests were run for all target node Python versions, which includes Python 2.7. As we had dropped support for Python < 3.8 in collection version 1.9.0, the source code now uses Python 3-only features such as f-strings. This was done by adding a file tests/config.yml to the distribution archive that is consumed by the sanity test if present and that declares that the modules of this collection run only on the controller node, so the additional Python versions for the target node are no longer used for these sanity tests.
Test - Fixed duplicate ‘description’ properties in test YAML files. (issue 1097)
Test - For the MFA related properties of the ‘zhmc_user’ and ‘zhmc_user_list’ modules, fixed that they are always present, and not dependent on mfa-types or other MFA related properties.
Test - For the ldap-server-definition related properties of the ‘zhmc_user’ and ‘zhmc_user_list’ modules, fixed that they are always present, and not dependent on auth-type=local.
Test - For the password-rule related properties of the ‘zhmc_user’ and ‘zhmc_user_list’ modules, fixed that they are always present, and not dependent on auth-type=local.
zhmc_cpc_capacity - Fixed a bug where decreasing the capacity resulted in TypeError (issue 1225).
zhmc_user - Fixed that the zhmc_user module blanked out the ‘password’ property in the input params before passing them on to the zhmcclient ‘User.update_properties()’ method. (issue 1081)

v1.9.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2024-07-18. Functional enhancements and bug fixes. This version contains all fixes up to version 1.8.3.

Major Changes 

Enabled notification logging via the ‘zhmcclient.jms’ Python logger. (related to issue 938)
zhmc_lpar - Added a new ‘allow_status_exceptions’ parameters to the zhmc_lpar module for ‘state=active,loaded’. For backwards compatibility, its default value is True (issue 986).
zhmc_lpar - Added a new ‘status_timeout’ parameter to the zhmc_lpar module for ‘state=inactive,active,loaded’ (issue 986).

Minor Changes 

Addressed collection import issues on AutomationHub.
Dev - Added a final run of the “safety” and “bandit” tools to the “publish” workflow, to ensure that a release cannot happen with any findings.
Dev - Added a new make target ‘end2end_show’ to show the HMCs defined for end2end tests (issue 888).
Dev - Added support for running the ‘bandit’ checker with a new make target ‘bandit’, and added that to the GitHub Actions test workflow.
Dev - Changed safety run for install dependencies to use the exact minimum versions of the dependent packages, by moving them into a separate minimum-constraints-install.txt file that is included by the existing minimum-constraints.txt file. (issue 939)
Dev - Suppressed the errors in the Makefile when ansible is not yet installed but the Makefile sets variables that depend on ansible being installed. That situation was handled correctly, but the error messages were confusing.
Dev - The safety run for all dependencies now must succeed when the test workflow is run for a release (i.e. branch name ‘release_…’).
Docs - Added a chapter ‘Installing a development version’ that describes how to build and install a development version of the collection from the repo (issue 1008).
Docs - Adjusted README file to new Ansible Automation Hub requirements. (issue 993)
Docs - Improved the short descriptions of the modules (issue 998).
Docs - Reduced the number of versions in the generated documentaion to only the latest fix version of each minor version starting with version 1.0.x (issue 1000).
Modernized the code to match the minimum Python version 3.8 (use of f-strings, no Python 2 compatibility, ‘mock’ is used from ‘unittest’).
Test - Added a separate pylint run (in addition to the one in the Ansible sanity test), because it can be run on the test sources as well, and because the santy test pylint has important checks disabled (issue 1007).
Test - Added end2end tests for adding and removing user roles to/from existing users (related to issue 716).
Test - Added tests for Ansible 10. The testing of Ansible 3 was dropped because we can test only one Ansible version on each Python version and we ran out of Python versions.
Test - Added virtual storage resource objects to the mocked end2end test environments.
Test - Increased versions of GitHub Actions plugins to increase node.js runtime to version 20.
Test - Resolved the ‘no-log-needed’ issue raised by the sanity test and ansible-lint on the ‘os_ipl_token’ input parameter of the zhmc_lpar module. That allowed to get rid of the corresponding entries in the ignore files (issue 915).
Test - Resolved the ‘return-syntax-error’ issue raised by the sanity test and ansible-lint on all modules that specify generic return properties. That allowed to get rid of the corresponding entries in the ignore files. (issue 915)
Test - Upgraded Github Actions plugins that used the deprecated node version 16 (issue 974).

Breaking Changes 

The value of the ‘password’ property will be replaced with ******** in log messages and in the ‘result’ dictionary returned by the zhmc_user module.

Removed Features 

Dropped support for Python 2.7, 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7.
Increased minimum officially supported Ansible version to Ansible 8 / ansible-core 2.15 (issue 988).

Security Fixes 

Test - Added check to the test workflow when running on macOS or Ubuntu for whether the ‘xz’ tool is at a version that is affected by CVE-2024-3094.

Bugfixes 

Fixed a performance issue in the zhmc_lpar_list and zhmc_partition_list modules where the ‘se-version’ property was fetched from CPCs even if it was already available in the LPAR/partition properties (issue 904).
Fixed dependabot issues up to 2024-02-18.
Fixed readable attribute error when ensuring ISO mounted onto the partition (related to issue 932).
Fixed safety issues up to 2024-06-24.
Fixed that the ‘timeout’ parameter of the zhmc_lpar module was not used for ‘state=inactive’ (related to issue 986).
In the Github Actions test workflow for Python 3.5, 3.6 and 3.7, changed macos-latest back to macos-12 because macos-latest got upgraded from macOS 12 to macOS 14 which no longer supports these Python versions.
In the Github Actions test workflow for Python 3.5, added a circumvention for the Pip certificate issue.
Increased the minimum version of zhmcclient to 1.17.0 to pick up fixes, performance improvements and new functions (related to issue 904 and others).
Test - Fixed exception handling in end2end tests for password rules.
Test - Fixed that coverage was calculated only for the Ansible module source files, but not for the utility files in module_utils (issue 1020).

New Modules 

ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_cpc_capacity - Manage the temporary processor capacity of a CPC (issue 243).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_lpar_command - Execute an OS consosle command in the OS running in an LPAR (classic mode) (issue 938).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_partition_command - Execute an OS consosle command in the OS running in a partition (DPM mode) (issue 938).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_user_pattern - Manage the user patterns on the HMC (issue 361).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_user_pattern_list - List the user patterns on the HMC (issue 361).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_versions - Retrieve facts for HMC/CPC versions and features.

v1.8.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2024-01-15. Functional enhancements and bug fixes. This version contains all fixes up to version 1.7.4.

Major Changes 

Added support for Ansible 9.
Added support for Python 3.12 (issue 796).
Added support for redundant HMC hosts. The ‘hmc_host’ module input parameter can now be specified as a single HMC as before, or as a list of redundant HMCs. The HMC list can be specified as a list type or as a Python string representation of a list in order to accomodate Ansible expressions (issue 849).
In the zhmc_lpar_list module, added support for the ‘additional_properties’ input parameter (issue 853).
Support for limiting the properties returned by the zhmc_cpc, zhmc_lpar and zhmc_partition modules by specifying a new ‘select_properties’ input parameter (issue 851).
The zhmc_session module now has an additional module return parameter ‘hmc_host’ which for ‘action=create’ contains the actually used HMC. If you use that module and now start specifying redundant HMCs for ‘action=create’, you need to also change the ‘hmc_host’ parameter of all ibm_zhmc modules that use that session including the zhmc_session module with ‘action=delete’, to specify the so returned HMC. If you use that module with a single HMC, no change is needed (related to issue 849).
zhmc_adapter_list - In the zhmc_adapter_list module, improved the use of the “Permitted Adapters” operation so that it is now also used when the ‘additional_properties’ module parameter is used and the HMC API version is 4.10 or higher. (related to issue 850)
zhmc_console, zhmc_cpc - Added upgrade_timeout parameter to zhmc_console and zhmc_cpc modules.
zhmc_partition - Added support for mounting and unmounting ISO images to partitions (DPM mode) via new state values ‘iso_mount’ and ‘iso_unmount’ for the zhmc_partition module (issue 551).

Minor Changes 

Dev - Added a new make target ‘make ansible_lint’ which invokes ansible-lint. Fixed some of the warnings reported by ansible-lint (related to issue 784).
Dev - Added support for a new make target ‘authors’ that generates an AUTHORS.md file from the git commit history. Added the invocation of ‘make authors’ to the description of how to release a version in the development documentation (issue 631).
Docs - In the zhmc_lpar_list module, clarified that the use of the “List Permitted Logical Partitions” operation does not affect the module result data (related to issue 850).
Docs - In the zhmc_partition_list module, clarified that the use of the “List Permitted Partitions” operation does not affect the module result data (related to issue 850).
Increased minimum version of zhmcclient to 1.13.0 to pick up fixes and functionality.
Increased the minimum versions of the following packages used for installing the collection. packaging to 21.3 (on Python >= 3.6), PyYAML to 6.0.1 (on Python >= 3.6), jsonschema to 4.10.0 (on Python >= 3.7).
Removed documentation and test files (except sanity test ignore files) from the collection package that is built, for consistency with the other IBM Z collections and in order to get rid of the dependency to have the doc extractor installed as a dependency to build and install the collection locally.
Test - Added Python 3.8 with latest package levels to normal tests because that is now the minimum version to run Sphinx (related to issue 890).

Bugfixes 

Addressed safety issues up to 2024-01-08.
Dev - Added package level to .done files (issue 799).
Dev - Fixed the call to pipdeptree in the test workflow to use ‘python -m’ because otherwise it does not show the correct packages of the virtual env.
Dev - Pinned voluptuous package to <0.14 on Python < 3.6.
Docs - Clarified in the description of the return parameters of the zhmc_cpc module that for state ‘inactive’, an empty dict is returned (related to issue 851).
Docs - Clarified in the description of the return parameters of the zhmc_lpar module that for state ‘facts’, properties are returned (related to issue 851).
Docs - Clarified that Ansible versions below 7 (ansible-core 2.14) are not officially supported, but only supported on a best-can-do basis. As part of that change, the Ansible sanity checks are reduced to run only on officially supported Ansible versions (issue 784).
Docs - Fixed and improved the description of the zhmc_lpar module for state=active/loaded; cleaned up the code without functional changes.
Docs - In the description of the zhmc_lpar module, changed incorrect references to the “acceptable” status to be “exceptions”.
Docs - Increased minimum Sphinx versions to 7.1.0 on Python 3.8 and to 7.2.0 on Python >=3.9 and adjusted dependent package versions in order to fix a version incompatibility between sphinxcontrib-applehelp and Sphinx. Disabled Sphinx runs on Python <=3.7 in order to no longer having to deal with older Sphinx versions (issue 890).
Fixed ‘missing required arguments b, u, n, d, l, e, _, l, e, v, e, l’ error when using the zhmc_console or zhmc_cpc modules with ‘state=upgrade’ (issue 834).
Fixed link to Ansible Galaxy on README page (issue 785).
Fixed that the ‘name’ property was missing in result of the zhmc_nic_list module.
Logging - Fixed the result name in the log message for module success.
Test - Fixed end2end test for zhmc_cpc_list module that failed when the HMC had unmanaged CPCs or had HMC version 2.14.
zhmc_adapter_list - Fixed that on HMC versions 2.14 and 2.15, the zhmc_adapter_list module failed because it tried to use the “List Permitted Adapters” operation that was added in HMC version 2.16 (actually API version 4.10) (issue 850).
zhmc_lpar - Corrected the status reported in the log when zhmc_lpar was called with state=active or loaded, and check mode was enabled (related to issue 851).
zhmc_lpar - Fixed that the zhmc_lpar module with state=reset_normal/clear waited for LPAR status “operational” which never happened, by picking up the fix in zhmcclient 1.11.3 (issue 801).
zhmc_lpar - Fixed that the zhmc_lpar module with state=set when invoked in check mode rejected the property update in status “exceptions”.
zhmc_partition_list - Fixed that on HMC versions 2.14 and 2.15, the zhmc_partition_list module failed because it tried to use the ‘additional-properties’ query parameter that was added in HMC version 2.16 (actually API version 4.10) (issue 850).
zhmc_storage_group - Fixed KeyError in zhmc_storage_group module when used with non-FCP storage groups, and clarified that the artificial properties ‘candidate-adapter-ports’ and ‘virtual-storage-resources’ returned by the module will be empty arrays for non-FCP storage groups. (e.g. NVMe). (issue 864)

New Modules 

ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_lpar_messages - Retrieve console messages from the operating system running in an LPAR (classic mode) (issue 565).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_partition_messages - Retrieve console messages from the operating system running in a partition (DPM mode) (issue 565).

v1.7.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2023-10-09. Functional enhancements and bug fixes. This version contains all fixes up to version 1.6.1.

Major Changes 

Added support for requesting full properties with a new “full_properties” input parameter for the list modules (issue 651).
Added support for requesting specific additional properties with a new “additional_properties” input parameter for the zhmc_adapter_list and zhmc_partition_list modules (issue 651).
zhmc_adapter - Added new properties for z15 (nvme related) and z16 (‘network-ports’), and improved the output properties for hipersocket create in check mode.
zhmc_adapter - Improved the check mode support. It now recognizes if an adapter gets renamed to another existing adapter and rejects that just as in non-check mode.
zhmc_crypto_attachment - The ‘crypto_type’ parameter is now ignored when ‘adapter_names’ is specified. That allows specifying adapter names without having to know their crypto type.
zhmc_ldap_server_definition - Added support for retrieving, creating and deleting LDAP Server Definitions (issue 364).
zhmc_ldap_server_definition_list - Added support for listing LDAP Server Definitions (issue 364).
zhmc_lpar - Added new parameter timeout for the zhmc_lpar module with state=active (issue 556).
zhmc_lpar - Added new parameters load_address, load_parameter, clear_indicator, store_status_indicator and timeout for the zhmc_lpar module with state=loaded (issue 556).
zhmc_user_role - Added support for user role permissions based on groups.

Minor Changes 

Added CHANGELOG.rst file to satisfy requirement for RedHat Automation Hub. For now, it includes release_notes.rst. A transition to fragments-based creation of CHANGELOG.rst is postponed because the unified documentation for the IBM Z set of collections first needs to find a common solution for all of its collections.
Docs - Clarified that firmware upgrades of SE and HMC do nothing and succeed if the firmware was already at the desired bundle level.
Increased minimum version of zhmcclient to 1.11.2 to pick up fixes for mock support for LDAP Server Definitions, improved mock support for Adapters, and new functionality.
Test - Added a check in the Actions test workflow for the module .rst files to be up to date in the PR (issue 755).
Test - Always provided optional module input parameters in end2end tests. This allows modules to rely on optional parameters being provided with their default values by the calling Ansible environent. Changed the modules to rely on that.
Test - Changed identification of adapters in end2end test module test_zhmc_adapter_list.py to be based on adapter IDs (PCHIDs) instead of adapter names to accomodate a system on the test floor that currently has that bug.
Test - Clarified in make help that coverage data is added by each test. Enabled end2end test for test coverage.

Breaking Changes 

zhmc_adapter - Fixed the ‘match’ input parameter to have priority over the ‘name’ input parameter. Previously, the ‘name’ parameter had priority if (and only if) an adapter with that name existed. This bug fix changes the behavior if ‘match’ is used and another adapter with the new name already exists. Before this change, the other adapter was used and other input properties were updated in that adapter, which in all likelyhood was not intended because it was not the adapter identified by the ‘match’ parameter. With this change, the adapter identified by the ‘match’ parameter is always used regardless of whether another adapter with that name exists, i.e. the name change in that case will fail.
zhmc_crypto_attachment - Now, one of the ‘adapter_count’ or ‘adapter_names’ parameters must be specified. Previously, not providing any of them resulted in a default of adapter_count = -1 (all adapters of the specified crypto type). That made it impossible to properly check for whether both had been specified when adapter_count was specified with its default -1. To use all adapters now, explicitly specify ‘adapter_count -1’.

Bugfixes 

Docs - Removed incorrect ‘userid’ property from return value documentation of zhmc_session module.
Fixed safety issues from 2023-09-15.
Test - Circumvented a pip-check-reqs issue by excluding its version 2.5.0.
Test - Fixed end2end tests in modules test_zhmc_partition.py, test_zhmc_session.py, and test_zhmc_user.py.
zhmc_partition - Fixed configuration of boot from storage volume. It can now be configured either by setting the ‘boot_storage_volume’ input property to the URI of the boot volume, or by setting the ‘boot_storage_volume_name’ and ‘boot_storage_group_name’ input properties to the name of the boot volume and its storage group, respectively (issue 640).
zhmc_partition - Fixed issue that partitions in ‘paused’ status could not be stopped. As part of that, redesigned the start_partition(), stop_partition() and wait_for_transition_completion() methods to use a simple state machine. This will cause any bad statuses that happen on the way to be raised as exceptions (they were previously returned) (issue 642).

v1.6.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2023-08-04. Functional enhancements and bug fixes.

Major Changes 

zhmc_console - Added support for upgrading HMC firmware with a new state value ‘upgrade’ (issue 719).
zhmc_cpc - Added support for upgrading the SE firmware with a new state value ‘upgrade’ (issue 719).

Minor Changes 

Increased minimum version of zhmcclient to 1.10.0 to pick up the functionality for upgrading firmware (issue 719).

v1.5.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2023-07-18. Functional enhancements and bug fixes. This version contains all fixes up to version 1.4.1.

Major Changes 

zhmc_storage_group - Added support for FCP discovery to the zhmc_storage_group module with a new state ‘discover’ (issue 704).

Minor Changes 

Dev - Documented the secret variables needed for the Github Actions workflows.

Bugfixes 

Addressed safety issues from 6+7/2023, by increasing ‘requests’ to 2.31.0 on Python >=3.7, and ‘cryptography’ to 41.0.2 on Python >=3.7, and by increasing other packages only needed for development.
Increased minimum version of cryptography package to 41.0.2 to address an issue.
Increased minimum version of zhmcclient to 1.9.1 to get fixes. This required upgrading several other packages.
zhmc_nic_list - Fixed issue in the zhmc_nic_list module that resulted in TypeError.

v1.4.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2023-06-22. Functional enhancements and bug fixes. This version contains all fixes up to version 1.3.1.

Major Changes 

Added support for Ansible version 8 (ansible-core 2.15).
zhmc_nic - Added support for “state=facts” to the zhmc_nic module (issue 671).
zhmc_user - The zhmc_user module with ‘state=facts’ now returns the artificial name properties always consistent with the presence of the corresponding uri properties (related to issue 658).
zhmc_user, zhmc_user_role - Improved performance of the zhmc_user and zhmc_user_role modules for ‘state=facts’ (issues 660, 658).

Minor Changes 

Dev - Added package dependency checking for the remaining Python-based tools that are used in the development of this colleciton.
Dev - Added safety checking and addressed any reported issues (issue 632).
Docs - Added a troubleshooting section to the docs.
Increased minimum versions of pip, setuptools, wheel to more recent versions.
Increased version of cryptography package to 41.0.0 on Python >=3.7.

Deprecated Features 

zhmc_user - Deprecated the ‘expand’ input parameter of the zhmc_user module. It had been used to expand URLs to independent objects (user roles, password rule, LDAP server definitions) leading to returning the same objects multiple times when invoking the zhmc_user module in a loop (related to issue 658).

Bugfixes 

Dev - Circumvented the removal of Python 2.7 from the Github Actions plugin setup-python, by using the Docker container python:2.7.18-buster instead, and by adjusting the os_setup.sh script to accomodate the absence of sudo in that container. As part of that, Python 2.7 on macOS is no longer tested.
Test - Fixed a bug when displaying details on failed end2end testcases in test_zhmc_password_rule.py and test_zhmc_user.py.

New Modules 

ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_console - Provide facts about the targeted HMC (issue 650).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_nic_list - List the NICs of a partition (issue 671).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_session - Maintain the HMC session across playbook/role tasks. This can be used to reduce the number of HMC sessions that is created during playbook execution, to one. Without this module, each ibm_zhmc module invocation creates its own separate HMC session. Along with that, added a new ‘session_id’ input parameter to all existing Ansible modules, that can be provided as an alternative to providing userid and password.

v1.3.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2023-03-03. Functional enhancements and bug fixes. This version contains all fixes up to version 1.2.1.

Minor Changes 

Docs, Dev - Changed sphinx-versions to use the PEP 440 compliant tag 1.1.3.post2 from our fork.
Test - Addressed issues in test workflow reported by Github Actions (issue 616).

Bugfixes 

Unpinned Ansible again. It was pinned in version 1.2.0 on each Python version to a different Ansible version in order to broaden the test coverage. The test coverage across Ansible versions is now defined separately from the Ansible versions required for installing the collection.

New Modules 

ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_user_list - List users on the HMC.

v1.2.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2022-12-06. Functional enhancements and bug fixes. This version contains all fixes up to version 1.1.1.

Major Changes 

Added support for Ansible 6.0.0 by adding an ignore-2.13.txt file to the sanity tests (issue 533).
Added tests for Python 3.11.
zhmc_lpar - Added support for ‘reset_clear’ and ‘reset_normal’ state in the zhmc_lpar module to support the “Reset Clear” and “Reset Normal” HMC operations. Along with that, added support for a new optional ‘os_ipl_token’ input parameter to support the respective HMC operation parameter (issue 556).
zhmc_partition_list, zhmc_lpar_list - Removed the restriction that the ‘se-version’ property in the result of the zhmc_partition_list and zhmc_lpar_list modules was provided only with HMC versions 2.14.1 and newer. The property is now provided with all HMC versions (issue 549).
zhmc_partition_list, zhmc_lpar_list - Removed the restriction that the zhmc_partition_list and zhmc_lpar_list modules were supported only with HMC versions 2.14.0 and newer. These modules are now supprted with all HMC versions (issue 549).
zhmc_user - Improved the error handling of the zhmc_user module when specified user roles, user patterns, password rules, or LDAP server definitions do not exist (related to issue 564).

Minor Changes 

Docs - Simplified the publishing of the collection.
Docs - Stated support for machine generation z16 / LinuxONE 4.
Docs - Stated support for the classic-mode only machine generations z196 / z114 / zEC12 / zBC12.
Test - Added a new make target ‘end2end_mocked’ that runs the end2end tests against mock environments defined with a new HMC inventory file (mocked_inventory.yaml) and a new HMC vault file (mocked_vault.yaml), and new mock files mocked_z14_classic.yaml and mocked_z14_dpm.yaml (part of issue 396).
Test - Added the end2end_mocked tests to the coverage data reported to coveralls.io.
Test - Increased the set of tested Ansible versions to now include all major versions that are supported, from Ansible 2.9 to Ansible 7.
Test - Merged function tests into end2end tests to remove duplicate test cases.
zhmc_lpar - Clarified the description of input parameters (part of issue 556).

Bugfixes 

Dev - Fixed a flake8 AttributeError when using importlib-metadata 5.0.0 on Python >=3.7, by pinning importlib-metadata to <5.0.0 on these Python versions.
Docs - Updated the set of supported Ansible versions listed in the Installation section of the documentation to add recent Ansible versions up to Ansible 7.
Fixed that every module invocation created an additional log handler, thus duplicating log entries. This only affected the end2end tests, but not when used in Ansible playbooks (issue 552).
Improved error handling when the zhmcclient_mock module is missing. (issue 574).
Increased minimum version of zhmcclient to 1.5.0 in order to pick up fixes (part of issue 396).
Test - Added missing z14 partition properties to the mock definition file tests/end2end/mocked_hmc_z14.yaml (related to issue 550).
Test - Temporarily disabled the sanity tests on all Ansible 7 (ansible-core 2.14) test environments. See issue 579 for the overall issue.
zhmc_adapter - Made the zhmc_adapter module tolerant against unconfigured FICON adapters to avoid HTTP error 404,4 “Get for Storage Port Properties is not supported for this card type” (issue 580).
zhmc_partition - Added missing z14, z15 and z16 input properties ‘boot_storage_volume’, ‘boot_storage_volume_name’, ‘boot_load_parameters’, ‘permit_ecc_key_import_functions’, ‘ssc_ipv6_gateway’, ‘secure_boot’, ‘secure_execution’, ‘storage_group_uris’, ‘tape_link_uris’, ‘partition_link_uris’, ‘available_features_list’ (related to issue 550).
zhmc_partition - Fixed that the artificial property ‘boot-storage-volume-name’ was not included in the result (related to issue 550).
zhmc_partition - Fixed the support for check mode and added tests (issue 550).
zhmc_user - Made the zhmc_user module tolerant against unusual cases such as local auth without password rule (issue 564).

New Modules 

ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_adapter_list - List adapters on CPCs in DPM mode. This speeds up execution time compared to obtaining them from the facts returned by the zhmc_cpc module (issue 576).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_partition_list - List partitions on CPCs in DPM mode. This speeds up execution time compared to obtaining them from the facts returned by the zhmc_cpc module (issue 526).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_password_rule - Manage password rules on the HMC (issue 363).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_password_rule_list - List password rules on the HMC (issue 363).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_user_role - Manage user roles on the HMC (issue 362).
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_user_role_list - List user roles on the HMC (issue 362).

v1.1.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2022-06-01. Functional enhancements and bug fixes. This version contains all fixes up to version 1.0.3.

Major Changes 

Test - Added support for a TESTCASES env.var for filtering testcases with the pytest -k option.
Test - Made end2end testing compatible with zhmcclient.testutils support using an Ansible compatible HMC inventory file and an Ansible compatible HMC vault file. The default HMC inventory file is now ~/.zhmc_inventory.yaml and can be changed using the TESTINVENTORY env. var. The default HMC vault file is now ~/.zhmc_vault.yaml and can be changed using the TESTVAULT env. var. The default HMC or group to run the end2end tests against is now ‘default’ and can be changed using the TESTHMC env. var.
zhmc_user - Added support for specifying user roles as input in the zhmc_user module. User roles can now be specified with their names. They had been displayed on users before (issue 514).
zhmc_user - Removed check in zhmc_user module for required input properties ‘type’ and ‘authentication_type’ because for updating existing users they are not needed, and for creating new users, the HMC checks these (part of issue 514).

Bugfixes 

Added a tag ‘infrastructure’ to the collection metadata (tags field in galaxy.yml) - Ansible Automation Hub requires at least one tag from a standard tag list to be specified.
Dev - Added “make check” for running “flake8” since the “pep8” that is run as part of the ansible sanity test does not find some issues. Resolved those new issues.
Docs - Fixed incorrect input property names in zhmc_user module (part of issue 514).
Increased minimum version of zhmcclient from 1.2.0 to 1.3.0 in order to pick up fixes and new functionality.
Test - Added missing env.vars in the pytest invocation for end2end tests.
Test - Added missing optional module parameters in the end2end tests.
Test - Added support for specifying ‘hmc_auth.ca_certs’ and ‘hmc_auth.verify’ from the ‘hmc_verify_cert’ parameter in the HMC definition file in end2end test cases for zhmc_partition and zhmc_user.
Test - Fixed failure of sanity test on Python 3.6 due to new CryptographyDeprecationWarning raised by ansible, by pinning cryptography to <37.0.0 on Python 3.6 (issue 518).
Test - Removed the “tools” directory from the temporary archive built for the sanity test, and removed the ignore statements for “tools/os_setup.sh” from the ignore files because the sanity test on AutomationHub tests against the uploaded archive which does not have that script.
zhmc_user - Fixed an error for users with LDAP authentication.
zhmc_user - Fixed incorrect default properties for users created in check mode.
zhmc_user - Fixed the use of incorrectly named attributes and methods in the zhmc_user module, and made the module result in check mode consistent with non-check mode (issue 507).

v1.0.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2022-04-08. Functional enhancements and bug fixes. This version contains all fixes up to version 0.10.1.

Major Changes 

Added support for Ansible 5.0.
Added support for Python 3.10, but needed to exclude the Ansible sanity test for the time being, since it does not yet support Python 3.10.
zhmc_cpc - Added state values ‘active’ and ‘inactive’ for activating/starting and deactivating/stopping CPCs in their current operational mode (issue 418).

Bugfixes 

Docs - Increased minimum version of Sphinx to 4.1.0 to fix an issue with renamed filters in Jinja2 3.1.0.
Docs, Dev - Pinned voluptous to <0.13.0 on Python 2.7. Increased sphinx-versions to 1.1.3.post-am2 for fix for Click 8.1.0 (issue 488).
Improved handling of exceptions when creation of zhmcclient.Session fails (issue 451).
Increased minimum version of zhmcclient from 0.31.0 to 1.2.0 in order to pick up fixes and new functionality.
Increased the minimum versions of the requests, cryptography, and PyYAML packages due to fixes requires for Python 3.10, and also due to the new package dependency resolver in Pip.
Test - Fixed new Pylint issues reported by Pylint 2.9 and 2.10.

New Modules 

ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_lpar - Manage LPARs on CPCs in classic mode (issue 418).

v0.10.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2021-06-17. Functional enhancements and bug fixes. This version contains all fixes up to version 0.9.2.

Major Changes 

Added support for verifying HMC certificates by adding module sub-parameters ‘ca_certs’ and ‘verify’ to the ‘hmc_auth’ module parameter of all modules (issue 401).
Changed module input parameter ‘hmc_auth.userid’ to no longer be hidden in logs, for better debugging. The password is still hidden in any logs.
Docs - Stated that ansible-core 2.11 is supported.
Docs - The idempotency of each module and possible limitations are now described for each module (issue 375).

Minor Changes 

Accomodated the immutable properties introduced with zhmcclient 0.31.0.
Docs - Renamed “Bibliography” page to “Resources” and removed common Ansible links from that page to better fit the unified documentation for the IBM Z collections.
Docs - The documentation is now built for all versions since 0.9.0 and for the master branch. This change added the update versions before the latest update version within each minor version, and removed the latest stable branch stable_M.N.
Increased minimum version of zhmcclient to 0.31.0 in order to have the support for certificate verification and to pick up fixes.

Breaking Changes 

The new support for verifying HMC certificates will by default verify the HMC certificate using the “Mozilla CA Certificate List” provided by the ‘certifi’ Python package, causing self-signed HMC certificates to be rejected. The verification behavior can be controlled with the new ‘ca_certs’ and ‘verify’ sub-parameters of the ‘hmc_auth’ module parameter of each module.

Bugfixes 

Docs - Fixed error during automatic docs build when two PRs are merged to master shortly one after another. The last one finishing the docs build now wins. Since PRs are merged in the order earlier first, their docs build should also finish first (issue 417).
Docs - Fixed instructions to release a version to cover for the case where the docs build does not show the new version in the release notes.
Docs - Fixed link to ibm_zhmc samples playbooks.
Docs - Fixed the text for the Ansible Module Index in the bibliography to state it applies to Ansible 2.9 and fixed the link to reference the 2.9 version instead of the latest version. Added a bibliography entry for the Ansible Collection Index for Ansible 2.10 and later.
Docs - In the development section of the docs, fixes and improvements for the descriptions of releasing a version and starting a new version (issues 344 and 345).
Docs - Pinned Sphinx to <4.0 to circumvent the issue that sphinx-versions uses the deprecated Sphinx.add_stylesheet() method that was removed in Sphinx 4.0 (issue 402).
Docs - The docs is now always built from the master branch, and the versions to be generated is now automatically determined from the Git tags and branches. This fixes a possible inconsistency in the versions included and build parameters used, between stable branch and master branch (issue 350).
Test - Added sanity test ignore file for ansible-core 2.11 and fixed some Pylint issues to pass the test.
Test - Fixed the condition for whether to run the Ansible sanity test and fixed issues reported by it (issue 377 and others).
Test - Mitigated the coveralls HTTP status 422 by pinning coveralls-python to <3.0.0.

Added support for Python 3.7 and 3.8.
Dev - Migrated from Travis and Appveyor to GitHub Actions. This required several changes in package dependencies for development.
Examples - Added an example playbook ‘get_cpc_io.yml’ which retrieves information about a CPC in DPM mode and its I/O configuration and creates a markdown file showing the result.
Test - Added end2end test support, against real HMCs.
zhmc_cpc - Added an artificial property ‘storage-groups’ to the output that shows the storage groups attached to the partition, with only a subset of their properties.
zhmc_cpc - Clarified that the zhmc_cpc module can be used for CPCs in any operational mode. Previously, the documentation stated DPM mode as a prerequisite. Added support to the zhmc_cpc module for updating several classic-mode-only properties.
zhmc_crypto_attachment - Added support for specifying crypto adapters by name instead of just their count (see issue 187).
zhmc_nic - Updated the definition of NIC properties to the z15 machine generation. This makes the ‘mac_address’ property writeable, and adds the ‘vlan_type’, ‘function_number’ and ‘function_range’ properties.
zhmc_partition - Added an artificial property ‘crypto-adapters’ to the ‘crypto-configuration’ property, showing the adapter properties of the crypto adapters attached to the partition, with all of their properties and artificial properties as in the result of zhmc_adapter. This is enabled by the new boolean input parameter ‘expand_crypto_adapters’.
zhmc_partition - Added an artificial property ‘storage-groups’ to the output that shows the storage groups attached to the partition, with all of their properties and artificial properties as in the result of zhmc_storage_group. This is enabled by the new boolean input parameter ‘expand_storage_groups’.
zhmc_partition - Added artificial properties to the ‘nics’ property: ‘adapter-name’: Name of the adapter backing the NIC. ‘adapter-port’: Port index on the adapter backing the NIC. ‘adapter-id’: Adapter ID (PCHID) of the adapter backing the NIC.

Minor Changes 

Dev - Changed make targets and adjusted to directory structure compatible with Ansible collections, and for publishing on Ansible Galaxy.
Dev - Dropped the use of pbr for this package.
Dev - Removed old circumventions for Travis issues.
Docs - Removed the page describing common return values, because all return values are specifically described on the module pages without referencing any common return value type.
Docs - Updated maintainer list.
examples - Moved the sample playbooks to the common IBM Z Ansible Collection Samples repository: https://github.com/IBM/z_ansible_collections_samples/.

Breaking Changes 

Fixed the ‘version_added’ field in the module description to no longer indicate the version of this module collection package, but instead the minimum Ansible version supported, consistent with the definition of that field. Since Ansible Galaxy supports Ansible 2.9 and above, the field now shows 2.9 for all modules.
The zhmc Ansible collection is no longer distributed as the zhmc-ansible-modules package on Pypi, but as the ibm.ibm_zhmc collection on Ansible Galaxy.

Removed Features 

Dropped support for Python 3.4.

Bugfixes 

Dev - Increased minimum version of flake8 to 3.7.0 due to difficulties with recognizing certain ‘noqa’ statements. This required explicitly specifying its dependent pycodestyle and pyflakes packages with their minimum versions, because the dependency management did not work with our minimum package versions.
Docs - In the description of the module return data, added samples and fixed errors in the described structure of return data for the zhmc_adapter, zhmc_cpc, zhmc_storage_group and zhmc_user modules.
Fixed ParameterError raised when creating NICs on CNA adapter ports.
zhmc_adapter - Fixed AttributeError when using the zhmc_adapter module to create a HiperSockets adapter (see issue 141).
zhmc_storage_group, zhmc_user - Fixed issues with parameters in exception messages raised in the zhmc_storage_group and zhmc_user modules.

New Modules 

ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_user - Manage users on the HMC.

zhmc_crypto_attachment - Improved the quaity of error messages.

Bugfixes 

zhmc_crypto_attachment - Fixed an issue where the incorrect crypto adapter was picked, leading to a subsequent crypto conflict when starting the partition. See issue 112.

Renovated the logging: Added support for the log_file parameter to all modules. Changed the format of the log lines. Set log level also when no log_file is specified, causing the logs to be propagated to the root logger.

Minor Changes 

Docs - Fixed change log of 0.6.0.

Breaking Changes 

zhmc_adapter - Temporarily disabled the retrieval of full properties in the result data of the zhmc_adapter module.

Added support for Python 3.7. This required increasing the minimum version of Ansible from 2.2.0.0 to 2.4.0.0. This also removes the dependency on the ‘pycrypto’ package, which has vulnerabilities and is no longer maintained since 2013. Ansible uses the ‘cryptography’ package, instead. See issue 66.
zhmc_adapter - Added support for managing adapters by adding a zhmc_adapter module. The module allows setting writeable properties of an adapter, changing the adapter type for FICON Express adapters, and changing the crypto type for Crypto Express adapters, all in an idempotent way. It also allows gathering facts for an adapter (i.e. all of its properties including a few artificial ones). See issue 83.
zhmc_cpc - Added support for managing CPCs by adding a zhmc_cpc module. The module allows setting writeable properties of a CPC in an idempotent way, and to gather facts for a CPC (i.e. all of its properties including a few artificial ones). See issue 82.
zhmc_crypto_attachment - Added a zhmc_crypto_attachment module, which manages the attachment of crypto adapters and of crypto domains to partitions in an idempotent way. This was already supported in a less flexible and non-idempotent way by the zhmc_partition module.
zhmc_partition - Added support for adjusting the value of the ssc_ipv4_gateway input property for the zhmc_partition module to None if specified as the empty string. This allows defaulting the value more easily in playbooks.

Minor Changes 

Docs - Improved and fixed the documentation how to release a version and how to start a new version.

Bugfixes 

Fixed dependency to zhmcclient package to be >=0.20.0, instead of using its master branch from the github repo.
Updated the ‘requests’ package to 2.20.0 to fix the following vulnerability: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-18074.
zhmc_adapter - The crypto_number property of Adapter is an integer property, and thus the zhmc_adapter module needs to change the string passed by Ansible back to an integer. It did that correctly but only for the properties input parameter, and not for the match input parameter. The type conversions are now applied for all properties of Adapter also for the match parameter.
zhmc_cpc - The dictionary to check input properties for the zhmc_cpc module had the acceptable_status property written with a hyphen instead of underscore. This had the effect that it was rejected as non-writeable when specifying it as input.

Added several playbooks as examples for managing DPM storage groups.

Minor Changes 

Synced package dependencies with zhmcclient project.

Breaking Changes 

Dev - Changed ‘make setup’ back to ‘make develop’ for consistency with the other zhmcclient projects.

Bugfixes 

Dev - Several fixes in the make process and package dependencies.

New Modules 

ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_storage_group - Manage DPM storage groups.
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_storage_group_attachment - Manage attachment of DPM storage groups to partitions.
ibm.ibm_zhmc.zhmc_storage_volume - Manage DPM storage volumes.

zhmc_partition - Added support for gathering partition and child facts. The fact support is invoked by specifying state=facts. The fact support is implemented by returning the partition properties in the result. The returned partition properties are enriched by adding properties ‘hbas’, ‘nics’, ‘virtual-functions’ that are a list of the properties of the respective child elements of that partition (issue 32).

Minor Changes 

Added get_facts.py script to examine usage of the Ansible 2.0 API.

Bugfixes 

Improved the logic for handling create+update properties in case the resource does not exist, such that they are no longer updated in addition to being set during creation. The logic still supports updating as an alternative if the resource does not exist, for update-only properties (e.g. several properties in Partitions). (Fixed as part of issue 31).
zhmc_partition - Fixed that the “type” property for Partitions could not be specified. It is valid for Partition creation, and the only restriction is that its value cannot be changed once the Partition exists. Along with fixing the logic for such create-only properties, the same issue was also fixed for the adapter port related properties of HBAs (issue 31).
zhmc_partition - Fixed the bug that a TypeError was raised when setting the ‘ssc_dns_servers’ property for a Partition. The property value is a list of strings, and lists of values were not supported previously. Extended the function test cases for partitions accordingly (issue 34).
zhmc_partition - Fixed the issue that a partition in “terminated” or “paused” status could not be made absent (i.e. deleted). Now, the partition is stopped which should bring it into “stopped” status, and then deleted (issue 29).

Added support for specifying integer-typed and float-typed properties of Partitions, NICs, HBAs, and VFs also as decimal strings in the module input.
Specifying string typed properties of Partitions, NICs, HBAs, and VFs with Unicode characters no longer performs an unnecessary property update.

Minor Changes 

Increased minimum ansible version from 2.0.0.1 to 2.2.0.0.
Increased minimum zhmcclient version to 0.15.0.

v0.2.0 

Release Summary 

Released on 2017-07-20. This is the initial release.