= 1.3.0 Release Candidate 2 Release Announcement =

The second (and probably final) release candidate for Bcfg2 1.3.0 is now available at:

ftp://ftp.mcs.anl.gov/pub/bcfg

Bcfg2 1.3.0rc2 is a release candidate, and should be representational of the final 1.3.0 release.  The code is quite stable at this point, but this remains a release *candidate*, so please consider carefully whether or not it is suitable for production deployment at your site.  Please help us test the release wherever you can, including production and non-production environments.

There are two minor user-facing changes for users of previous 1.3.0 prereleases and release candidate:

  * Configuring strict/lax decryption is no longer done separately in the `[sshkeys]` and `[properties]` sections, but once in the `[encryption]` section (http://docs.bcfg2.org/dev/server/encryption.html#lax-vs-strict-decryption)
  * It is no longer necessary to explicitly enable encryption on each Properties file.

RC2 is almost entirely a bug fix release over RC1.  The following is a non-exhaustive list of fixes (and a few new features):

  * Added a managed uid/gid range for POSIXUser and POSIXGroup entries (http://docs.bcfg2.org/dev/client/tools/posixusers.html#managed-uid-gid-ranges)
  * Better logging from the Git plugin
  * Better build-time dependencies for Debian packages
  * Building docs is now possible without a network connection
  * !NagiosGen bugfix for unused configurations
  * bcfg2-lint fixes:
    * Updated bcfg2-lint for SELinux and POSIX entries
    * Better default plugin list
  * Fixed systemd unit
  * Fixed use of default Path metadata from config file
  * Fixed use of Packages for yum repositories with no yum libraries
  * Various documentation fixes
  * ...and many other bug fixes

If this is your first foray into Bcfg2 1.3, you are strongly encouraged to read release notes for the preleases and previous release candidate:

  * [wiki:ReleaseAnnouncement/1.3.0pre1]
  * [wiki:ReleaseAnnouncement/1.3.0pre2]
  * [wiki:ReleaseAnnouncement/1.3.0rc1]