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v3.x

Note

Support for this release of Digital Rebar is no longer available.

Historical notes about v3 releases.

The v3.x Era

The v3.x release series established Digital Rebar Provision as a standalone bare metal provisioning platform. Earlier versions of Digital Rebar were distributed as a multi-component system; the v3 series consolidated the provisioning functionality into a single binary (dr-provision) with an integrated DHCP server, TFTP server, HTTP file server, and workflow engine. This architecture made DRP significantly easier to deploy and operate.

The v3.x series introduced or matured several capabilities that remain foundational to DRP:

  • Plugin system: DRP's plugin architecture was introduced and evolved significantly across the v3 series. Plugins allow third-party and RackN-supplied extensions to add new object types, API endpoints, and task providers without modifying the core binary.
  • Workflow engine: The workflow and stage/task model was introduced and refined across v3, enabling operators to define repeatable, multi-step machine lifecycle automation as composable pipelines.
  • Content packs: The content pack system for distributing reusable bootenvs, stages, tasks, workflows, and templates became the standard delivery mechanism for DRP automation.
  • DHCP and DNS integration: The built-in DHCP server matured across v3, with Subnet, Reservation, Lease, and DNS Zone objects becoming fully functional.

The v3 series concluded with the release of v4.0 in August 2019, which introduced a new commercial backend and inverted the open source licensing model. Detailed commit-level change history for the v3 series is available in the DRP git repository history.

v3.6.0 to v3.7.0

The plugin system has been updated to a new version. All plugins have been updated to use the new version. After updating to v3.7.0, all plugins must be updated to function. The system will start after update, but the plugin-providers will not load until they are udpated. Use the RackN UX to get the updates for the plugins.

The Task subsystem has been updated to default to [sane-exit-codes]{.title-ref}. This is a change from the default of [original-exit-codes]{.title-ref}. This was done to address the need of task authors to match some basic assumptions about exit codes. 1 should be a fail and not reboot your box.