These release notes are for an old release of Salt. This release might contain known security and other issues that are fixed in the latest release.

(release-3006.0)=

# Salt 3006.0 release notes

## Onedir packaging

Going forward from the 3006.0 release, the Salt Project will only provide onedir packages to install or upgrade Salt. The classic, non-onedir packages will not be provided for supported operating systems. See Upgrade to onedir in the Salt Install Guide for information about upgrading from the classic packages to the onedir packages.

## Linux Packaging Salt Master Salt User and Group

The linux Salt Master packages will now add a Salt user and group by default. The packages will add the `user: salt` config option to the Salt Master config. The Salt Master service will run as this user. If you do not want to run the Salt Master as a different user you can remove the `user: salt` config from /etc/salt/master or change the user to the desired user to run the Salt Master.

Since the Salt Master is running as a different user, you will need to ensure you set the owner and group to `salt` for your file_roots and pillar_roots(commonly `/srv/salt` and `/srv/pillar`).

If you are running a Salt Master, Salt-Api and a Salt Minion on the same host using the new `salt` user and you install a pip dependency into the onedir environment using `salt-pip` or the `pip` module, you need to to chown the directory `/opt/saltstack/salt/lib/<python_version>/site-packages/` with the `salt` user and group.

## Caveat of salt-pip

Salt ships with a wrapper script around pip called `salt-pip`. Users should use `salt-pip` to install any python packages needed to extend Salt. `salt-pip` installs python packages into an `extras-3.10` directory located in the root of the ondir directory, by setting the `--target` argument for pip. This ensures those packages remain installed when upgrading Salt. There is a known bug in pip when using `--target` where scripts and other non-python assets may not be cleaned up properly when un-installing. The Salt team is working to resolve this bug in the up-stream pip project.

## Dropping support for Python 3.5 and 3.6

Python 3.5 and 3.6 will no longer be supported by Salt since they are end of life. Going forward our policy will be to align with Python's supported versions. See Salt support for Python versions for more information.

## All salt-api functionality disabled by default

All netapi clients, which provide the functionality to `salt-api`, will now be disabled by default as a security precaution. If you use `salt-api`, you must add the new `netapi_enable_clients` option to your salt master config. This is a breaking change and the `salt-api` will not function without this new configuration option. See Enabling netapi client interfaces for more information.

## How do I migrate to the onedir packages?

The migration path from the classic, non-onedir packages to the onedir packages will include:

- Repo File: You need to update your repo file to point to the new repo paths for your platform. After the repo file is updated, upgrade your Salt packages.

- Pip packages: You need to ensure any 3rd party pip packages are installed in the correct onedir path. This can be accomplished in two ways:

  - `salt-pip install <package name>`

  - Using the `pip.installed` Salt state.

To install python packages into the system python environment, user's must now provide the `pip_bin` or `bin_env` to the pip state module.

For example:

    lib-foo:
      pip.installed:
        - pip_bin: /usr/bin/pip3
    lib-bar:
      pip.installed:
        - bin_env: /usr/bin/python3

## Changelog

### Removed

- Remove and deprecate the orchestration key from salt.runner and salt.wheel return data. To get it back, set features.enable_deprecated_orchestration_flag master configuration option to True. The flag will be completely removed in Salt 3008 Argon. #59917

- Removed distutils and replaced with setuptools, given distutils is deprecated and removed in Python 3.12 #60476

- Removed `runtests` targets from `noxfile.py` #62239

- Removed the PyObjC dependency.

  This addresses problems with building a one dir build for macOS. It became problematic because depending on the macOS version, it pulls different dependencies, and we would either have to build a macos onedir for each macOS supported release, or ship a crippled onedir(because it would be tied to the macOS version where the onedir was built). Since it's currently not being used, it's removed. #62432

- Removed `SixRedirectImporter` from Salt. Salt hasn't shipped `six` since Salt 3004. #63874

### Deprecated

- renamed `keep_jobs`, specifying job cache TTL in hours, to `keep_jobs_seconds`, specifying TTL in seconds. `keep_jobs` will be removed in the Argon release #55295

- Removing all references to napalm-base which is no longer supported. #61542

- The 'ip_bracket' function has been moved from salt/utils/zeromq.py in salt/utils/network.py #62009

- The `expand_repo_def` function in `salt.modules.aptpkg` is now deprecated. It's only used in `salt.states.pkgrepo` and it has no use of being exposed to the CLI. #62485

- Deprecated defunct Django returner #62644

- Deprecate core ESXi and associated states and modules, vcenter and vsphere support in favor of Salt VMware Extensions #62754

- Removing manufacture grain which has been deprecated. #62914

- Removing deprecated utils/boto3_elasticsearch.py #62915

- Removing support for the now deprecated _ext_nodes from salt/master.py. #62917

- Deprecating the Salt Slack engine in favor of the Salt Slack Bolt Engine. #63095

- `salt.utils.version.StrictVersion` is now deprecated and it's use should be replaced with `salt.utils.version.Version`. #63383

### Changed

- More intelligent diffing in changes of file.serialize state. #48609

- Move deprecation of the neutron module to Argon. Please migrate to the neutronng module instead. #49430

- `umask` is now a global state argument, instead of only applying to `cmd` states. #57803

- Update pillar.obfuscate to accept kwargs in addition to args. This is useful when passing in keyword arguments like saltenv that are then passed along to pillar.items. #58971

- Improve support for listing macOS brew casks #59439

- Add missing MariaDB Grants to mysql module. MariaDB has added some grants in 10.4.x and 10.5.x that are not present here, which results in an error when creating. Also improved exception handling in `grant_add` which did not log the original error message and replaced it with a generic error. #61409

- Use VENV_PIP_TARGET environment variable as a default target for pip if present. #62089

- Disabled FQDNs grains on macOS by default #62168

- Replaced pyroute2.IPDB with pyroute2.NDB, as the former is deprecated #62218

- Enhance capture of error messages for Zypper calls in zypperpkg module. #62346

- Removed GPG_1_3_1 check #62895

- Requisite state chunks now all consistently contain `__id__`, `__sls__` and `name`. #63012

- netapi_enable_clients option to allow enabling/disabling of clients in salt-api. By default all clients will now be disabled. Users of salt-api will need to update their master config to enable the clients that they use. Not adding the netapi_enable_clients option with required clients to the master config will disable salt-api. #63050

- Stop relying on `salt/_version.py` to write Salt's version. Instead use `salt/_version.txt` which only contains the version string. #63383

- Set enable_fqdns_grains to be False by default. #63595

- Changelog snippet files must now have a `.md` file extension to be more explicit on what type of rendering is done when they are included in the main `CHANGELOG.md` file. #63710

- Upgraded to `relenv==0.9.0` #63883

### Fixed

- Add kwargs to handle extra parameters for http.query #36138

- Fix mounted bind mounts getting active mount options added #39292

- Fix `sysctl.present` converts spaces to tabs. #40054

- Fixes state pkg.purged to purge removed packages on Debian family systems #42306

- Fix fun_args missing from syndic returns #45823

- Fix mount.mounted with 'mount: False' reports unmounted file system as unchanged when running with test=True #47201

- Issue #49310: Allow users to touch a file with Unix date of birth #49310

- Do not raise an exception in pkg.info_installed on nonzero return code #51620

- Passes the value of the force parameter from file.copy to its call to file.remove so that files with the read-only attribute are handled. #51739

- Fixed x509.certificate_managed creates new certificate every run in the new cryptography x509 module. Please migrate to the new cryptography x509 module for this improvement. #52167

- Don't check for cached pillar errors on state.apply #52354, #57180, #59339

- Swapping out args and kwargs for arg and kwarg respectively in the Slack engine when the command passed is a runner. #52400

- Ensure when we're adding chunks to the rules when running aggregation with the iptables state module we use a copy of the chunk otherwise we end up with a recursive mess. #53353

- When user_create or user_remove fail, return False instead of returning the error. #53377

- Include sync_roster when sync_all is called. #53914

- Avoid warning noise in lograte.get #53988

- Fixed listing revoked keys with gpg.list_keys #54347

- Fix mount.mounted does not handle blanks properly #54508

- Fixed grain num_cpus get wrong CPUs count in case of inconsistent CPU numbering. #54682

- Fix spelling error for python_shell argument in dpkg_lower module #54907

- Cleaned up bytes response data before sending to non-bytes compatible returners (postgres, mysql) #55226

- Fixed malformed state return when testing file.managed with unavailable source file #55269

- Included stdout in error message for Zypper calls in zypperpkg module. #56016

- Fixed pillar.filter_by with salt-ssh #56093

- Fix boto_route53 issue with (multiple) VPCs. #57139

- Remove log from mine runner which was not used. #57463

- Fixed x509.read_certificate error when reading a Microsoft CA issued certificate in the new cryptography x509 module. Please migrate to the new cryptography x509 module for this improvement. #57535

- Updating Slack engine to use slack_bolt library. #57842

- Fixed warning about replace=True with x509.certificate_managed in the new cryptography x509 module. #58165

- Fix salt.modules.pip:is_installed doesn't handle locally installed packages #58202

- Add missing MariaDB Grants to mysql module. MariaDB has added some grants in 10.4.x and 10.5.x that are not present here, which results in an error when creating. #58297

- linux_shadow: Fix cases where malformed shadow entries cause `user.present` states to fail. #58423

- Fixed salt.utils.compat.cmp to work with dictionaries #58729

- Fixed formatting for terse output mode #58953

- Fixed RecursiveDictDiffer with added nested dicts #59017

- Fixed x509.certificate_managed has DoS effect on master in the new cryptography x509 module. Please migrate to the new cryptography x509 module for this improvement. #59169

- Fixed saltnado websockets disconnecting immediately #59183

- Fixed x509.certificate_managed rolls certificates every now and then in the new cryptography x509 module. Please migrate to the new cryptography x509 module for this improvement. #59315

- Fix postgres_privileges.present not idempotent for functions #59585

- Fixed influxdb_continuous_query.present state to provide the client args to the underlying module on create. #59766

- Warn when using insecure (http:// based) key_urls for apt-based systems in pkgrepo.managed, and add a kwarg that determines the validity of such a url. #59786

- add load balancing policy default option and ensure the module can be executed with arguments from CLI #59909

- Fix salt-ssh when using imports with extra-filerefs. #60003

- Fixed cache directory corruption startup error #60170

- Update docs remove dry_run in docstring of file.blockreplace state. #60227

- Adds Parrot to OS_Family_Map in grains. #60249

- Fixed stdout and stderr being empty sometimes when use_vt=True for the cmd.run[*] functions #60365

- Use return code in iptables --check to verify rule exists. #60467

- Fix regression pip.installed does not pass env_vars when calling pip.list #60557

- Fix xfs module when additional output included in mkfs.xfs command. #60853

- Fixed parsing new format of terraform states in roster.terraform #60915

- Fixed recognizing installed ARMv7 rpm packages in compatible architectures. #60994

- Fixing changes dict in pkg state to be consistent when installing and test=True. #60995

- Fix cron.present duplicating entries when changing timespec to special. #60997

- Made salt-ssh respect --wipe again #61083

- state.orchestrate_single only passes a pillar if it is set to the state function. This allows it to be used with state functions that don't accept a pillar keyword argument. #61092

- Fix ipset state when the comment kwarg is set. #61122

- Fix issue with archive.unzip where the password was not being encoded for the extract function #61422

- Some Linux distributions (like AlmaLinux, Astra Linux, Debian, Mendel, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, Rocky Linux) report different `oscodename`, `osfullname`, `osfinger` grains if lsb-release is installed or not. They have been changed to only derive these OS grains from `/etc/os-release`. #61618

- Pop!_OS uses the full version (YY.MM) in the osfinger grain now, not just the year. This allows differentiating for example between 20.04 and 20.10. #61619

- Fix ssh config roster to correctly parse the ssh config files that contain spaces. #61650

- Fix SoftLayer configuration not raising an exception when a domain is missing #61727

- Allow the minion to start or salt-call to run even if the user doesn't have permissions to read the root_dir value from the registry #61789

- Need to move the creation of the proxy object for the ProxyMinion further down in the initialization for sub proxies to ensure that all modules, especially any custom proxy modules, are available before attempting to run the init function. #61805

- Fixed malformed state return when merge-serializing to an improperly formatted file #61814

- Made cmdmod._run[_all]_quiet work during minion startup on MacOS with runas specified (which fixed mac_service) #61816

- When deleting the vault cache, also delete from the session cache #61821

- Ignore errors on reading license info with dpkg_lowpkg to prevent tracebacks on getting package information. #61827

- win_lgpo: Display conflicting policy names when more than one policy is found #61859

- win_lgpo: Fixed intermittent KeyError when getting policy setting using lgpo.get_policy #61860

- Fixed listing minions on OpenBSD #61966

- Make Salt to return an error on "pkg" modules and states when targeting duplicated package names #62019

- Fix return of REST-returned permissions when auth_list is set #62022

- Normalize package names once on using pkg.installed/removed with yum to make it possible to install packages with the name containing a part similar to a name of architecture. #62029

- Fix inconsitency regarding name and pkgs parameters between zypperpkg.upgrade() and yumpkg.upgrade() #62030

- Fix attr=all handling in pkg.list_pkgs() (yum/zypper). #62032

- Fixed the humanname being ignored in pkgrepo.managed on openSUSE Leap #62053

- Fixed issue with some LGPO policies having whitespace at the beginning or end of the element alias #62058

- Fix ordering of args to libcloud_storage.download_object module #62074

- Ignore extend declarations in sls files that are excluded. #62082

- Remove leftover usage of impacket #62101

- Pass executable path from _get_path_exec() is used when calling the program. The $HOME env is no longer modified globally. Only trailing newlines are stripped from the fetched secret. Pass process arguments are handled in a secure way. #62120

- Ignore some command return codes in openbsdrcctl_service to prevent spurious errors #62131

- Fixed extra period in filename output in tls module. Instead of "server.crt." it will now be "server.crt". #62139

- Make sure lingering PAexec-*.exe files in the Windows directory are cleaned up #62152

- Restored Salt's DeprecationWarnings #62185

- Fixed issue with forward slashes on Windows with file.recurse and clean=True #62197

- Recognize OSMC as Debian-based #62198

- Fixed Zypper module failing on RPM lock file being temporarily unavailable. #62204

- Improved error handling and diagnostics in the proxmox salt-cloud driver #62211

- Added EndeavourOS to the Arch os_family. #62220

- Fix salt-ssh not detecting `platform-python` as a valid interpreter on EL8 #62235

- Fix pkg.version_cmp on openEuler and a few other os flavors. #62248

- Fix localhost detection in glusterfs.peers #62273

- Fix Salt Package Manager (SPM) exception when calling spm create_repo . #62281

- Fix matcher slowness due to loader invocation #62283

- Fixes the Puppet module for non-aio Puppet packages for example running the Puppet module on FreeBSD. #62323

- Issue 62334: Displays a debug log message instead of an error log message when the publisher fails to connect #62334

- Fix pyobjects renderer access to opts and sls #62336

- Fix use of random shuffle and sample functions as Jinja filters #62372

- Fix groups with duplicate GIDs are not returned by get_group_list #62377

- Fix the "zpool.present" state when enabling zpool features that are already active. #62390

- Fix ability to execute remote file client methods in saltcheck #62398

- Update all platforms to use pycparser 2.21 or greater for Py 3.9 or higher, fixes fips fault with openssl v3.x #62400

- Due to changes in the Netmiko library for the exception paths, need to check the version of Netmiko python library and then import the exceptions from different locations depending on the result. #62405

- When using preq on a state, then prereq state will first be run with test=True to determine if there are changes. When there are changes, the state with the prereq option will be run prior to the prereq state. If this state fails then the prereq state will not run and the state output uses the test=True run. However, the proposed changes are included for the prereq state are included from the test=True run. We should pull those out as there weren't actually changes since the prereq state did not run. #62408

- Added directory mode for file.copy with makedirs #62426

- Provide better error handling in the various napalm proxy minion functions when the device is not accessible. #62435

- When handling aggregation, change the order to ensure that the requisites are aggregated first and then the state functions are aggregated. Caching whether aggregate functions are available for particular states so we don't need to attempt to load them everytime. #62439

- The patch allows to boostrap kubernetes clusters in the version above 1.13 via salt module #62451

- sysctl.persist now updates the in-memory value on FreeBSD even if the on-disk value was already correct. #62461

- Fixed parsing CDROM apt sources #62474

- Update sanitizing masking for Salt SSH to include additional password like strings. #62483

- Fix user/group checking on file state functions in the test mode. #62499

- Fix user.present to allow removing groups using optional_groups parameter and enforcing idempotent group membership. #62502

- Fix possible tracebacks if there is a package with '------' or '======' in the description is installed on the Debian based minion. #62519

- Fixed the omitted "pool" parameter when cloning a VM with the proxmox salt-cloud driver #62521

- Fix rendering of pyobjects states in saltcheck #62523

- Fixes pillar where a corrupted CacheDisk file forces the pillar to be rebuilt #62527

- Use str() method instead of repo_line for when python3-apt is installed or not in aptpkg.py. #62546

- Remove the connection_timeout from netmiko_connection_args before netmiko_connection_args is added to context["netmiko_device"]["args"] which is passed along to the Netmiko library. #62547

- Fix order specific mount.mounted options for persist #62556

- Fixed salt-cloud cloning a proxmox VM with a specified new vmid. #62558

- Fix runas with cmd module when using the onedir bundled packages #62565

- Update setproctitle version for all platforms #62576

- Fixed missing parameters when cloning a VM with the proxmox salt-cloud driver #62580

- Handle PermissionError when importing crypt when FIPS is enabled. #62587

- Correctly reraise exceptions in states.http #62595

- Fixed syndic eauth. Now jobs will be published when a valid eauth user is targeting allowed minions/functions. #62618

- updated rest_cherry/app to properly detect arg sent as a string as curl will do when only one arg is supplied. #62624

- Prevent possible tracebacks in core grains module by ignoring non utf8 characters in /proc/1/environ, /proc/1/cmdline, /proc/cmdline #62633

- Fixed vault ext pillar return data for KV v2 #62651

- Fix saltcheck _get_top_states doesn't pass saltenv to state.show_top #62654

- Fix groupadd.* functions hard code relative command name #62657

- Fixed pdbedit.create trying to use a bytes-like hash as string. #62670

- Fix depenency on legacy boto module in boto3 modules #62672

- Modified "_get_flags" function so that it returns regex flags instead of integers #62676

- Change startup ReqServer log messages from error to info level. #62728

- Fix kmod.* functions hard code relative command name #62772

- Remove mako as a dependency in Windows and macOS. #62785

- Fix mac_brew_pkg to work with null taps #62793

- Fixing a bug when listing the running schedule if "schedule.enable" and/or "schedule.disable" has been run, where the "enabled" items is being treated as a schedule item. #62795

- Prevent annoying RuntimeWarning message about line buffering (buffering=1) not being supported in binary mode #62817

- Include UID and GID checks in modules.file.check_perms as well as comparing ownership by username and group name. #62818

- Fix presence events on TCP transport by removing a client's presence when minion disconnects from publish channel correctly #62826

- Remove Azure deprecation messages from functions that always run w/ salt-cloud #62845

- Use select instead of iterating over entrypoints as a dictionary for importlib_metadata>=5.0.0 #62854

- Fixed master job scheduler using when #62858

- LGPO: Added support for missing domain controller policies: VulnerableChannelAllowList and LdapEnforceChannelBinding #62873

- Fix unnecessarily complex gce metadata grains code to use googles metadata service more effectively. #62878

- Fixed dockermod version_info function for docker-py 6.0.0+ #62882

- Moving setting the LOAD_BALANCING_POLICY_MAP dictionary into the try except block that determines if the cassandra_cql module should be made available. #62886

- Updating various MongoDB module functions to work with latest version of pymongo. #62900

- Restored channel for Syndic minions to send job returns to the Salt master. #62933

- removed _resolve_deps as it required a library that is not generally avalible. and switched to apt-get for everything as that can auto resolve dependencies. #62934

- Updated pyzmq to version 22.0.3 on Windows builds because the old version was causing salt-minion/salt-call to hang #62937

- Allow root user to modify crontab lines for non-root users (except AIX and Solaris). Align crontab line changes with the file ones and also with listing crontab. #62940

- Fix systemd_service.* functions hard code relative command name #62942

- Fix file.symlink backupname operation can copy remote contents to local disk #62953

- Issue #62968: Fix issue where cloud deployments were putting the keys in the wrong location on Windows hosts #62968

- Fixed gpg_passphrase issue with gpg decrypt/encrypt functions #62977

- Fix file.tidied FileNotFoundError #62986

- Fixed bug where module.wait states were detected as running legacy module.run syntax #62988

- Fixed issue with win_wua module where it wouldn't load if the CryptSvc was set to Manual start #62993

- The `__opts__` dunder dictionary is now added to the loader's `pack` if not already present, which makes it accessible via the `salt.loader.context.NamedLoaderContext` class. #63013

- Issue #63024: Fix issue where grains and config data were being place in the wrong location on Windows hosts #63024

- Fix btrfs.subvolume_snapshot command failing #63025

- Fix file.retention_schedule always reports changes #63033

- Fix mongo authentication for mongo ext_pillar and mongo returner

  This fix also include the ability to use the mongo connection string for mongo ext_pillar #63058

- Fixed x509.create_csr creates invalid CSR by default in the new cryptography x509 module. #63103

- TCP transport documentation now contains proper master/minion-side filtering information #63120

- Fixed gpg.verify does not respect gnupghome #63145

- User responsible for the runner is now correctly reported in the events on the event bus for the runner. #63148

- Made pillar cache pass extra minion data as well #63208

- Fix serious performance issues with the file.tidied module #63231

- Fix rpm_lowpkg version comparison logic when using rpm-vercmp and only one version has a release number. #63317

- Import StrictVersion and LooseVersion from setuptools.distutils.verison or setuptools._distutils.version, if first not available #63350

- `service.status` on Windows does no longer throws a CommandExecutionError if the service is not found on the system. It now returns "Not Found" instead. #63577

- When the shell is passed as powershell or pwsh, only wrapper the shell in quotes if cmd.run is running on Windows. When quoted on Linux hosts, this results in an error when the keyword arguments are appended. #63590

- LGPO: Added support for "Relax minimum password length limits" #63596

- Fixed the ability to set a scheduled task to auto delete if not scheduled to run again (`delete_after`) #63650

- When a job is disabled only increase it's _next_fire_time value if the job would have run at the current time, eg. the current _next_fire_time == now. #63699

- have salt.template.compile_template_str cleanup its temp files. #63724

- Check file is not empty before attempting to read pillar disk cache file #63729

- Fixed an issue with generating fingerprints for public keys with different line endings #63742

- Add `fileserver_interval` and `maintenance_interval` master configuration options. These options control how often to restart the FileServerUpdate and Maintenance processes. Some file server and pillar configurations are known to cause memory leaks over time. A notable example of this are configurations that use pygit2. Salt can not guarantee dependency libraries like pygit2 won't leak memory. Restarting any long running processes that use pygit2 guarantees we can keep the master's memory usage in check. #63747

- mac_xattr.list and mac_xattr.read will replace undecode-able bytes to avoid raising CommandExecutionError. #63779 #63779

- Change default GPG keyserver from pgp.mit.edu to keys.openpgp.org. #63806

- fix cherrypy 400 error output to be less generic. #63835

- Ensure kwargs is passed along to _call_apt when passed into install function. #63847

- remove eval and update logging to be more informative on bad config #63879

- add linux_distribution to util to stop dep warning #63904

- Fix valuerror when trying to close fileclient. Remove usage of del and close the filclient properly. #63920

- Handle the situation when a sub proxy minion does not init properly, eg. an exception happens, and the sub proxy object is not available. #63923

- Clarifying documentation for extension_modules configuration option. #63929

- Windows pkg module now properly handles versions containing strings #63935

- Handle the scenario when the check_cmd requisite is used with a state function when the state has a local check_cmd function but that function isn't used by that function. #63948

- Issue #63981: Allow users to pass verify_ssl to pkg.install/pkg.installed on Windows #63981

- Hardened permissions on workers.ipc and master_event_pub.ipc. #64063

### Added

- Introduce a `LIB_STATE_DIR` syspaths variable which defaults to `CONFIG_DIR`, but can be individually customized during installation by specifying `--salt-lib-state-dir` during installation. Change the default `pki_dir` to `<LIB_STATE_DIR>/pki/master` (for the master) and `<LIB_STATE_DIR>/pki/minion` (for the minion). #3396

- Allow users to enable 'queue=True' for all state runs via config file #31468

- Added pillar templating to vault policies #43287

- Add support for NVMeF as a transport protocol for hosts in a Pure Storage FlashArray #51088

- A new salt-ssh roster that generates a roster by parses a known_hosts file. #54679

- Added Windows Event Viewer support #54713

- Added the win_lgpo_reg state and execution modules which will allow registry based group policy to be set directly in the Registry.pol file #56013

- Added resource tagging functions to boto_dynamodb execution module #57500

- Added `openvswitch_db` state module and functions `bridge_to_parent`, `bridge_to_vlan`, `db_get`, and `db_set` to the `openvswitch` execution module. Also added optional `parent` and `vlan` parameters to the `openvswitch_bridge.present` state module function and the `openvswitch.bridge_create` execution module function. #58986

- State module to manage SysFS attributes #60154

- Added ability for `salt.wait_for_event` to handle `event_id`s that have a list value. #60430

- Added suport for Linux ppc64le core grains (cpu_model, virtual, productname, manufacturer, serialnumber) and arm core grains (serialnumber, productname) #60518

- Added autostart option to virt.defined and virt.running states, along with virt.update execution modules. #60700

- Added .0 back to our versioning scheme for future versions (e.g. 3006.0) #60722

- Initial work to allow parallel startup of proxy minions when used as sub proxies with Deltaproxy. #61153

- Added node label support for GCE #61245

- Support the --priority flag when adding sources to Chocolatey. #61319

- Add namespace option to ext_pillar.http_json #61335

- Added a filter function to ps module to get a list of processes on a minion according to their state. #61420

- Add postgres.timeout option to postgres module for limiting postgres query times #61433

- Added new optional vault option, `config_location`. This can be either `master` or `local` and defines where vault will look for connection details, either requesting them from the master or using the local config. #61857

- Add ipwrap() jinja filter to wrap IPv6 addresses with brackets. #61931

- 'tcp' transport is now available in ipv6-only network #62009

- Add `diff_attr` parameter to pkg.upgrade() (zypper/yum). #62031

- Config option pass_variable_prefix allows to distinguish variables that contain paths to pass secrets. Config option pass_strict_fetch allows to error out when a secret cannot be fetched from pass. Config option pass_dir allows setting the PASSWORD_STORE_DIR env for pass. Config option pass_gnupghome allows setting the $GNUPGHOME env for pass. #62120

- Add file.pruned state and expanded file.rmdir exec module functionality #62178

- Added "dig.PTR" function to resolve PTR records for IPs, as well as tests and documentation #62275

- Added the ability to remove a KB using the DISM state/execution modules #62366

- Add " python" subcommand to allow execution or arbitrary scripts via bundled Python runtime #62381

- Add ability to provide conditions which convert normal state actions to no-op when true #62446

- Added debug log messages displaying the command being run when installing packages on Windows #62480

- Add biosvendor grain #62496

- Add ifelse Jinja function as found in CFEngine #62508

- Implementation of Amazon EC2 instance detection and setting `virtual_subtype` grain accordingly including the product if possible to identify. #62539

- Adds __env__substitution to ext_pillar.stack; followup of #61531, improved exception handling for stacked template (jinja) template rendering and yaml parsing in ext_pillar.stack #62578

- Increase file.tidied flexibility with regard to age and size #62678

- Added "connected_devices" feature to netbox pillar module. It contains extra information about devices connected to the minion #62761

- Add atomic file operation for symlink changes #62768

- Add password/account locking/unlocking in user.present state on supported operating systems #62856

- Added onchange configuration for script engine #62867

- Added output and bare functionality to export_key gpg module function #62978

- Add keyvalue serializer for environment files #62983

- Add ability to ignore symlinks in file.tidied #63042

- salt-cloud support IMDSv2 tokens when using 'use-instance-role-credentials' #63067

- Fix running fast tests twice and add git labels to suite. #63081

- Add ability for file.symlink to not set ownership on existing links #63093

- Restore the previous slack engine and deprecate it, rename replace the slack engine to slack_bolt until deprecation #63095

- Add functions that will return the underlying block device, mount point, and filesystem type for a given path #63098

- Add ethtool execution and state module functions for pause #63128

- Add boardname grain #63131

- Added management of ECDSA/EdDSA private keys with x509 modules in the new cryptography x509 module. Please migrate to the new cryptography x509 module for this improvement. #63248

- Added x509 modules support for different output formats in the new cryptography x509 module. Please migrate to the new cryptography x509 module for this improvement. #63249

- Added deprecation_warning test state for ensuring that deprecation warnings are correctly emitted. #63315

- Adds a state_events option to state.highstate, state.apply, state.sls, state.sls_id. This allows users to enable state_events on a per use basis rather than having to enable them globally for all state runs. #63316

- Allow max queue size setting for state runs to prevent performance problems from queue growth #63356

- Add support of exposing meta_server_grains for Azure VMs #63606

- Include the version of `relenv` in the versions report. #63827

- Added debug log messages displaying the command being run when removing packages on Windows #63866

- Adding the ability to exclude arguments from a state that end up passed to cmd.retcode when requisites such as onlyif or unless are used. #63956

- Add --next-release argument to salt/version.py, which prints the next upcoming release. #64023

### Security

- Upgrade Requirements Due to Security Issues.

  - Upgrade to `cryptography>=39.0.1` due to:

    - https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-x4qr-2fvf-3mr5

    - https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-w7pp-m8wf-vj6r

  - Upgrade to `pyopenssl==23.0.0` due to the cryptography upgrade.

  - Update to `markdown-it-py==2.2.0` due to:

    - https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-jrwr-5x3p-hvc3

    - https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-vrjv-mxr7-vjf8 #63882