Chocolatey Release Notes - Chocolatey Agent Service

Summary

This covers the release notes for the Chocolatey Agent Service (chocolatey-agent) package, which covers Self-Service and Central Management client functionality. For more information, installation options, etc, please refer to Chocolatey Agent Service.

📝 NOTE

This package is available to Chocolatey for Business (C4B) customers only.

Other Release Notes

• Refer to Open Source Release Notes as commercial editions build on top of open source.
• Chocolatey for Business (C4B) customers - also refer to Chocolatey Licensed Extension Release Notes and Chocolatey Central Management Release Notes.

Known Issues

• Please see https://github.com/chocolatey/chocolatey-licensed-issues/labels/AgentService
• Some issues may be held internally, please follow your support routes to learn more.

Chocolatey Component Package Dependencies

Some of the Chocolatey component packages have dependencies on other Chocolatey components. The following table aims to illustrate those dependencies, based on the latest shipped version of each component.

⚠️ WARNING

Due the nature of how Chocolatey package dependencies work, we can ensure that all the required package versions are installed. For example, if you were to install chocolateygui.extension then it would make sure that the following tree of packages, with as a minimum these package versions, are installed:

Package Name	Version
chocolateygui.extension	v1.0.0
chocolateygui	v1.0.0
chocolatey.extension	v4.0.0
chocolatey	v1.0.0

NOTE: Newer package versions may be available at the time of installation, and Chocolatey will pick the highest available that matches the defined dependency range.

However, there is nothing that can be done to ensure that indirect dependencies are satisfied. For example, if you currently have chocolateygui v0.18.1 installed along with chocolateygui.extension v0.2.1 and you first upgrade to chocolateygui v0.19.0, then you will see errors if you attempt to run Chocolatey GUI, since the chocolateygui.extension package also needs to be updated.

Based on the package releases, the recommended installation/upgrade order is the following:

• chocolateygui.extension
• chocolateygui
• chocolatey-agent
• chocolatey.extension
• chocolatey

This will ensure that all dependencies, both direct and indirect, are installed.

1.0.0 (March 21, 2022)

⚠️ WARNING

The dependencies of the chocolatey-agent package have changed in this release. It now requires Chocolatey Licensed Extension v4.0.0.

Breaking Change

• Update Chocolatey Licensed Extension dependency to v4.0.0

Release Video

A short video explaining what is included in this release can be found here:

0.13.0 (February 28, 2022)

⚠️ WARNING

The dependencies of the chocolatey-agent package have changed in this release, and it now requires Chocolatey Licensed Extension v3.2.0+.

Breaking Changes

• Chocolatey Central Management - Enhanced communication method for reporting information in Chocolatey Central Management.
  • NOTE: This version of Chocolatey Agent is backwards compatible with versions of Chocolatey Central Management earlier than 0.8.0. However, we always recommend updating to the latest version of Chocolatey Central Management.

Improvements

• Chocolatey Central Management
  • Add logic to retry reporting of a deployment step result to Chocolatey Central Management if it initially fails.
  • Ensure that no expanded sensitive variables are captured in log that is returned to Chocolatey Central Management.

Release Video

A short video explaining what is included in this release can be found here:

0.12.1 (September 14, 2021)

Bug Fixes

• [Security] - Deployments - Sensitive arguments are included in log file when advanced deployments are executed via Chocolatey Central Management - see licensed #255

Release Video

A short video explaining what is included in this release can be found here:

0.12.0 (September 2, 2021)

⚠️ WARNING

The dependencies of the chocolatey-agent package have changed in this release, and it now requires chocolatey.extension v2.2.0.

Bug Fixes

• Central Management
  • Fix - Second and subsequent deployments to an agent with PowerShell v4 come back inconclusive (possibly earlier PowerShell versions as well) - see licensed #237
  • Fix - Deployments - Log does not contain all information under error circumstances

Improvements

• [Security] XML External Entity attack in log4net (CVE-2018-1285) - see licensed #253

Release Video

A short video explaining what is included in this release can be found here:

0.11.2 (November 5, 2020)

Bug Fixes

• Fix - Deployments - An execution timeout in seconds value of 0 for a deployment step is not treated as infinite

Improvements

• Provide clarity in log messages when salt additive configuration values are misconfigured

0.11.1 (October 5, 2020)

Bug Fixes

• Fix - CCM - Prevent incorrect exit code of -1 from successful PowerShell script deployment when no exit code is explicitly supplied by the script

0.11.0 (June 25, 2020)

Breaking Changes

• Chocolatey Agent v0.11.0 will only work with Central Management v0.3.0+. Upgrade order doesn't matter as you'll need to be on CCM v0.3.0 and Agent v0.11.0 before things start working again. See https://docs.chocolatey.org/en-us/central-management/#ccm-component-compatibility-matrix.

Bug Fixes

• Fix - CCM - passphrases do not match on check-in (report_computer_information) - see Licensed #152
• Fix - CCM Deployments - Deployments agent exit code of -1 reports successful deployment - see Licensed #153

0.10.0 (June 18, 2020)

Breaking Changes

• Chocolatey Agent v0.10.0 will only work with Central Management v0.2.0+. Please upgrade Central Management first if you are using CCM with the agent service.

📝 NOTE

Log locations have changed. Please see Log File for Chocolatey Agent for more information.

Features

• Execution for Central Management Deployments

Bug Fixes

• Fix - Monitoring chocolatey.config for changes could potentially lock the file from being written to by choco
• Fix - Logging - the service stops responding to calls and stops logging after choco configuration file is edited
• Fix - CCM Reporting - Do not report unfound packages as outdated

Improvements

• Logging - Log to the root logs folder of Chocolatey Installation

0.9.3 (March 26, 2020)

Bug Fixes

• Central Management Reporting:
  • Fix - Ensure best available TLS is used - see Licensed #132

0.9.2 (January 30, 2020)

Improvements

• When reporting into CCM, add the URL that is being used in log to aid when debugging issues

0.9.1 (April 30, 2019)

Bug Fixes

• Self-Service / Background Mode:
  • Fix - Multiple quoted options being parsed incorrectly - see Licensed #78

0.9.0 (March 18, 2019)

Features

• Central Management Reporting - Clients can now report into central management on a configurable basis. For more information, please see https://docs.chocolatey.org/en-us/features/chocolatey-central-management

Bug Fixes

• Self-Service / Background Mode:
  • Fix - Package Arguments not being passed from Agent to choco.exe properly - see Licensed #60
  • Fix - Background Service does not pass the exit code back to the console (service side) - see Licensed #51
  • Fix - Execution times out after 10 minutes - ignores configuration - see Licensed #41

0.8.1 (September 28, 2017)

Bug Fixes

• Fix - bump dependency on Chocolatey Licensed Extension to ensure user is created with complex password instead of created with no password and then updated with complex password.

0.8.0 (September 27, 2017)

Breaking Changes

• [Security] Use 'ChocolateyLocalAdmin' user and manage the user by default - using LocalSystem doesn't work well with all software installations. Using a local user that is an admin works much better for ensuring applications are installed. If you need the previous functionality, pass /UseDefaultChocolateyConfigUser. This will use whatever Chocolatey is configured to use by default for new service installations. You can also pass in a username and optionally a password for a domain account or local administrator account.

Improvements

• Upgrade - Pass /NoRestartService to upgrade the service without shutting down the current running service. You will need to restart the service to take advantage of the new changes - see #26.
• Install/Upgrade - Pick username/password for runtime. Pass /Username:value /Password:value2 through package parameters.
• Install/Upgrade - Pass /EnterPassword through package parameters to have Chocolatey ask for the user password at runtime during installation. Captures as a secure string.

0.7.0 (June 27, 2017)

Breaking Changes

• Fix - Use a URI with WCF named pipes that doesn't exclusively hold a lock on the root (blocking other services) - see #12.

Bug Fixes

• Fix - Allow chocolatey.lib (not just calls from choco.exe) to run self-service.

0.6.0 (March 20, 2017)

Breaking Changes

• Sources must be opted in for self-service if the feature UseBackgroundServiceWithSelfServiceSourcesOnly is turned on. This is automatically the case with Chocolatey Licensed v1.10.0+ (and Chocolatey 0.10.4+).

Bug Fixes

• Fix - Sources using nupkg/nuspec were being allowed. This is now disabled as well.

0.5.0 (January 14, 2017)

Breaking Changes

• New pattern for dependencies requires a reload of the interface that works between the Agent and Chocolatey.Extension, requiring a bump in the sub v1.

0.4.0 (January 4, 2017)

Initial Release

Features

• Streams logging messages back to the caller in realtime
• Audits disallowed calls / attempted abuses of the service
• Only runs Chocolatey functions
• Ensures installation from approved sources only
• Receives and passes user context to Chocolatey functions.
• Works exclusively with Chocolatey for Business - checks passcode prior to running command
• Processes one command at a time with locking algorithm