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Job Step Plugins

Job Step Plugins

Jobs are composed of steps that define the actions to be taken against target nodes, tools or data.

There are two types of steps in Runbook Automation Jobs:

  • Node Steps are designed to iterate across one or more target endpoints - such as VMs, databases or Kubernetes clusters. An example of a node step is a single command or an inline script to be executed on each targeted node.
  • Workflow Steps execute once per Job invocation and do not operate in a node context. For example, the "Refresh Project Nodes" workflow step refreshes the node cache in case of any change.

The order of the execution of the steps is defined by the workflow strategy.

If there is a mix of node and workflow steps (which is common) the steps will be executed in order (based on the workflow strategy). Node steps may be executed several times, once per node, while the workflow steps will only run once.

Node Steps

Workflow Steps

Notifications

Notification plugins allow Rundeck to communicate changes in job execution state and notify other users of successful or failed runs. For a general explanation on how job notifications work, see Job Notifications.

For directions on how to use the Notification interface, see here.

Option Plugins

Option Plugins provide dynamic Allowed Value lists to help choose the proper inputs for your jobs. For general overview of how Options work see Job Options

Workflow Strategy

The Workflow Strategy determines how the steps are processed within a Job's Workflow.

Node Orchestrator

Typically, Rundeck processes nodes in the exact order that they are specified within a Job definition. An Orchestrator Plugin allows this run order to be modified by selecting a subset of nodes. This would be useful in order to limit concurrent executions during a deployment or gradually role out a new job to allow for testing.

The Bundled plugins support random selection, ordering by ranked tier, or specifying a percentage of nodes to target. If more logic or specificity is required, the Enterprise edition supports the selection of a single node based upon the value of an attribute.

Log Filters

Log Filters can transform or aggregate output from one or more Workflow states.

Content Converters

Content Converters are not added directly to Jobs, but can be used by Log Filters and Step plugins to render log output as HTML or Markdown within the Rundeck User Interface.

See Content Converter Plugins.

Execution Lifecycle

See Execution Lifecycle Plugins.