3.9.2-# Stable Channel Changelog

Announcements
5

3.9.2-42

Merged and release end of October 2018

Fixed a Dashboard regression issue kindly reported by @juchong
Included additional unit tests to help avoid this regression in the future.

Issue:

Code changes:

6

3.9.2-43

Merged and released in November 2018

A source build only issue that lead to an improvement / centralisation of our db migration system: the thing that keeps ones settings from update to update. Recent db changes had surfaced a weakness in how we did things.

Issue:

Code Changes:

7

3.9.2-44

Merged and release November 2018

Another in a long line of quota disabled / quota indeterminate state improvements, but this time focusing on when a pool is imported.

Issue:

Code Changes:

8

3.9.2-46

(3.9.2-45 by GitHub release and Git tag)
This code ended up showed up a build tools failure complicating things in the back-end of production rpm building / testing.

Merged end November 2018
Released 3rd Feb 2019

This was another large one which ended up being an umbrella issue for a number of things related to our openSUSE (non legacy) move. Including fixing Rock-ons functionality within Leap15.0 (at the time) and Tumbleweed.
It also added the ability (on CentOS only currently) to move from a source install to an rpm based one: as long as you don’t build in /opt/rockstor. The intention here was to aid those wanting to move back to an rpm based install after having developed on Rockstor or had reason to run a ‘from source’ install. All settings however are necessarily lost during this transition.

Also note the additional distro indicator to the left of the Linux kernel Web-UI header element.

leap15-version-info-and-kernel-version-plus-rockon-running
leap15-version-info-and-kernel-version-plus-rockon-running1163×366 25.1 KB

tumbleweed-snapshot-and-kernel-version-plus-rockon-running
tumbleweed-snapshot-and-kernel-version-plus-rockon-running1160×539 39.6 KB

Issue:
https://github.com/rockstor/rockstor-core/issues/1989

Code Changes:
https://github.com/rockstor/rockstor-core/pull/1990

The rpm release was short lived due to the following missing dependency issue:

9

3.9.2-47

(Belated GitHub release and Git tag 22nd Feb)

Merged and RPM Released 3rd Feb 2019

  • Added previously missed rpm dependency in 3.9.2-46.
  • Added distro awareness to the current rpm repository config code. Essentially the Rockstor code side of setting up openSUSE repositories to move to distributing updates via openSUSE rpms.
  • Fixed unintended repo file permissions.
  • Reduce rockstor rpm repository load by moving to an update cadence of 1 hour rather than 1 minute.
  • Fix a number of bugs affecting openSUSE based source installs re version indication and repository configuration.
  • Enable source based to rpm based installs when on openSUSE. This previously worked in CentOS as from 3.9.2-46.

Issue:
https://github.com/rockstor/rockstor-core/issues/1991

Code Changes:

10
11
12

3.9.2-48

Merged end February 2019
Released 5th April 2019

Thanks to @Flox for his ongoing effort to improve our Rock-ons system. This time we have:

  • Support added for docker labels.
  • Bug fix for empty label fields.

and finally a fix by me for our unit tests: I broke them in 3.9.2-45 - Sorry devs.

  • Bug fix for unit test environment

A much belated thanks to @suman for holding everything together behind the scenes.

Happy Rockstoring and may your updates go smoothly.

issues:

Code Changes:

https://github.com/rockstor/rockstor-core/pull/1999

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15

3.9.2-49

Merged end September 2019
Released 2nd October 2019

I am chuffed, and somewhat relieved, to finally release what is one of our largest and longest awaited releases for some time now. I present the 81st Rockstor.

In this release we welcome and thank first time Rockstor contributor @Psykar for a 2 in one fix for long standing issues of table sorting; nice:

Thanks also to @Flox for a wide range of non trivial fixes/enhancements thus:

@Flox has also been a major player behind the scenes in fashioning our transition to openSUSE, both by way of extensive testing, suggesting, and correcting (of my mistakes) and in the areas he has focused on. He also recently adopted a forum moderator role which is normally a thankless task; thanks @Flox. And has assisted me in final pre-release testing of the RPMs, which includes our first Leap15.1 & Tumbleweed variants, more on this soon.

And a series of run-of-the-mill, and one non trivial, fixes/enhancements from myself:

Thanks also to @suman for tirelessly assisting with my adoption of the maintainer role.

Due to the large number of changes in this release I have used a different format here to avoid a pages long post. Please do follow the GitHub issue links above for full details (change titles from pull requests, #links from their issues).

One final note: if your Rockstor Web-UI is not offering this versions then please consider visiting our shiny new complementary self service Appliance ID manager available at: https://appman.rockstor.com. It may be that your subscription has expired.

2 Likes
16
17

3.9.2-50

Merged 6th October 2019
Released 7th October 2019

This one is predominantly a ‘HOT FIX’ for our Web-UI having 10-30 second pauses in Chrome and similar browsers. Firefox seemed to be unaffected, at least some versions.

I have also included a couple of unrelated contributions to help with addressing our backlog of improvements.

We welcome and thank @magicalyak as a first time rockstor-core contributor but as many of you will know, is very active in our Rock-ons rockon-registry repo.

We have another move toward openSUSE via the prolific @Flox (Thanks @Flox) with:

And finally the hot fix for “Chrome Go Slow” from myself @phillxnet

  • pin python-engineio to 2.3.2 as recent 3.0.0 update breaks gevent. Fixes #1995 @phillxnet

Catchy title that last one I know !!

This last fix was ‘resurrected’ from a prior instance of this happening in source builds way back but an upstream ‘mend’ meant that it was then dropped. So we have now finally pinned this library to a set version. We have ongoing plans to re-vamp, and minimise, our library dependencies and this older version ‘pinning’ will be re-addressed.

Thanks to all our stable subscribers and currently unintended testers (working on that) for helping to support Rockstor’s development.

Specifically I like to call out forum members @upapi_rockstor, @Bazza, @Warbucks, @Flox, and @wyoham in the following 2 forum threads:

Web GUI after update to 3.9.2.49 not working properly
Data-collector, again?

for helping to bring to light this more recent Chrome compatibility blunder.

1 Like
18

3.9.2-51

Merged 4th Dec 2019
Released 16th Dec 2019

I am again chuffed to finally release this next instalment in our Stable Channel updates.
Welcome and thanks, as always, to another first time Rockstor contributor @p-betula-pendula for an innovative power saving / convenience addition to our scheduled shut down feature:

  • Scheduled tasks: add feature to scan for network devices before shutting down. Fixes #2038 @p-betula-pendula

And apologies to p-betula-pendula for not getting this in and released earlier.

Again thanks to @Flox, our intrepid forum moderator and prolific contributor, for the following:

And finally a few enhancements / fixes from myself @phillxnet:

This clears our backlog of currently viable pull requests and will hopefully also mark the beginning of the next phase of Rockstor as this release has a rough split of CentOS and openSUSE specific fixes to:

  • Improve our config save / restore capabilities, thanks @Flox, which in turn eases the move from a CentOS install to an openSUSE based one.
  • Fix / Enable our docker and self update capabilities in our openSUSE Leap15.1 offering, @Flox and me, which in turn nudges this offering closer still to feature parity (but not quite there just yet).

And thanks again to our new and very patient first time contributor p-betula-pendula. I tried to get this enhancement into the 49-50 versions but this didn’t end up happening.

Thanks to all our Stable channel subscribers for helping to keep the light on.

*If you have a Stable channel updates subscription and do not see this update available please check your subscription status and relevant Appliance ID via our recently available ‘self service’ Appman facility: https://appman.rockstor.com/

If all looks well and you are still not offered this update then please PM me on the forum with your current Appliance ID and I will look to what the problem may be. There is a known issue for a small subset of our subscribers which I can only sort if contacted.

Also note that if you had/have updated from our now legacy CentOS testing channel your system may not actually be running what it indicates. This bug does not affect systems that have never been on the testing channel. “yum info rockstor” to confirm your installed version for sure.

2 Likes
19

3.9.2-52

Merged 27th Jan 2020
Released 28th Jan 2020

I am glad to announce our slightly late Chinese New Year release by way of a fresh installment to our Stable Channel updates.

We have no first time contributors this time and this release includes the following fixes / improvements from myself and our prolific form moderator @Flox :

  • [Config Backup & Restore] Implement backup and restore of rock-ons. Fixes #2065 @Flox
  • improve/add update channel/appman related text and doc links. Fixes #2106 @phillxnet
  • revise donate menu item within Web-UI. Fixes #2104 @phillxnet @Flox
  • pin django-braces to restore django version compatibility. Fixes #2102 @phillxnet

None are openSUSE specific this time, which is rare these days and probably a good sign.

The major improvement / feature-add in this release is @Flox’s addition of Rock-ons to our config save and restore. Intended primarily for use when transitioning a pool from one machine to another. This is a long desired and request feature that we finally have in place. Both @Flox and I have tested this feature for moving a config and pool from a CentOS Stable Channel rpm install to our still very much in early alpha testing “Build on openSUSE” rpm offering for Leap15.1 in our Testing Channel.

Thanks to all our Stable channel subscribers for helping to keep the lights on.

If you have a Stable channel updates subscription and do not see this update available please check your subscription status and relevant Appliance ID via our recently available ‘self service’ *Appman facility: https://appman.rockstor.com/

If all looks well and you are still not offered this update then please PM me on the forum with your current Appliance ID and I will look to what the problem may be. There is a known issue for a small subset of our subscribers which I can only sort if contacted.

Also note that if you had/have updated from our now legacy CentOS testing channel your system may not actually be running what it indicates. This bug does not affect systems that have never been on the testing channel. “yum info rockstor” to confirm your installed version for sure.

3 Likes
20

3.9.2-53

Merged 11th Feb 2020
Released 11th Feb 2020

I am again glad to announce the release of another Stable Channel update. This release is particularly interesting as we have not one but two new contributors.

Please join me in thanking forum members @Celtis (jonpwilson) and @def_monk (defmonk0) for joining the growing list of rockstor-core contributors. We also have some contributions from our prolific forum moderator and long time core contributor @Flox and one from my self @phillxnet:

Although there are a lot of changes here, part of the reason this Stable channel release is ‘early’, they are all fairly self explanatory; so I’ll keep this post short and wish you all well with this update.

The only note of caution here is that this update contains the first database update we have had for just over a year (another reason to add no more changes and release early). This one is on me. But this database update has been well tested and the details are in the given issue link above. It is however a trivial database change, so that is on our side.

Thanks again to all our Stable channel subscriber and contributors who help to keep this Open Source show on the road.

4 Likes
21

3.9.2-54

Merged 24th Feb 2020
Released 25th Feb 2020

I am delighted to announce our 54th ish 3.9.2 release. This one is mainly concerned with our openSUSE offering in our ongoing effort to reach feature parity. The email fix however does related to our CentOS rpms as it corrects some wacky but though to be mostly harmless postfix (email server) config file permissions. And the Samba fix also contains a cross distro fix/improvement building on the last releases’ improvement in this area by @def_monk and @Flox. All details are available in the linked issues.

I would like specifically to thank our intrepid @Flox for both their continued forum moderation and a continued supply of fixes and improvements in the code. I would also like to thank @tyukh for researching the fixes necessary to achieve feature parity in our email notifications system in openSUSE. This saved me time and effort and was much appreciated.

  • -Source package default smb.service in “Built on openSUSE” variants. Fixes #2127 @FroggyFlox
  • -[openSUSE] fix postfix config re ipv4, tlsmgr, & CA file settings. Fixes #2132 @phillxnet

Special thanks also to @gaspode for researching and confirming @Flox’s findings re our requirements on openSUSE for improved Samba support going forward.

So all in although we only apparently have 2 ‘fixes’, between them they actually close 4 outstanding issues. I’ve only listed the primary GitHub fixes in the change log as we have a bug where > 1 issue links per line breaks, and thus we loose the all important attribution :slight_smile: .

As always a general thanks to all our Stable channel subscriber and contributors for helping to make this whole endeavour sustainable. We are hoping, in the near future, to be able to release a new Rockstor 4 version available in our yet to be populated openSUSE Stable channel. This move will ensure upstream updates for components related to our underlying file system that are beyond the expertise of our small but dedicated team. A major motivating factor in our ongoing “Built on openSUSE” endeavour.

N.B.

If you have a Stable channel updates subscription and do not see this update available please check your subscription status and relevant Appliance ID via our recently available ‘self service’ *Appman facility: https://appman.rockstor.com/

If all looks well and you are still not offered this update then please PM me on the forum with your current Appliance ID and original order number and I will look to what the problem may be. There is a known issue for a small subset of our subscribers which I can only sort if contacted.

4 Likes
22

3.9.2-55

Merged 10-11th March 2020
Released 13th March 2020 (UK Friday !!)

Tempting fete with a Friday the 13th release we finally have a slightly delayed 3.9.2-55.

This release is particularly important for Apple users as our intrepid forum moderator and prolific code/doc/rock-on/forum contributor @Flox has now established our first implementation of Time Machine capable Samba share export capability. All hidden behind a little tick:

Time-Machine-Tick
Time-Machine-Tick790×415 20.9 KB

This brings us right up to date with being able to service the last few years of macOS versions.

As a result we are now going to remove our previously flaky and near enough abandoned by upstream AFP capability. It has been linked within Rockstor to a long list of “Too many open files” errors and given Netatalk’s long waning support within a number of distros it’s now time for us to follow some of our fellow DIY NAS colleagues and remove it entirely from our newer offerings. Apologies to all those with insufficiently new enough macOS systems but this decision has pretty much been made for us by the lack of attention having been paid to this now long deprecated protocol. Apple has, for a while now, favoured the SMB protocol and we are a little late to the game with adding this Time Machine Samba export capability.

If you are currently using AFP with Rockstor and cannot change then note that Rockstor will soon not be able to server your needs unless you can transition to the newer and upstream supported SMB protocol. All outstanding issues and documentation relating to AFP will also soon be closed/marked deprecated. Sorry again to those affected but this change has been a long over due one and we just wanted to first have the Time machine over SMB capability at least in place before we announced and then removal the entirely of AFP support.

Particularly important in the light of the above is that we need this initial new implementation tested. The core development team within Rockstor has very limited access to sufficiently new enough macOS versions/hardware to properly test this feature. So if you are interested in ensuring this can serve your purpose then please test this ‘tick’ with you Time Machine setups and report your findings. Without these reports our TM over SMB capability is likely to go the way of our AFP implementation and languish in various states of neglect. Our focus is in part determined by the quality of interaction we receive about stuff that doesn’t work as expected.

Note that his update does include a database migration so is a little more fragile than those that do not: the majority of them. But the change is relatively minor however a little more significant than our last db update in 3.9.2-53.

We also have, from myself, a further nudge towards our goal of feature parity for our “Built on openSUSE” offering. This one is a fix for the shellinabox Web-UI embedded terminal capability. Bit by bit.

As always I would like to thank all those who make this endeavour of ours a possibility, specifically and contextually for this thread, our Stable Channel subscribers. Sustainable consistent opens source development is not a solved problem but I hold out hope that we can edge towards this as we develop.

N.B.

If you have a Stable channel updates subscription and do not see this update available please check your subscription status and relevant Appliance ID via our recently available ‘self service’ *Appman facility: https://appman.rockstor.com/

If all looks well and you are still not offered this update then please PM me on the forum with your current Appliance ID and original order number and I will look to what the problem may be. There is a known issue for a small subset of our subscribers which I can only sort if contacted.

3 Likes
23

3.9.2-56

Merged 17th March - 1st April 2020
Released 3rd April 2020

This is another important release for Apple users holey reliant on AFP, as in this release we have deleted Rockstor’s Web-UI interface with this Netatalk backed protocol. Again, following on from 3.9.2-55’s announcement, apologies to all those who’s systems are unable to transition to the newer, Samba support for Time Machine. SMB (Samba) is now Apples preferred, and only supported in newer macOS versions, option for running Time Machine over to a network storage system such as is presented by Rockstor. Given we are fast approaching our transition to our ‘Built on openSUSE’ base we needed to make this transition prior to releasing a new ISO which are normally based on the most recent stable release. That way folks start with what it likely to be available in the near and medium future. And as this is a sizeable code reduction it should also help with reducing our increasing urgent pending technical debt tasks, i.e. upgrading across the board to Python 3 and a more appropriate Django, along with all our associated libraries and the like.

So to the bullet points:

-Deprecate Netatalk/AFP. Fixes #2146 @FroggyFlox
-update known non unique product uuids. Fixes #2143 @phillxnet

Thanks to our intrepid forum moderator and long time all repo contributor @Flox for their follow-up AFP removal to accompany the already released Time Machine support within Samba of our last release. And in a further move to prepare for our next installer I have added all the outstanding known non unique Appliance ID’s so that our new installer will catch them before they catch us out. Included in this addition, and as it goes many of the last couple of years, is a continuing effort to nudge our code base that little bit closer to Python 3 compatibility. Still a way to go but bit by bit.

And a final note on the AFP removal: This does not affect an existing configuration or AFP server state, but all future configuration changes will have to be made via the command line in accordance with netatalk documentation. We are simply removing it’s Web-UI configuration / reporting. However we have also removed it as a dependency and so our new installer will not have netatalk installed by default. Also note that although we tried to ensure a yum downgrade would restore AFP functionality, due to db issues of reversing such a change and our requirement to focus on more pressing tasks, such as the “Built on openSUSE” endeavour, test have not been positive with regard to restoring AFP post rpm upgrading to this release. So if you do have an ongoing need for Netatalk then I would suggest a command line approach from here on in. Again apologies but the health of the Netatalk project and Apples deprecation of the protocol it servers, along with our small but dedicated developer team, pretty much rights AFP off as a sustainable endeavour for us.

N.B.

If you have a Stable channel updates subscription and do not see this update available please check your subscription status and relevant Appliance ID via our recently available ‘self service’ Appman facility: https://appman.rockstor.com/

If all looks well and you are still not offered this update then please PM me on the forum with your current Appliance ID and original order number and I will look to what the problem may be. There is a known issue for a small subset of our subscribers which I can only sort if contacted.

2 Likes
25

3.9.2-57

Merged 19th April 2020
Released 25th April 2020

We are now starting to move back to our older, hopefully more robust model of releasing first into our testing channel updates and then into stable if no ‘worries’ were reported. But during our transition as part of the ‘Built on openSUSE’ endeavour we only have an openSUSE based testing channel. But as we move closer to achieving feature parity with our current stable updates channel, which is based on CentOS, we can hopefully soon designate a release to go into the ‘Built on openSUSE’ stable channel updates. There after we can embark on tackling our mounting technical debt in the testing channel.

That aside this release is relatively minor on the production code side and involves no db migrations and has been running without report for a few days now in the testing channel as referenced above. And is the first release for over a year to involve a sole committer, me in this case.

The first change was fairly substantial but is intended to improve our tooling with regard to establishing our long sought feature parity across our CentOS and openSUSE bases. The second is, as stated, an overall improvement with regard to how we treat passwords during a configuration restore. These then both contribute to our current main mission of being able to offer a more modern, upstream supported btrfs platform. I look forward to finally being able to release a Stable counterpart in our future home via our ‘Built on openSUSE’ effort.

Further I would like to point out that although we have only a single committer on this release, there has been much work behind and on the scenes by many forum members and the venerable @Flox (forum moderation/support and alpha testing our pending new installer). Thanks also to @Hooverdan for their sterling effort with support on the forum. And to all those intrepid folks contributing to the testing effort within our openSUSE only testing channel updates: special mention in this case to @shocker who is currently engaged in a monster effort re a very large raid5/6 Leap 15.1/15.2beta / Tumbleweed adventure.

Finally a special thanks to all Stable channel subscribers without which this whole endeavour would be unsustainable. We aim to have, soon, a shiny new installer which represents the last part of at least the software side of this rather large puzzle. More on this soon.

N.B.
If you have a Stable channel updates subscription and do not see this update available please check your subscription status and relevant Appliance ID via our recently available ‘self service’ Appman facility: https://appman.rockstor.com/

If all looks well and you are still not offered this update then please PM me on the forum with your current Appliance ID and original order number and I will look to what the problem may be. There is a known issue for a small subset of our subscribers which I can only sort if contacted.

3 Likes