3.9.2-# Stable Channel Changelog

Announcements
1

Intro

As this thread is starting retroactively in this now long release cycle I’ll first give some context and move to detailing only the most recent releases. The canonical reference for all code changes is in our open source GitHub repo:

This is the ‘rockstor’ package origin. This does not include the Rock-on definition files.

An attempt is made to keep GitHub Release / git tags in line with package release versions but due to a variety of reasons one can lag the other for short periods.
Code Changes so indexed are detailed here:

Quick history

3.9.2.0 was the first in our current stable channel release (identical to the last testing channel release of 3.9.1-16). It would normally have been earmarked for an iso release but this did not happen. This means we are not well represented currently. Our fault entirely, it’s just a shame, but I suspect our next iso release is not far away and is likely to be based on current stable code (which is looking ripe) and have openSUSE as it’s linux foundation; all prior releases have been CentOS based. See: Rebasing on to openSUSE? and our openSUSE dev notes and status. And will hopefully also kick off a new testing channel release program; hears hoping as we have failed in this regard previously.

We use to use testing channel to develop until we reached a ‘stable point’ and snapshot this as a known good version to be released in the stable channel. This sustainability model was as a result of discussions on this forum: namely the following thread:

This proved to be unsustainable as per our prior arrangement and stable subscribers expressed frustration with being ‘left behind’ / under served in comparison to testing which was only rarely broken anyway. So we changed again, as a value add to our stable subscribers, to releasing Rockstor rpm updates to stable channel only; with the intention of picking up the testing channel again when our resources allowed for this. In open source software it is hard to achieve sustainability and we are attempting to find a way. Our stable channel subscribers are currently that ‘way’.

One of my goals within the project is to return to more frequent iso releases and to resurrect the testing channel but that is going to take time and has failed on us before. But I hold out hope and as we attract more contributors / helpers I see it as a more viable possibility for the future than it was in the past.

Only time will tell.

Change log

As per the above intro we can kick off with detailing only the most recent as of writing changes per version in this thread.
Lets skip the first 38 releases for brevity and do a post per version going forward.

1 Like
2

3.9.2-39

Merged and released Sep 2018

Thanks to forum member @Flox for this one:

" Briefly, this PR adds support for a new “devices” object in Rockons’ json definition files …"

I.e. a potentially far reaching enhancement to our currently constrained Rock-on system and enables Rock-on definitions to encompass such things as hardware transcoding configurations.

Issue:

Code changes:

3

3.9.2-40

Merged and released September 2018

Thank again to forum member @Flox for another Rock-on related enhancement:

“For some docker containers, it can be useful–if not necessary–to run add arguments to the docker run command.”

Issue:

Code Changes:

4

3.9.2-41

Merged and released October 2018

This was a large one but in short it enhanced our disk / pool subsystems and Web-UI to function more helpfully in scenarious where a disk had died or is no longer available (missing in btrfs speak). Building on a prior enhancement that surfaced such conditions within the Web-UI via red flashy warning etc.

Issue:

Code Changes:

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

13
14
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