2.0-beta1 release notes

The Aegir team is pleased to announce the first stabilization (beta) release of the Aegir 2.x branch, after nearly 3 weeks of development since our second alpha release. While we had expected an additional alpha release prior to the beta cycle, development on outstanding features went smoother than foreseen. We've added some significant features, and fixed a couple bugs and (again) made some important improvements to our API.

This release introduces support for installing sites in subdirectories (example.com/foo, example.com/bar, etc.) into Aegir core as an experimental feature. This has been our number one feature request from higher education institutions, and so we hope that this will enable greater adoption within that sector.

Drush 5.9 in debian repo Aegir 2 migrated to Testing repo

We expect at least one more alpha release before we call a feature-freeze, and begin out stabilizing and cleanup (beta) release cycle.

no more critical bugs

{{{ * feature freeze, exceptions may be granted on a case by case basis * will run in production at Koumbit soon * next step: tackle RC bugs

debian/changelog says:

  * Feature freeze begins, only critical and major bug fixes will be
    committed.
  * A few bugfixes, especially to the Debian package, the new views code
    and nginx support.
  * This release adds subdirectory support, a nice homepage and fixes SSL
    support and IP allocation on clusters. We also ship with a wider
    variety of roles.

}}}

Release overview

This release features improvements to the IP management mechanisms that were broken in the last alpha1 release. We now manage IP addresses individually, and check if an IP is in use before allowing it to be deleted.

We also finally leave the files alone on spokes in the multi-server model, a long-standing bug in the 1.x series that led to data loss. A lot of work was done to standardize the Nginx configuration to allow for simpler, yet optional, configurations that leave the admin in charge of choosing the optimisation methods.

Also, we've moved Hosting and Eldir back to their own projects, and are now included via our makefiles. This simplifies building custom install profiles, though it complicates our release process somewhat. We've also added a drupal-org.make that will eventually allow proper distribution bundling of Aegir.

Finally, we've moved to using Views and View Bulk Operations for our lists of sites, platforms and packages. While there remain some rough edges, this will allow much easier customization of our principal UIs. It has also significantly reduced the custom code we have to maintain, in favour of exported Views, which simplifies maintenance.

Known issues

  • the debian package shows a lot of garbage when installing from scratch, which is almost harmless except that we don't see the login URL, use drush @hostmaster uli to get a new one, fixed in #2002076

These are related to drush:

  • Node 1931000 not found. / Node 1982502 not found.
  • Node 1991764 not found.

These are follow-up issues for subdirs:

  • Node 2020091 not found.
  • Node 2020089 not found.
  • Node 2020079 not found.
  • Node 2020075 not found.

API changes

New features

New features

  • Support for installing in subdirectories ( Node 705026 not found. )
  • proper homepage on startup so non-logged-in users don't see an error page, and new users have basic instructions ( Node 1793740 not found. )
  • SSL support for clusters should now work properly ( Node 2000964 not found. )
  • New roles added: 'aegir platform manager', 'aegir administrator' ( Node 1403208 not found. )

Bugfixes

  • the Debian package support for nginx is severely broken #2001142
  • the views bulk operations version shipped with alpha2 has security issues, see #2001964
  • an update hook was incorrectly named, and has since been fixed. This may cause the hook to be run again, if the site is upgraded to a newer version. The updates should not be destructive, but may output errors.
  • Placement of a number of our new Views-based blocks was omitted from the install profile, and so won't appear on a fresh install. These can be manually placed on the blocks page.
  • Node 2005698 not found.
  • Node 1972286 not found.
  • Node 2013683 not found.
  • Node 1997088 not found.
  • Node 1876350 not found.
  • multiple files can be managed in a single context now (see Node 2000038 not found. , Node 1784108 not found. )
  • nginx cloaks database credentials properly now
  • Node 1635622 not found.
  • lots of fixes for the Debian package, including
    • Node 2002076 not found.
    • Node 2001142 not found.
    • Node 2003712 not found.

Other

/////////////////////////////////