community.aegirproject.org
2.0.0 release notes DRAFT
The Aegir team is very pleased to announce the official release of Aegir 2.0.0. This long-awaited release ships with significant stability improvements, Drush 5 and 6 support, subdirectory multisite support, improved nginx support, native views, semantic versionning and much, much more! We unfortunately had to drop support for Drupal 5, as Drush 5 and 6 dropped support for this unsupported Drupal release.
This release deprecates the 1.x branch, marking the 1.11 release as the last one of the 1.x branch. All Aegir users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to the 2.0.0 release. The upgrade has been thoroughly tested and works fairly reliably, except some documented minor issues.
We have a very dynamic community of contrib developers, and various projects built atop Aegir. So if you were waiting for Aegir 2 to be stable, easy to install, production-ready, now is the time. The 2.x branch will be well supported as a lot of shops are running it in production already.
1. Major changes in this release
Since th 1.0 stable release (1.0) in April 2011, we've done an incredible amount of work. The code size nearly doubled as did the development team and user base. We have accomplished a significant number of the release goals we set for 2.0, but not all. Here is a broad breakdown of the most important improvements between the 1.11 and 2.0.0 releases:
- Subdirectory multisite support
- you can now have different sites in example.com/foo and example.com/bar, a great feature if you do not control DNS, as well as for local development!
- SSL improvements
- IP allocation improvement: addresses can be changed, added and removed more easily, and are managed from the front-end now.
- SSL certificate generation now has saner defaults (e.g. 2048bits)
- better error handling
- Drush 5 & 6 support
- includes better support for archive-dump command
- means we also drop the dependency on drush make 2.3, now included in Drush 5
- support for Drush 4 has been dropped, the minimum version is now 5.5, but Drush 6 or 5.10+ is recommended.
- Packaging improvements and changes
- Nginx support in the Debian package
- now a "native" debian package
- package name changed: it is now
aegir2
,aegir2-provision
, etc, to avoid overwriting the previous package - note that aegir 1 and 2 can not be installed in parallel - hosting and eldir now split back in their own projects on dripal.org
- using Drupal.org packaging tools to provide a full tarball for the whole frontend, speeding up installs significantly
- Nginx improvements:
- fixed support for nginx 1.3 and newer
- better defaults for caching
- SSL and Nginx are now officially supported (not marked as "experimental")
- New modules:
- the
hosting-queue-runner
module is now merged into core ashosting-queued
- "pack" module, designed as a lightweight replacement to the "cluster" module, now available as an experimental extension
- the
- Hosting-queued improvements
- run with a lower priority ("niced")
- improved portability and reliability of startup script
- enabled by default in the Debian package
- improved stability
- Code refactoring and improvements:
- now using the Symphony autoloading code
- fix coding style in a lot of source files
- improved builtin test suite
- Frontend improvements:
- all custom displays ported to Views and VBO
- nicer frontpage
- new and improved roles with more useful default permission sets
- Documentation improvements:
- Our documentation initiative to better document the Hostmaster API has progressed nicely
- we'll be launching an updated version of our API site (along the lines of api.drupal.org) shortly, to ease exploring the code-base of the Aegir Project, see this issue.
For a more detailed list of new functionalities, bugfixes and API changes, see below.
Some goals of the original 2.0 roadmap have not been accomplished, namely:
- modular backup, platform and queuing systems - although work has started on Wordpress support, and an overhaul of the Aegir architecture is considered for 4.0, which will affect queuing systems (see below)
- DNS, PostgreSQL and statistics efforts have mostly stalled
- clone and migrate optimizations still have to be completed
- completely automatic upgrades have not been implemented, although the Debian package upgrades are working generally well
- the release was about 2 months late from the october 31st estimate
1.1. 2.x branch maintenance policy
With the 2.0 release, the Aegir project is adopting the growing standard of Semantic Versionning, which can be summarized as follows:
Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:
- MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
- MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
- PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.
In other words, this is the 2.0.0 release! The next release of the 2.x branch will likely be 2.0.1, unless we ship some major functionality, in which case it will be 2.1.0. In any case, no API change will be done in a 2.x.y release. All core development will now happen on the 3.x branch, which shifts the focus of development to the port of the frontend to Drupal 7 (almost complete).
Note that the 2.x API has already been frozen for some time, since the first release candidate, to be more precise. Major changes to 2.x will not be committed unless they are first tested in 3.x and merged back. However, we wish the 2.x branch to be relatively short-lived, and it is more likely that major changes will not be backported from 3.x unless absolutely necessary for users needing a Drupal 6 Aegir frontend.
The 1.x branch is now deprecated and the 1.11 release will be the last release of that venerable branch, unless we need another release to fix the upgrade path to the 2.x branch. This is considered very unlikely. Security fixes or critical issues will therefore not be backported to the 1.x branch.
1.2. The future
While we're very proud of what we've accomplished in Aegir 2.0, we've also been working in parallel to port Aegir to Drupal 7. Aegir 3.0 will begin as a fairly straight-forward port. As such, we'll be releasing our first alpha of Aegir 3 shortly. We would like to have a stable Aegir 3.0 release before the release of Drupal 8, to allow for users to transition as Drupal 6 enters its end-of-life phase.
Another reason for the change to semantic versionning is that we've been discussing a full re-write of Aegir for some time, and would like to do so with Aegir 4. The changes are likely to be fairly drastic, and so we want to be able to keep moving Aegir 3 forward in the mean time. By moving to Drupal 7, we expect to have bought ourselves 2+ years of breathing room within which to accomplish this re-architecture and the semantic versionning system allows us to integrate significant changes in the 3.x branch progressively.
When the Aegir project started (back in 2008), the free software options for systems management software were very limited. As a result, we wrote our own code to do things like deploying code, writing configuration files, starting and stopping services, and so forth. Now, as 2014 begins, there are a wealth of tools that perform these functions (e.g. Puppet and Chef, but also Openshift, Docker, etc), each with their own communities supporting them. We are exploring how we might be able to leverage these tools, rather than maintaining our own partial implementations, that will never likely be as robust as these more specialized projects.
We feel that the time is opportune since Drupal 8 will require significant re-writing of the front-end components. In addition, re-writing the backend so completely will allow us to seriously consider moving to a programming language other than PHP; one that would be better suited to the project's long-term goals, such as Python or Ruby.
2. Installing and upgrading
The canonical source of installation documentation is on the community site at:
http://community.aegirproject.org/installing
In a similar fashion, the upgrade documentation is:
http://community.aegirproject.org/upgrading
Within those sections you'll find step-by-step instructions for performing both manual and automatic upgrade processes.
It is still imperative that you read the the upgrade path and version-specific information and follow all version-specific upgrade instructions before trying to run the upgrade script or manual upgrade.
For users coming from the 2.0 betas or recent rc releases, there are unlikely to be any version-specific manual steps required to upgrade, but you should make a habit of reading them anyway just to make sure. No-one likes a nasty surprise!
Note that you should upgrade to the latest 1.x release (currently: 1.9) before attempting the upgrade to 2.x. This is especially important if you are running a pre-1.0 release (poor you!).
2.1. Need help?
If you struggle to install or upgrade your Aegir system, you have a number of options available to you for getting help.
Consult this page for more information: http://community.aegirproject.org/help
Thanks to our awesome community for their help, support and encouragement as always! Enjoy the new release :)
2.2. Known issues
Being really open about our project, we have never hidden the fact that some things, sometimes, do not work in Aegir. Our issue trackers are public, and we've made it a point of honor not only to document clearly what is wrong in our releases as soon as we find out about it, but also to reroll new releases when we fix it.
That being said, 2.0 still has a number of issues and design flaws. This is the list of all issues marked "major" in the queue right now. Most issues are now likely to be fixed in the 3.x development branch, and unlikely to be backported unless considered critical.
- If
/var/aegir
is a symlink, it will be destroyed, see issue #2118857 for a workaround. hosting-queued
doesn't get properly re-enabled on upgrades, see #2114675 for a workaround.- Some upgrades fail with mysterious redirection failures, see #2118061 for details.
- Some upgrades may loop over one of the update_N() functions, see #2118917 for details and workaround.
- Upgrading through Debian packages removes the
aegir.conf
Apache configuration file, dropping all sites, during the upgrade, see #2121263. - Ubuntu saucy has some changes in apache config wich breaks Aegir #2155705
3. Complete list of changes
Her is the complete list of changes, since the 1.x branch, some of which were already mentioned in previous release notes for alpha/beta/rc releases.
3.1. API changes
Those changes are, as usual, more explicitly documented in the upgrade path documentation.
- hosting-task now needs a
--force
argument to run a non-queued task - the '--force' option also allows running tasks that appear to be running in the queue
- functions that were deprecated in 1.x are now removed
- the
email
andclient_email
database fields are now removed from client and site node types - numerous changes to the IP allocation and SSL management code
- deprecate hosting_ip_delete_revision(), dupe of hosting_ip_delete() now that revisions are gone (8 weeks ago)
- remove deprecated DEBUG flag in debian package
- #1785624: Some Drupal API changes in D7 (and D8) are not used/respected properly
- #1945950: Rename provision_drupal_sync_site_back()
- #1083366: Make the spokes authoritative for files/ and private/ directories
- #1812338: Refactor sync back
- a new control file has been introduced in /etc/nginx/basic_nginx.conf to force the nginx configuration to be the "simpler" one (see #1635596)
- #1987026: Move generated platform drushrc.php to sites/all/drush
- Multiple files can be managed in a single context now (see issue #2000038, issue #1784108)
- #1034520: Cleanup package instances when deleting sites and platforms.
- #1830220: Drop support for Drupal 5.
- #1975086: Move log parsing and status updates to seperate functions and call them from a shutdown function.
- Pass the entity type when we're sync'ing package instances.
- Save the platform field when creating a package instance record.
- Move to individual operation callbacks for VBO tasks.
- #2022849: Record disable and delete backups in the database.
- #2031491: Rename SSL permission to be more descriptive.
- Clean up hosting_node_grants().
- Add 'administer' permissions for platforms and servers, and allow platforms to be viewed.
- #1283738 by halcyonCorsair, cweagans: Allow other commands to add or alter the directories to be created.
- remove version pinning in hostmaster, our release process now again needs to modify only one makefile (#2002114)
- #1986928: Provide 2.x upgrade guidance for services
- #2099889: More hosting_features checks in _drush_load hooks?
- #1882708: Unused 'release_id' field in 'hosting_platform'
- #2012508: hosting_context_name returns '@' if node not found
- #1283738: Add new hook provision_drupal_create_directories in _provision_drupal_create_directories
- There is now a registry in the backend of the features enabled in the front-end (in /var/aegir/.drush/drushrc.php) which allows backend components to better determine when they should act.
3.2. New features
In addition to the "major changes" mentioned above, the following should also be noted.
- #1830994: Login directly via 'login' link
- #1853588: Sort Install profiles on Site add form
- #709862: Allow drush modules to add to apache vhost config template
- #1861896: Make $type argument of function hosting_available_tasks() optional.
- #1843198: Add Content top and bottom to Eldir.
- #1826074: Add tests to ensure site directories are migrated
- #1464220: Support alternative 'Hostmaster' profiles
- #610040: Add X links on listing pages
- #710834: notify clients on site migrations
- #1260066: Allow use of the working copy option when creating a platform
- #1047992: exportable backups
- #1189556: Pull the queue runner into Aegir 2
- #1408410: Add microcaching to Nginx config by default
- #1138104: Tiny module to automatically fill in platform publish path based on title
- #1929372: Flag tasks with logged warnings
- #1515416: On a package page, show table listing sites and platforms using the package
- #1853620: Add db_name to site summary
- #1681904: Ability to configure a url to redirect to in site configuration.
- #1968226: manage each IP individually on the server level - manage IPs individually
- add uninstall command
- Nginx Security: BEAST attack protection and fix for PCI compliance.
- #1980136: Allow setting default profile from the front-end.
- #588728: Replace custom lists with Views and VBO for sites, platforms and packages.
- Support for installing in subdirectories (issue #705026)
- Proper homepage on startup so non-logged-in users don't see an error page, and new users have basic instructions (issue #1793740)
- SSL support for clusters should now work properly (issue #2000964)
- New roles added: 'aegir platform manager', 'aegir administrator' (issue #1403208)
- Convert list of platforms to use views (Issue #1876350)
- #600350: provide a nice "history" of ran tasks
- #1988642: Add site by platform
- #1912238: automatically build and upload aegir 2.x packages
- #585830: usability story: "How do I create a client?"
- #1830220: Drop support for Drupal 5 in 2.x
- #1212086: Platforms should be locked by default
- #1403208: Add additional roles
- #1174440: provide a way to show site's DB username/password in the frontend
- #606120: Disabled sites should be class hosting-warning, enabled but problematic sites should be hosting-error
- #905326 by ergonlogic, crea: Improve file path changes.
- #1201174: Make UID1 username configurable.
- #1345118: Make platform access control an autocomplete form.
- #1515416 by ergonlogic, helmo, Deciphered: Replace listing of sites and platforms using a package with a view.
- #1975086: Add 'update status' button to tasks.
- #2005310: Add VBO operations to platforms view.
- #2006074 by Deciphered: Enable backups via VBO.
- #2025787 by omega8cc, ergonlogic, anarcat: Open site goto link in a new window/tab.
- #2022813 by Deciphered: Expose backups to Views.
- #2027269: Update a task's status after all Drush operations are complete.
- #2031491: Review and update permissions for all roles.
- #2031765: Clean up VBO operations with Action Permissions.
- #2035873: Show package 'popularity' on platform package view
- #2036283: Make Aegir aware of site-specific packages.
- #2036793 Ignore hidden modules and profiles.
- #2037045 by helmo, ergonlogic: Change some log statuses to better match Drush's log styling.
- #2037965: Clean up hosting-pause.
- #2038279 by ergonlogic, Jon Pugh: Validate email during site install.
- Display all validation errors when adding a client, and limit to 20 suggestions.
- Flag rollbacks as warnings in our task logs.
- Handle package page views separately for sites and platforms.
- Update default hosting_site views to use new access plugin for blocks, and add a couple more displays for non admin listings.
- Add Views access plugin for hosting_site and hosting_package.
- Add views handler to filter packages by status.
- #2069387 by cweagans, mstenta: Support nonstandard ports on hostmaster-install command.
- #2067617: Allow hostmaster-install to accept '--working-copy' option.
- Allow the redirect to the welcome page to be turned off.
- aegir install time reduced by about 60 seconds (on a cable uplink) by using Drupal.org distributions (#2002114)
- #2001964: Upgrade Views Bulk Operations 6.x-1.16
- #2099057: Allow _provision_drupal_create_directories to skip chmod
- #2100251: Implement post-enable hook for 'hosting_*' modules
- #2020075: Refactor subdirs to use proper Config class(es)
- #2020079: Multi-server subdirectory support
- #2096629: hook_provision_drupal_create_directories_alter by ref
- #2086009: Logo Cannot be changed / disabled
- #2069387: Support nonstandard ports on hostmaster-install command
- #2074681: Ports are hardcoded in hostmaster.profile
- #2103173: Provide an example of saving data to a site context
3.3. Bugfixes
- #1735174: server verification fails after configuration on pack slave servers
- #1798252: reload hosting-queued on upgrade
- #1898260: platform form should allow editiong if platform is not verified
- #1435098: Client name validate sometimes gives erroneous results
- #1591720: Illegal choice when selecting sites to verify
- #1587232: All radios labels in forms use incorrect vertical-align property value (middle)
- #1218130: checking "Hide platforms with non-default profiles" breaks D7's minimal and standard profiles
- #1227954: hosting_quota lacks a feature.module_name.inc
- #528064: h2 bigger than h1 in content
- #460974: improve queue admin form
- #1855486: Patch to Remove some Notices
- #1881868: SA-CONTRIB-2012-080 hasn't been applied to 6.x-2.x
- #1873384: 'Silence warning' commit broke 6.x-2.x
- #1843078: aegir 2.x debian packages fail to install
- #1829430: drush hosting-tasks broken
- #1146014: A user can see sites that don't have a client associated.
- #1256508: path aliases for deleted sites are not deleted
- #1249892: Checkboxes on provision page not aligned
- #941870: failure to copy SSL certificates should abort tasks
- #1334950: permissions on /var/aegir/config/server_NAME/SERVICE prevents access
- #1471928: provision-save: Unknown options: --context_type, --platform, --server, --db_server, --profile, --client_name, --aliases
- #1751006: Make is called incorrectly
- #1750974: Unable to pass working-copy or backend-only to hostmaster install
- #1204990: Drop old database when re-deploying a site.
- #1734500: Can't run tests with Drush 4.6
- #1433406: Make hosting (specifically hosting-dispatch) work with Drush 5
- #1690472: Declaration of Provision_Service_null::__call() should be compatible with that of Provision_Service::__call() null.php:27
- #1266484: Cannot verify Drupal 7.8 with PHP 5.2
- #1612044: upgrade from 1.7 to 2.x fails because of drush 5 command file cache
- #1358768: 6.x-2.x generates multiple Undefined property errors on hostmaster install
- #1930670: Duplicate entry 0 for key PRIMARY in hosting_ip_addresses when installing / upgrading
- #1907028: user warning: Table 'XXX.hosting_ip_addresses' doesn't exist
- #1961920: nginx: [emerg] invalid number of arguments in "limit_conn_zone" directive in /etc/nginx/conf.d/aegir.conf
- #1923490: Incorrect error message in aegir-provision2.preinst
- #1901508: "gzip --rsyncable" is invalid on OS X
- #1678528: Database deleted on edge cases
- #1930740: provision-delete leaves a drushrc.php lying around
- Nginx: Do not override Nginx name with fake Apache name.
- #1990370: Enable Hosting feature dependencies.
- Debian package support for nginx was severely broken issue #2001142
- the views bulk operations version shipped with alpha2 had security issues, see issue #2001964
- an update hook was incorrectly named, and has since been fixed. 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.
- fix warning "Invalid argument supplied for foreach()" (issue #2005698)
- fix "Unknown options for provision-save" error (issue #1972286)
- removed hardcoded checks for IP addresses in
settings.php
that belong to core (issue #2013683) - Views filter for status does not tell what to filter for (issue #1997088)
- nginx cloaks database credentials properly now
- configure nginx to properly talk to the default php-fpm configuration in Debian (issue #1635622)
- lots of fixes for the Debian package, including
- Silence garbage in the install output (issue #2002076)
- nginx support in sudoers file (issue #2001142)
- nginx autodetection in Debian package (issue #2003712)
- #1992254: restarting the mysql server crashes hosting-queued
- #1761932: Explain that updates will require the verify task to run
- #1603702: allows creation of SSL site even if there are no IPs available
- #1130992: User 1 has lost the ability to create platforms
- #1126638: two sites can take the same server IP for SSL
- #1994000: Nginx looking in wrong place for SSL setup information
- #2023621: Unable to allocate IP address for certificate, disabling SSL.
- #1929454: hosting_cron.modules requires hosting_site.module but lacks a dependency.
- #2014589: Views-based package list omits module/theme version
- #2005246: It is possible to disable Hostmaster site via bulk site operations
- #2025533: Mod Rewrite and Apache.conf symlink not created with debian package - beta2
- #1238618: Fix client form validation.
- #1263264: by ergonlogic, recidive, anarcat: Specify a type when getting a package, to avoid collisions.
- #1647830 by sambonner: Fix Incorrect ownership of directories under sites/example.com/private/files/.
- #1861898 by ergonlogic, Jon Pugh: Don't hardcode the types of entities to which we can attach tasks.
- #1975086 by helmo | anarcat: Fixed updating a task when there is none.
- #2025355: view platform' permission broken
- #2026417: Disambiguate site operations.
- #2031491: Fix roles.
- #2031747: Fix Views block placement and visibility.
- #2038891: Add 'client_email' option to 'provision-install-backend'.
- #2038891: Switch from '--invoke' to '--strict=0' for backend calls.
- #2040285 debian: properly detect webserver, again
- #2044251 drush command '@none provision-save' could not be found
- #2045907: Remove extra tabs from deleted platforms.
- Fix php 5.4 issue
- Add missing unicode include for UID1 name validation.
- Fix update hook name.
- Only register shutdown function to update task status in the context of a front-end task.
- Don't display package block on profiles.
- Only show link to add clients on site form to those with proper permissions.
- Override hook_access functions for node_grants when hosting_client is enabled.
- Register node type in hosting_task's Hosting feature.
- Clean up Views exposed forms.
- Fix Views block placement and visibility.
- Only display client sites block on the 'view' tab.
- Add dependency on jquery_update, so we can use the more recent version of modal_dialog.
- Enable login and nav blocks explicitly.
- treat symlinks as existing, fixes #2046249
- Add E_STRICT patch to test openatrium makefile so tests will pass on PHP 5.4.
- #2067603: Fix original and cloned site pointing to the same database.
- #2048653: Ensure mysql is secure before proceeding with hostmaster install.
- #2060727: Patch Drupal core to suppress E_STRICT warnings on PHP5.4.
- #2038279: Warn of invalid account email on site install.
- #2055949: Fix migrate drops wrong database when domain name changes.
- #2074681 by cweagans, mstenta: Fixed ports are hardcoded in hostmaster.profile.
- Use custom functions for block visibility.
- #1940378: Fix PHP 5.4 warning by initializing an object variable prior to assigning properties.
- #2050881: Call drush.php via php, since it isn't executable when installed via PEAR.
- Enable platform site-list block, since it had to be renamed.
- #2110057: Key used for signing debian package has expired
- #1635628: do not talk about a makefile if installing over an existing platform
- #2103173: Provide an example of saving data to a site context
- #2109637: upgrade.sh script fails to checkout 6.x-2.x
- #2085077: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() hosting.ip.inc:39
- #2102341: Differentiate between a feature being disabled vs absent
- #2029799: Error deleting a platform: Call to a member function succeed() on a non-object
- #1971348: Site aliases get chopped if longer than 50 characters
- #2071317: Incorrect SSL IP is deployed to servers in a web pack
- #2098289: Backup task does not detect failed database dump
- #2098389: subdirs kicks in even when subdirs module is disabled.
- #1189576: can't disable the DNS service from the frontend
- #1931000: Missing drush backend output in frontend log
- #2077793: Queue daemon collecting quotes
- #2097689: clean_urls don't work well with subdirectory
- #2097363: Add site spins forever
- #1387578: hosting_queues_cron_cmd makes unwarranted assumptions about bash availablility
- #2084963: SSL vhost does not respect Alias redirects
- #2061509: List of platforms is no longer updated to match install profile clicked at node/add/site
- #2046783: Task dialogs won't open after clearing the cache
3.4. Other issues
- #1923552: Rename 'Queue runner settings' tab to 'Queue daemon'
- #1834036: Add 'hosting platform pathauto' to the .gitignore
- #1785624: Some Drupal API changes in D7 (and D8) are not used/respected properly
- #1979496: Update upgrade.sh.txt for Drush 5
- #1974752: Document old_uri option for provision-deploy