Monthly Archive for April, 2009

Solaris 10 5/09 (Update 7) has been released

Published on 30 April, 2009 in Software releases. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Sun has released update 7 for Solaris 10 (version 05/09).

A short list to the most important changes;

System Resources Enhancement

  • Support Added for Using ZFS Clones When Cloning a Zone
  • zoneadm attach -b Option
    you can back out certain patches from update on attach

System Administration Enhancements

  • SMF Services for IPsec
    IPsec is now managed by SMF services

Security Enhancement

  • NAT-Traversal for IPsec Key Management Developers
  • Stronger Algorithms for IPsec
    Three larger Diffie-Hellman integer-modulus groups (2048-bit, 3072-bit, and 4096-bit) as well as SHA2 including sha256, sha384, and sha512? SHA-2 using HMAC.
  • SunSSH With OpenSSL PKCS#11 Engine Support

Device Management Enhancements

  • x86: T-State Support for Intel Based Processors

System Performance Enhancements

  • Large Segment Offload Support for Intel PCI Express 10Gb NIC Driver
  • Solaris Power Aware Dispatcher and Deep C-State Support

Developer Tools Enhancements

  • SunVTS 7.0 Patch Set 5
  • x86: CPU Performance Counter Updates for Intel Processors
  • SUNWpatchutils Tool

Driver Enhancements

  • hermon Driver
  • iSCSI Target – upgraded and several performance, scalability, interoperability, and reliability improvements.It´s not the COMSTAR target.
  • x86: NetXen 10-GigE Device Driver
  • Intel ICH10 and Hartwell NIC Support in E1000g Driver
  • xge Driver Can Enable Multiple Receive Rings and MSI-X

Other Enhancements

  • New Locale Support for Kazakhstan and Ukraine
  • SPARC: Fp-scrubber Daemon

Solaris 5/09 is available as download at http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/get.jsp

NetBSD 5.0 has been released

Published on 30 April, 2009 in Software releases. 0 Comments Tags: , .

 NetBSD 5.0 has been released. NetBSD is a BSD based operating system (Unix based).

Downloads can be found at http://www.netbsd.org/releases/

Announcing NetBSD 5.0

On behalf of the NetBSD developers, I am proud to announce that NetBSD 5.0, the thirteenth release of the NetBSD operating system, is now available.

NetBSD 5.0 features greatly improved performance and scalability on modern multiprocessor (SMP) and multi-core systems. Multi-threaded applications can now efficiently make use of more than one CPU or core, and system performance is much better under I/O and network load.

This improved performance is the result of a rewritten threading subsystem based on a 1:1 threading model, new kernel synchronization primitives, kernel preemption, a rewritten scheduler implementation, real-time scheduling extensions, processor sets, and dynamic CPU sets for thread affinity. Almost all core kernel subsystems, like virtual memory, memory allocators, file system frameworks for major file systems, and others were audited and overhauled to make use of highly concurrent algorithms.

In addition to scalability and performance improvements, a significant number of major features have been added. Some highlights are: a preview of metadata journaling for FFS file systems (known as WAPBL, Write Ahead Physical Block Logging), the ‘jemalloc’ memory allocator, the X.Org X11 distribution instead of XFree86 on a number of ports, the Power Management Framework, ACPI suspend/resume support on many laptops, write support for UDF file systems, the Automated Testing Framework, the Runnable Userspace Meta Program framework, Xen 3.3 support for both i386 and amd64, POSIX message queues and asynchronous I/O, and many new hardware device drivers.

For full details, please see the release notes.

We are very grateful to all of those who donated during the 2007 fund drive, which brought us many of the great advances found in 5.0. For more information on how you can help NetBSD, see http://www.NetBSD.org/donations/.

The NetBSD Foundation would like to thank all those who have contributed code, hardware, documentation, funds, colocation for our servers, web pages and other documentation, release engineering, and other resources over the years. More information on the people who make NetBSD happen is available at: http://www.NetBSD.org/people/.

We would like to especially thank the University of California at Berkeley and the GNU Project for particularly large subsets of code that we use. We would also like to thank the Internet Systems Consortium Inc., the Network Security Lab at Columbia University’s Computer Science Department, and Ludd (Luleaa Academic Computer Society) computer society at Luleaa University of Technology for current colocation services.

NetBSD 5.0: an overview

With the release of NetBSD 5.0, I have prepared a short presentation giving an overview of the new features and performance improvements that 5.0 provides. The slides can be found at the URLs below for your perusal.

Many thanks,
Andrew

GlassFish Web Space Server 10.0 has been released

Published on 29 April, 2009 in Software releases. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Sun’s next-generation portal server platform, Sun GlassFish Web Space Server enables organizations to pull together applications and content from a variety of Web-based and internal sources and present them as a unified, customizable portal on Web browsers, kiosks, and mobile devices. GlassFish Web Space Server offers features for general users, system administrators, and application and portal developers.

FEATURES

The Sun GlassFish Web Space Server 10.0 release is based on the Liferay portal server community edition 5.2. Key features include:

  • Identity-based content delivery
  • User-managed Web spaces, including user self-Web publishing and user access controls
  • Sample pages/users
  • Built-in collaboration
  • Built-in Content management System (CMS)
  • Portlet Syndication

Some of the specific and latest features in release 10.0 of this Web Space Server:

Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) 2.0

OASIS recently approved this latest version of the WSRP specification and it is available in the Sun GlassFish Web Space Server from the Control Panel in the Welcome menu. This specification defines the following additional functionalities over the previous version 1.0:

  • Eventing
  • Shared/Public Render Parameters
  • Caching
  • Leasing
  • Resource Serving

The Sun GlassFish Web Space Server implements all the mandatory features and some of the major optional features that are defined in the WSRP version 2.0 specification. For more information, visit the WSRP project Web site.

Simple API for Workflow

  • The Workflow portlet in this release is implemented using SAW and saw-impl classes for Java Business Process Management (JBPM).
  • An Expense Report portlet is available in this release. This is a sample application built on top of SAW to showcase a custom workflow application.

For more information, visit the SAW project Web site.

Presence

The Presence infrastructure in Sun GlassFish Web Space Server provides communication mechanisms for a user who logs in to Sun GlassFish Web Space Server. The Presence infrastructure displays the online or offline status of a user and the chat communication mechanism, next to wherever the user profile is displayed on Sun GlassFish Web Space Server. Using the Presence infrastructure, developers can enable their widgets on Sun GlassFish Web Space Server with the availability information for a user. See the Presence project Web site.

Content Management System

Now use the Web Content tag library to access the content of an article from any portlet in Sun GlassFish Web Space Server. Learn more at the Content Management System/Mirage project Web site.

Control Panel for Sun GlassFish Web Space Server Administration

In the Sun GlassFish Web Space Server 10.0 release, all the administrator portlets can be accessed by clicking Control Panel in the Welcome menu. In the previous releases, you were able to access these portlets by clicking Add Application.

Sun GlassFish Web Space Server Samples

Default samples are available in Sun GlassFish Web Space Server 10.0. A number of users and a community are created and provided basic layouts with default public and private pages to demonstrate Sun GlassFish Web Space Server functions. The default samples that are available include Social Space, CMS, and Enterprise Space. All the samples and a “Sample Users” portlet, which can be used to express login different users of different samples, are a part of an evaluation bundle of the Sun GlassFish Web Space Server.

Portal Coordination Service

This feature bridges portlet events to portal services, allowing portlets to publish standard JSR 286 portlet events to interact with Sun GlassFish Web Space Server services. The Portal Coordination Service available in the release bridges to the Sun GlassFish Web Space Server social activity service.

The Roller Weblogger portlet makes use of the Portal Coordination Service to add Roller Weblog posts and edits to the set of social activities. These are summarized in the activities portlet.

Developer Tools

  • NetBeans Portal Pack 3.0 Milestone 2
  • Generic Portlets (JSR 168/286)
  • Visual Portlet Builder (JSF Portlet
  • Spring MVC Portlet Plugin
  • OpenPortal Portlet Container Plugin
  • Sun GlassFish Web Space Server/Liferay Plugin
  • Sun GlassFish Web Space Server Portlets (Ruby, PHP, and Groovy)
  • Sun GlassFish Web Space Server/Liferay Service Builder Plugin
  • Sun GlassFish Web Space Server Tag Library Palette
  • SAW Plugin
  • CMS Tag Library Plugin
  • Sun Java System Portal Server 7.1/7.2 Plugin

Visit the portal pack project Web site for more details.

Eclipse Portal Pack

This software provides a set of plugins to help develop JSR 168/286 portlets and deploy them on supported portlet containers. For more information, visit the Eclipse Portal Pack project Web site.

ViewDesigner Plugin

This plugin enables a Web designer to design and customize the theme of a portal page. You can download the plugin from the ViewDesigner project Web site. Learn more about designing and customizing a theme by visiting the Sun GlassFish Web Space Server 10.0 Developer’s Guide.

SYSTEM INFORMATION

Product System Requirements

  • SPARC or x64/x86 compatible processor
  • 2 Gigabytes RAM
  • 500MB disk space

Supported Platforms

GlassFish Enterprise Server V2 update 2 or later

Supported Operating Systems

  • Solaris 10 and 9 (SPARC Platform Edition)
  • Solaris 10 and 9 (x86 Platform Edition)
  • 64-bit Solaris 10 (SPARC, x86)
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4+, Advanced Server SP4+, 2003, XP Pro SP1+, Windows Vista
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 3
  • IBM AIX 5.2, 5.3
  • SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1
  • 64-bit SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1

Upgrade Plan

GlassFish Web Space Server is the follow-on product to Sun Java System Portal Server, so existing 6.x and 7.x customers can upgrade their existing entitlements to Web Space Server for no additional license fee.

More Information

Sun Storage 7000 simulator has been updated

Published on 29 April, 2009 in Software releases. 0 Comments Tags: .

Sun has released an update for the Sun Storage 7000 simulator. It includes a bunch of new features, bug fixes, and improvements. Significantly for users of the Sun Storage 7000 simulator, the virtual machine version of the 7000 series, this is the first update that supports the VMs.

Download: http://www.sun.com/storage/disk_systems/unified_storage/resources.jsp

Update 5-5-2009; An update for VirtualBox has been released. More info at http://blogs.sun.com/ahl/entry/ss_7000_simulator_update_plus

Sun Storage 7000 2009.Q2 firmware has been released

Published on 29 April, 2009 in Software releases. 0 Comments Tags: .

Sun Storage 7000 series software update, known as “2009.Q2″, is now available at the Sun Download Center.

You can find the complete release notes here. A shorter summary of the major new features is below:

Data Protocols

NFSv2

NFS version 2 is now supported, including analytics visibility. By default the appliance supports only NFS versions 3 and 4, but this can be changed by an administrator by navigating to Configuration -> Services -> NFS in either the BUI or CLI.

HTTPS/WebDAV

File access via HTTPS (HTTP over SSL) is now supported. This is built into the existing HTTP service, and can be configured through the “Protocols” setting under Configuration -> Services -> HTTP. The per-share setting remains the same – any shares exported over HTTP will also be exported over HTTPS. The web server uses the same self-signed SSL certificate as the management UI.

FTPS

Similar to HTTPS, FTPS (FTP over SSL) adds support for TLS and SSL to the existing FTP server. This can be enabled through the “enable SSL/TLS” option under Configuration -> Services -> FTP. The per share setting remains the same – any shares exported over FTP will also be exported over FTPS. The FTP server uses the same self-signed SSL certificate as the management UI. For more information, see the Wikipedia article.

SFTP

SFTP (FTP over the Secure Shell protocol) is now supported. Unlike FTPS, this is provided through a new service, SFTP, and requires an appropriate sftp client. This service can be configured through Configuration -> Services -> SFTP, and shares will need to have the new “sharesftp” property (Protocols -> SFTP in the BUI) set. For more information, see the Wikipedia article.

Data Services

FTP and SFTP analytics

The complete set of analytics is now supported for the FTP and SFTP protocols.

Microsoft shadow copy for shared folders

The CIFS server now supports viewing snapshots from Windows clients. Filesystem snapshots are automatically made available through the “Previous Versions” tab of the folder properties. For more information on this feature, see the Microsoft help page.

CIFS share-level ACLs

ACLs can now be edited across the entire share. This is done via the “Share Level ACL” option under Shares -> Protocols -> CIFS. This ACL is masked with any per-directory ACL to determine whether to grant access – a user must have permission via both ACLs to perform any particular operation. Share level ACLs correspond to the “Share Permissions” setting in the Windows computer management application, while the “Root Directory ACL” option corresponds to the “Security” tab in Windows explorer.

AD cross-forest authentication

The identity mapping service now supports cross-forest authentication. In an Active Directory environment with multiple forests, the service can take advantage of cross-forest trusts to resolve identities.

Software Features

Workflow automation

A workflow is a script that is uploaded to and managed by the appliance by itself. Workflows can be parameterized and executed in a first-class fashion from either the browser interface or the command line interface. As such, workflows allow for the appliance to be extended in ways that capture specific policies and procedures, and can be used (for example) to formally encode best practices for a particular organization or application. Workflows can be accessed under Maintenance -> Workflows.

SMTP relay configuration

Normally, the SMTP services requests mail relay information through DNS MX (mail exchange) records. For servers where this configuration is not available, a manual override is necessary to indicate where to forward mail, commonly referred to as a “smarthost”. This option is now available through Configuration -> Services -> SMTP under the “smarthost hostname” property.

Authenticated NTP

The NTP server now supports authentication. Cryptographic keys can now be associated with hosts, as described in the NTP RFC.

Identity mapping observability

After establishing rules to map identities between Windows and Unix systems, an administrator may now test those rules to understand whether the rules are configured correctly. This feature is available under the Configuration -> Services -> Identity Mapping -> Mappings heading.

Support bundle improvements

The UI for managing support bundles has been improved. Now moved to Maintenance -> System, administrators can view upload progress, cancel uploads, and directly download failed or canceled bundles.