After four months, we’ve reached milestone 8.2! It’s time for another update on the progress we’ve made. Let’s dive in to review the latest enhancements!
Enhancements
We’ve added several new features and improvements since the last milestone. Make sure to check out the release notes for full details.
Application certification level
A certification badge now appears in the Software Center for each application, with detailed metadata, including links to source repositories and Terms and Conditions.
Application instances per node limit
The Software Center now enforces limits on the number of application instances that can be installed on a cluster node.
Core modules display
The Software Center now displays additional information about core components, including the core version on each cluster node.
Update applications to testing versions
The Testing switch in Software Repositories has been removed, but you can still manually upgrade specific application instances to testing versions.
More “generic S3” backup providers
We’ve added support for more cloud backup providers, including OVH, Wasabi, DigitalOcean, and Synology C2. Just fill the form for “S3 compatible provider” with the required information.
Backup and snapshot selection
The application restore process now allows users to select past backup snapshots based on retention policies.
Cluster log forwarding
You can now configure log forwarding to external Syslog servers or Nethesis Cloud Log Manager. Future releases will include filtering for security event logs.
NethVoice stable release announcement
NethVoice is a professional IP telephony solution that offers a host of advanced features and an intuitive user interface. It is designed to simplify deployment and provide a quick and easy setup experience. It also offers a wide range of security features to protect the privacy and security of your data.
Webtop application
Webtop now features a new default UI theme, exclusively available on the NS8 platform. Administrators can choose to apply the new theme across existing installations or allow end-users to decide. Additionally, for those on the Subscription Enterprise plan, the PEC bridge is now available.
Updated Nextcloud and Mattermost applications
Nextcloud has been updated to version 28 (Hub 7), and Mattermost to version 9.11, ensuring up-to-date and secure versions for users.
Bug Fixes
Since the last milestone, we’ve resolved over 60 bugs! Here are a few examples:
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Migration freezed by apply-updates · Issue #7016 · NethServer/dev · GitHub
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Migration tool duplicates Redis keys of node · Issue #6940 · NethServer/dev · GitHub
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Account provider migration fails after NS8 reboot · Issue #6942 · NethServer/dev · GitHub
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Backup repository from multiple destinations is not listed · Issue #7046 · NethServer/dev · GitHub
For the complete list, check out our GitHub issue tracker.
Disks and storage configuration for NS8
The containers image storage must be fast. Baseline system requirements were increased to 40GB SSD disk, after considering reports of poor performance and errors with spinning disks. Containers startup has high disk read demand, and if the disk access is too slow, service startup timeout errors occur.
Experiments with LVM-VDO – as recommended by RHEL documentation[1] for containers and VMs – are encouraging, especially in bare-metal installations where there is no other compression/deduplication layer available.
To address use cases with large shared folders, backup, and mail stores, starting from milestone 8.4, we will consider how to implement large (but slow) disks and remote filesystems as devices for individual application volumes.
Roadmap
Looking forward, here are our goals for milestone 8.3, planned for the end of 2024:
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Enhance use cases where retrieval of deleted files and directories is needed.
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Improve the management of port conflict errors during the restoration of applications like Mail, Samba, and Dnsmasq.
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Improve the restoration of Traefik and other core components within the disaster recovery procedure.
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Reduce Log Forward stream volume with event selection and filtering.
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Extend and enhance node monitoring and alarms for Subscription.
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Improve update security in the context of the new Application Community Certification process.
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Migrate multiple NS7 installations into a single NS8 cluster, addressing OpenLDAP domain name conflicts.
Stay updated on our project page.
New community website and subscription plans
Do not miss the announcements from the past weeks:
Certification for community applications
From this forum discussion, the first release of the NS8 application certification process for the NethForge repository is available. With 100+ applications developed by our community, there is a high potential to be unleashed.
Developers! Please, submit your NS8 applications for the NethForge community repository!
We are aware of the security drawbacks tied to the distribution of containerized applications, and we’ll strengthen the technical requirements to keep certified applications secure and up to date in future releases.
What is a “Project Milestone”?
With NS7, minor releases were announced alongside upstream operating system releases in ISO format. In NS8, we use project checkpoints called “milestones” to highlight significant goals achieved and upcoming priorities.
Please Help Us
We greatly appreciate any feedback and contributions from the community.
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Start a discussion on our forum using the tag ns8.
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Contribute to existing discussions with new ideas.
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Help by translating NS8 through Weblate.
Thank you for being an essential part of our journey. Your input helps shape the future of NS8!
The NethServer team
