[hobbit] Xymon 4.3.0: Beta version available on Sourceforge

[Rich Smrcina]

Excellent news!  Great work.

Henrik Størner wrote:
> So you didn't think I'd do two releases in one day, eh?
> 
> I've uploaded the first beta version of xymon 4.3.0 to 
> Sourceforge a few moments ago. If you have the time and
> a spare system to test it with, I'd appreciate any effort
> you can lend me in getting the bugs ironed out.
> 
> You should be aware that there IS a lot of new stuff in
> this version, and I more or less expect it to crash
> spectacularly in your setup. So putting it on mission-
> critical systems could be seen as slightly dangerous.
> 
> If you have looked at the "trunk" of the sourcecode
> repository, you will be familiar with the new stuff in
> this version. However if you compare it to what's in
> the current beta-release, you will notice that I have left 
> out some of the more "dangerous" new components from this 
> release. This was done to make testing a bit more manageable;
> I have a lot of new code for Xymon, and throwing all of it
> into one release would just wreak havoc on everyones
> systems.
> 
> So instead I am preparing for a series of releases over the
> coming months, where new features will be introduced in a
> controlled fashion.
> 
> But the current release is not void of new stuff. Far from 
> it - here are the highlights of the 4.3.0 version:
> 
> Core changes:
> * Hosts which appear on multiple pages in the web display can
>   use any page they are on in the alerting rules and elsewhere.
> * Support for defining holidays as non-working days in alerts and
>   SLA calculations.
> * Worker modules (RRD, client-data parsers etc) can operate on
>   remote hosts from the hobbitd daemon, for load-sharing.
> * New API's for loadhosts and sendmessage, in preparation for
>   the full 5.0 changes.
> * Always use getcurrenttime() instead of time().
> * Various bugfixes collected over time.
> 
> Network test changes:
> * Merged new network tests from trunk: SOAP-over-HTTP,
>   SSL minimum cipher strength
> * Changed network test code to always report a validity period
>   for network tests, so it it possible to run network tests less
>   often than every 30 minutes (e.g. once an hour).
> * Make the content-type setting in HTTP POST tests configurable.
> * Make the source-address used for TCP tests configurable.
> * Make the acceptable HTTP result codes configurable.
> * Use and save HTTP session cookies.
> 
> Web changes
> * "NOCOLUMNS" changed to work for all columns.
> * New "group-sorted" definition to auto-sort hosts in a group
> * Use browser tooltips for host comments
> * "Compact" status allows several statuses to appear as a single
>   status on the overview webpages.
> * Trends page can select the time period to show. Buttons provided
>   for the common selections.
> * Ghost list report now lists possible candidates for a ghost,
>   based on IP-address or unqualified hostname.
> * Support generic drop-down lists in templates.
> 
> Report changes
> * Number of outages as SLA parameter
> 
> Miscellaneous
> * hobbitlaunch support for running tasks only on certain hosts,
>   and for a maximum time.
> * Alert script get a unique ID for each alert.
> 
> 
> The plan for the future is to let this release stabilize for a month
> or so, depending on how many bugs show up. Then I'll introduce new
> releases about once every two months - with the following schedule
> (everything subject to change):
> 
> Version 4.4:
> * SNMP support for data collection
> * Status updates based on data collected in the RRD files (this is
>   really nice - essentially, *any* value you put into an RRD file
>   can trigger a new or modified status in Xymon. So you could eg.
>   change the status of your "http" test to go red, if the response
>   time of a webpage exceeds 5 seconds).
> * Status "flap" handling, to catch statuses that change rapidly.
> 
> Version 4.5:
> * Support for communication between clients and Xymon to use 
>   compression and/or encryption.
> * Support for client authentication via SSL certificates (so
>   you cannot spoof a client message).
> 
> Version 4.6:
> * Revised web interface - eliminate the need for webserver-based
>   authentication, and provide more fine-grained authorization
>   for the various Xymon components.
> * Per-user custom login pages, so the login will always show those
>   systems that the user has responsibility for / is allowed to
>   access.
> 
> Somewhere along the road I will also introduce a new "ping" test
> daemon - I am getting to the point where ping'ing all hosts take 
> longer than 5 minutes (I have a lot of hosts). So something needs
> to be done, and I think I know how to do it.
> 
> 
> Have fun!
> 
> Henrik
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 


-- 
Rich Smrcina
VM Assist, Inc.
Phone: 414-491-6001
Ans Service:  360-715-2467
http://www.linkedin.com/in/richsmrcina

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