Release 7.1.6

Improvements

• Improved error messages when updating the Client Launcher fails due to it being currently running.
• Improved logging for offline start handling of the Client Launcher.
• Improved performance of loading of product versions from repositories during instance loading.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the --key argument of the remote-product command was not properly validated (again).
• Fixed Exception when calculating default user area on Windows.
• Fixed BDeploy browser not recognizing the BDEPLOY_INTERNAL_HOMEDIR environment variable.
  • This had the effect that launcher/launcher.bat (on Unix/Windows) failed to open the browser if --homeDir was not provided.
• Fixed versions being displayed multiple times in the dropdown menu of the instance creation panel if a product was uploaded in another browser session while the dialog was open.
• Fixed offline start behavior for delegate launchers.
• Corrected minor wrong message when migrating nodes.
• Fixed usage of system variables as boolean values in conditional parameters.

Release 7.1.5

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where delegate launching of applications from older BDeploy server versions would fail.
• Fixed an issue where the Linux (only) scripts would pass parameters in the wrong order and thus make CLI commands fail in certain scenarios.
• Fixed an issue where the --key argument of the remote-product command was not properly validated.
• Fixed an issue where wrong tooltips would show in the client application launcher window.

Release 7.1.4

Fixes

• Fixed an issue which would cause data directory paths on client applications to change in an unwanted way.

Release 7.1.3

Improvements

• Launcher scripts are now re-created whenever required, which allows them to be updated automatically from older BDeploy versions.
• Reduced logging of OpenId connect to avoid spamming the logs. Full logs can still be accessed via debug mode.
• Continued internal code cleanup.

Fixes

• Fixed the performance of the start scrips by circumventing the BDeploy launcher altogether. This also skips the check for updates of the client application.
• Fixed offline starting of client applications to properly handle failed host resolution.
• Fixed incorrect description of a drop target which caused confusion in the linking of central servers.
• Fixed the .bat file responsible for launching BDeploy to no longer write output in case it updates internal components.

  Warning
  The .bat file is not automatically updated. In case you need this change, you need to manually copy the .bat file from the new release.

Release 7.1.2

Improvements

• Improved validation of linked expressions in configuration file editor.
• Added an environment variable BDEPLOY_LAUNCH_MODE which is set to PATH or ASSOCIATION (or not set at all by default) depending on the way the application was launched (e.g. as a script from the PATH, or through file association, e.g. double-click).
• Added the possibility to specify a target system when creating instances from instance templates via the CLI.
• Windows applications have been updated from the outdated .NET 4.5.2 to a still supported 4.7.2

  Warning
  On very old Windows versions this may now require .NET 4.7.2 to be installed. Affected Windows versions have been out of support for a long time, so this is not considered a breaking change. 4.7.2 is pre-installed since Windows 10 build 1803 (April 2018).

• A lot of further code quality improvements internally.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where client application uninstallation would not remove association to scripts and file extensions properly.
• Fixed the situation where client applications launched through a script would not correctly propagate their exit code.
• Fixed an issue which caused the windows cmd to remove % signs from the passed parameters erronously.
• Fixed an issue where the Install button of an instance which was never installed before was enabled despite the product being missing (because it was deleted after creating the instance).
• Fixed an issue where a \ given in the path name of a data file would lead to a file that cannot be deleted anymore.
• Fixed an issue where the client launcher would try to update itself (and fail) when starting an offlineStartAllowed client application whilst being offline.

Release 7.1.1

Fixes

• Fixes a major oversight in the 7.1.0 release leading to potential duplicate downloads and installations of client applications when using the startScriptName feature introduced in 7.1.0 as well.

Release 7.1.0

Features

• Support wait type WAIT_UNTIL_STOPPED for process control groups. Starting a process in such a group will wait for the process to exit again. Can be used (for instance) to run certain preparative tools before launching the actual application, or running certain tools in order which need to run in sequence.
• It is now possible (and the new default) to expand variables in the command line preview of an application in Configure Parameters.
• Introduce dedicated log file storage. Use the new --logData argument while init, or using the config command on existing installations to set this up. When not set up explicitly, the log data directory will resolve to the existing {{P:DATA}} for each instance. When set up, {{P:LOG_DATA}} will resolve to an instance specific subdirectory of the configured log data directory.
• Support the "All Users" automatic user group, which allows configuration of "public" permissions for artifacts in BDeploy.

  Warning
  This change removes the "automatic" public status of Software Repositories. To emulate the previous behaviour, all Software Repositories need to have a READ permission assigned manually for the All Users group.

• Support installing and activating instance configurations even when certain nodes participating in that configuration are offline. Installation of the missing bits is done when the node comes back online. Accompanying UI changes will hide node contents on the instance dashboard when the node is offline or not yet brought up to the required state (shown as "Synchronizing").
• Autostart support for CLIENT applications. The BDeploy launcher will now add itself to operating system autostart when running the installer (always). On startup it will check for to-be-started applications and run them just as usual. Applications must specify that they are autostart-capable by setting the supportsAutostart attribute in the processControl section of app-info.yaml; autostart can then still be enabled or disabled in the instance configuration as well as manually by the end-user in the BDeploy launcher.
• Add support for the startScriptName attribute in the processControl section of app-info.yaml. The given name will be made available in the PATH of the user installing the application. The user can then access the installed application using this name from any terminal.
• Add support for better content assist and inline as well as overall configuration file validation regarding linked value expressione (e.g {{X:var}}). Unresolvable expressions will be marked as error in the editor, and saving will not be possible in the instance configuration.

  Warning
  This feature only validates when files are changed in the online editor. Also, there are a few things that worked in the past "by accident", for example referencing application parameters from a configuration file. This will no longer pass validation (intentionally). For now, these changes only affect the online editor, not the actual validation on the backend, so saving is possible even with warnings. This will change in a future release.

• Add support for starting CLIENT applications even when the server is not reachable temporarily. This needs to be allowed using the offlineStartAllowed flag of the processControl section in app-info.yaml. If allowed, failing to contact the server will no longer abort the launch of an already installed application on the client.
• Add support for file associations to CLIENT applications using the fileAssocExtension attribute of the processControl section in app-info.yaml. Setting this (e.g. to .myext) will associate files with this extension on the client PC with the application.

Improvements

• Update all third party dependencies, most notably Angular 18.
• Add support for loginStorage to the gradle plugin.
• Many, many small improvements to the overall code quality, maintainability and readability.
• Many, many small improvements to the user documentation (typos, capitalization, phrasing).
• Many small improvements to user feedback, adding a lot more clarity to many messages and documentation.
• Allow arithmetic (+ and -) for all linked values. Previously only template variables allowed arithmetic, now (almost) all expansions can use it, e.g. {{X:my-instance-var:+2}}.
• Improved the hierarchical data files (and log files) browsers to be able to search for filenames in sub-directories. This functionality was lost when switching from a flat list to a hierarchical display.
• Added support for writing launcher logs on linux as well.
• Improved meta-data displayed for executables and associated files on Windows.
• Add and align validators for certain use cases in the frontend, e.g. E-Mail addresses.
• Removed the option to download a "portable" launcher as ZIP file from the Web UI. Those launcher ZIPs - if actually ever required - can be grabbed from the binary distribution ZIP file instead.
• Improve disabled button handling in the frontend to explain better why buttons are disabled.
• Add a --open flag to the remote-instance tool to open the instance dashboard in the browser directly from the CLI.
• The local login tool (bdeploy login) now no longer listens to the BDEPLOY_REMOTE environment variable to avoid confusion with other commands, as the meaning was slightly different.
• Add the --status flag to the remote-system tool to grab the overall runtime status report for each instance in a given system.
• Add the --start, --stop and --restart flags to the remote-system tool, allowing to issue start/stop/restart commands to all instances in a system.
• Add the possibility for secure password input request on the console of the remote-user tool when no password is given on the CLI.
• Made the --version argument to the remote-transfer tool optional. Not passing it will transfer the determined latest version of the product.
• Add the --regex argument to the remote-transfer tool allowing the --version argument to specify a regular expression instead of a full version.
• Changed the remote-product tool to allow filtering the --list result by product key and version, optionally version being a regular expression.
• Bulk-deletion of products now uses a single call to the backend to delete all selected products. This has multiple benefits including avoidance of connection overuse and also the ability to skip products which are still in use without aborting the overall process.
• Added the optional --openUrl argument to the login commands --open argument, allowing to open any arbitrary URL within a given remote BDeploy in the browser.
• Added the possibility to update bin/bdeploy.bat automatically during update.

  Warning
  This change does not affect existing installations of BDeploy. To be able to benefit from future updates, you need to manually copy bin/bdeploy.bat and bin/_bdeploy.bat from a 7.1+ installation or the 7.1+ distribution ZIP.
  Note
  The update of the bat file happens only when initially starting the bat file (e.g. on server boot). This is due to limitations in bat files in general.

• Install and activate triggered through a CENTRAL will now properly update the MANAGED servers UI as well.
• Updated splash art for the BDeploy launcher, as well as adding the SSI Schaefer logo to a few places (login, splash, readme, documentation).
• Uninstalling an application will now ask for confirmation regardless of how and where it is being uninstalled. Previously only uninstalling from the launcher application would ask for confirmation. Now uninstalling from Add/Remove Software or from the CLI will also prompt for confirmation. If not wanted, this can be disabled using the --yes command line flag.

Fixes

• Fixed processing order of template variables to be the same as defined in the template, not lexically sorted.
• Fixed spelling of liveness probes - previously misspelled as lifeness probes.
• Fixed cleanup logic related to BDeploy launchers to no longer erroneously delete launcher versions even though they are still required.
• Fixed issues messing up the launcher UI when using dark theme on different operating systems.
• Fixed discarding of streams (stdout and stderr) when launching applications to no longer block in case the target application writes output.
• Fixed an issue where the system variables page would be initially empty even though variables existed.
• Fixed an issue where operating system issues with process cleanup would break the process controller when trying to figure out exit codes of processes.
• Fixed an issue where the --open flag of the login command would not properly hand over the one-time-password used for automated login to the browser application.
• Fixed an issue where cookies would not be transferred correctly when proxying requests through BDeploy. This restores limited inline-capability for certain Web UI endpoints.

Release 7.0.0

Features

• Object pooling was added which allows to configure (per BHive on the server) object pool directories. A pool will be populated with objects which are present multiple times (depending on configuration) in participating BHives by a Pool Re-organization Job. This runs once per day by default. This is opt-in and disabled by default in this release. Please refer to the documentation for details.
• E-Mail based configuration transfer from MANAGED to CENTRAL server. Allows data exchange in setups where the CENTRAL cannot directly contact the MANAGED server (e.g. behind company firewalls, NAT, etc.).
• Add possibility to escape link expressions for cetrain target configuration file types. For example use {{XML:X:myvar}} to escape the value of the instance variable myvar for an XML file, escaping any non-XML characters in the value.

  Warning
  Take care when adding this feature to app-info.yaml and other product included files (templates, etc.), since older BDeploy servers will not accept this expression.

Improvements

• Improve icons in the data files and BHive browsers to be more easily visually distinguishable.
• Add a job administration page which allows to view and trigger background jobs on the server.
• Improve the information shown in the data files browser to be more useful.
• Various improvements and ammendments to the documentation.
• Remove the Download Content action on products. Instead there is a View Content which will allow online browsing and download of individual files and folders where required.
• Improve the login CLI tooling.
  • Add a --replace action to force replacing an existing login in case there is one.
  • Add a --check action to verify that a given login is valid and can create a proper connection to the server.
  • Add a --open action to open the given login's Web UI in a browser on the system and log the user in automatically (only works on v7.0.0 and newer servers).
  • Add the possibility to override the location where logins are stored locally. This can be done per command using the new --loginStorage flag, or more globally using that flags environment variable fallback BDEPLOY_LOGIN_STORAGE.
• Add the possibility to delete product versions from the CLI
• Improve (or better: add in most places) the visual representation of the current location in the Web UI by adding breadcrumbs to the title of each page.
• UI Endpoints will now no longer open the inline view panel in case inline viewing is not supported. Instead the UI is opened in a separate tab.
• No longer auto-start instances regardless of their autostart configuration when the server restarts by itself, e.g. when applying an update or when pressing the Restart Server action in the administration page.
• When navigating to the Instance Configuration page, immediately open the Instance Settings panel automatically.
• Add an instance bulk operation to restart processes in addition to just starting and stopping.
• Improve the expression preview for {{P:}} expressions to include the actual instance ID and omit the instance version (as this might differ from use case to use case).
• Improve (or better: add) validation of dropped data on all drop targets in the UI. This prevents mistakingly dropping NODE information instead of MANAGED server information when connecting a MANAGED server and vice versa.
• Add a requirement for an active instance version to be able to use the remote-process tool at all.
• In case a product is uploaded to the backend while the instance configuration page is open in the UI, properly refresh the product and instance data to reflect this in the UI (using the Product Update Available button).
• Improve behavior on concurrent BHive manipulations in many situations to avoid spurious and intermittent errors.
• Add ability to copy and paste instance variables.
• Properly lock the Install button on the instance dashboard in case another browser tab is doing that already and a push of the product to a MANAGED server is required prior to actually installing.
• Improve the cleanup of stale transactions ("marker databases") when pruning a BHive. Also add handling for stale transactions from very old servers which did not have a way to detect whether the transaction owner still exists.
• Add an icon representing the application start type (INSTANCE, MANUAL, MANUAL_CONFIRM) to the Instance Dashboard and Instance Configuration pages.
• Properly reflect permissions inherited from groups in the user information panel as well as properly show inherited permissions in all the permission related pages.
• As always, update a ton of third party dependencies.

Fixes

• Fix a long standing issue with configuration file diff editors to correctly show the arrows in the glyph margin of the editor to allow applying individual diffs.
• Fix an issue where the browser would slow down over time in the data files browser when using bulk manipulation.
• Fix an issue where validation would not properly take variable overrides into account in templates.
• Fix an issue where the TEA IDE integration would wrongfully push to a server even though archiving only was desired.
• Fix the start script of BDeploy on Windows to handle exit codes properly.
• Fix the handling of deprecated uid tags in YAML files to continue accepting old formats as input.
• Fix issues in the administration pages with validation of passwords for external systems.
• Fix issues with multi-selection of data instance configuration files in case files should be deleted.
• Fix an issue with applying system templates which do not have any systemVariables.
• Fix an issue where manually attaching an unreachable MANAGED server to the CENTRAL server would fail due to erronous duplicate requests.
• Fix an issue where the Next button on system templates would not enable correctly if all variables are prefilled correctly from the start.
• Fix an issue where pressing ENTER on the keyboard when a dialog with a default action was visible would additionally also trigger a focused button behind said dialog.
• Fix an issue where navigating would properly collapse the menu if it was expanded but fail to properly update the content of the menu making it overflow and be cut off.
• Fix an issue where an actually not required non-concurrent list would fail to update concurrently by removing it alltogether.
• Fix an issue where replacing a node would not properly disable input fields in the panel leading to confusion.

Release 6.2.2

Note
Issues with the updated manifest list cache in 6.2.0 are causing troubles with servers during nightly cleanup. Please make sure to update any 6.2.0 and 6.2.1 servers ASAP to 6.2.2 to avoid any problems.

Fixes

• Properly update internal manifest list cache to maintain integrity upon updates during a 10 minute timespan.
• Clear the manifest list cache before pruning (the only "destructive" action in a BHive) to avoid any problems in case of cache problems in the future.
• Properly reschedule the LDAP sync job after execution only in case the schedule changed.

Release 6.2.1

Fixes

• Fix a regression which resulted in too strict BHive validation, preventing pushes to ZIP archives - this almost exclusively affected build tools like the Gradle and TEA integrations and the CLI in corner cases.