[BlueOnyx:18562] BlueOnyx 5207R/5208R/5209R Updates

[Michael Stauber]

Hi all,

A couple of months of work have come to close and updated RPMs and PKGs
for BlueOnyx 5207R, 5208R and 5209R have been released:

New PKGs:

  * NewLinQ v2.1.0-1
  * WebApp Installer v2.4.2
  * AV-SPAM v6.0.1.8

YUM updates:

 * base-alpine
 * base-system
 * base-swupdate


What these updates do:
=======================

- License cache:
=================

As you might recall: We were having a bit of a NewLinQ issue. Some of
these were (and are) network related. Others had to do with a hardware
failure. The newer PKGs all require some form of online verification to
check your license state. Which is mainly used for the Package Bundle
rentals.

To prevent that even the briefest NewLinQ outage interferes with the
functionality of the BlueOnyx GUI (or any installed PKGs) we threw in a
license cache. This considerably speeds up certain GUI pages and makes
sure that your server only sporadically needs to make calls to NewLinQ
and is very tolerant in case it doesn't hear back.

- PKG install wizard:
======================

The old method of PKG installs via NewLinQ was a bit counter-intuitive.
For it you had to go back and forth between different menu items which
(for first time users) seemingly had no connection.

To streamline this we reworked the menus under "Software Updates" and
eliminated the separate "NewLinQ" menu.

The first menu item is now "BlueOnyx Shop" and contains all menu entries
you need to install PKGs.

Directly beneath that is the new "Install PKGs" menu entry. When you
start your PKG installs from there you will be asked for your BlueOnyx
Shop login details.

If this is a first time install on a fresh box that doesn't have the
"NewLinQ" PKG installed, then this mandatory PKG will be installed
first. After the install you get redirected to the list of software that
is available on your Shop account so that you can link it. After the
linking you are handed over to the page where you can perform the
install of the PKGs that you want to install.

This creates a streamlined path through all the required steps one by one.

Of course: Advanced users can use "Link a package" and then "Third Party
Software" directly. They are still there and function as before.


- Automated PKG installs and updates:
======================================

Under "BlueOnyx Shop" / "Settings" we also did a ton of work. You can
now specify which already installed PKGs you want to update
automatically whenever we release updates to them.

The NewLinQ PKG will always auto-update and auto-install. But you can
optionally add other PKGs to that list as well.

But please note: *** Do NOT do this for PHP on a 5207R or 5208R!!! ***

Because if you have PHP-5.3 installed, NewLinQ will also see PHP-5.6 as
available. And as that one is newer than the already installed PHP-5.3
(or 5.4 or 5.5) you end up with PHP-5.6. Which might not be what you wanted.

On 5209R with its separate PHP versions you *can* auto-update PHP. But
the question if you *should* do so is another one. Because there might
be unforeseen problems during a PHP update which *might* (or might not)
cause a webpage outage. The last 2-3 PHP versions auto-updated fine on
my own 5209R's, but I am not yet 100% certain that this will always be
the case.

There is a warning text in regards to this on the mouse over helptext.
In case you forget.

All installed PKGs can be auto-updated for now. If you should do so is
another matter. We leave that choice to you and will try to do the best
job we can with making auto-updates of PKGs a seamless and smooth
experience in the future.


- Speed initiative:
====================

Certain small and larger efforts were undertaken to make parts of the
GUI more robust and faster. The procedure to poll NewLinQ for new PKGs
("Third Party Software") got a complete overhaul. In certain cases the
"old" method needed 15-20 seconds to poll NewLinQ. The problem wasn't
NewLinQ, but the 200 DESTROY and 200 SET transactions that CCEd then
needed to make to update CODB with the info.

This is now down to 2-5 seconds on the average. Additionally that
information is now cached for a brief amount of time and the page "Third
Party Software" loads the list of available updates automatically.

Likewise: When you login to your server and there are updates available
to PKGs that you already have installed, then a notice text in that
regards will be show above the "BlueOnyx News" page.

Aside from caching NewLinQ queries we now also have certain other
provisions in place where network related checks *always* check first if
the corresponding hosts responds. If it doesn't respond within 4-5
seconds, then the actual query is either performed against the cache
(wherever applicable), ignored (if that makes sense) or a notice or
error is shown where that really can't be avoided. Like in the "BlueOnyx
News" page if the RSS feed of the news cannot be polled.


- What's next?
================

Within the next few days all PKGs that do an online license check get
updated to use the new cache based check. We also identified a few other
functions that would benefit from being cached and will tackle them in
the closer future.

As always: If you have any questions or suggestions ... then please let
us know.

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber