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From: announce-admin@opennms.org
To: announce@opennms.org
Subject: [OpenNMS-Announce] OpenNMS Update v2.25
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 18:35:42 -0400 (EDT)
====================
OpenNMS Update
====================
Vol 2., Issue 25
====================
June 19, 2001
====================
In this week's installment...
* Project Status
+ 0.7.6 (Codename: Godot) Delayed
+ The Bugs We're Fixing
+ The Business We're Building
+ Coding Projects Underway
* Upcoming Road Shows
* Early Adopter Program Status
* The Wish List
==============
Project Status
==============
0.7.6 (Codename: Godot) Delayed:
The snowball effect has officially gotten us...
After tagging 0.7.6 Beta 1, our testing revealed some rather
significant bugs, including problems with socket timings with the
DHCP poller, JSDT timeouts, and various other miscellani. As we
paused to fix some of the more critical problems (that could
prevent OpenNMS from running at all), we began to see some
feature-creep toward what we are targeting as 0.8.0.
We are still actively working on both bug-fixes to 0.7.6 to get the
snapshot reasonably stabilized as well as some new features (which
are primarily a re-architecting of some of the underlying data
exchanges). As we continue this work, the release formerly known as
0.7.6 is indefinitely pended until we can knock out some of the
more significant issues.
There is a current tag in CVS for 0.7.6 Beta 3 which is already
outdated enough that I can't in good conscience point you to it.
I'm hoping that we are at a point sometime later this week to let
things quiesce and can tag and build, but time will tell. The other
option is that we get so close to 0.8.0 that we actually
pre-release that one in lieu of 0.7.6 altogether.
Either way, we will have a significant release out the door
sometime in the next couple of weeks. I won't make promises, only
in an effort to avoid breaking them in the near future.
Thanks for your patience.
The Bugs We're Fixing:
In an effort to keep you up to speed as to what we're doing, as
well as to provide a little insight as to the particular bugs we
are currently trying to stomp, here's a brief rundown:
* The DHCP poller has had some bizarre issues with timings, wherein
it frees the socket, but the OS has not yet released it when the
next instance of a service monitor tries to grab it.
* JSDT, which Sun has promised to open source yet hasn't yet, is
causing some timeout exceptions which are unexplained, yet
consistent. This is causing some other strange behavior,
especially within the ICMP pollers.
* Reporting is using some fields that hadn't previously existed in
one of our config files, and as we added them, some other things
needed to be tweaked.
* We discovered some odd JavaScript behaviors in the web-based event
configurator that are being (have been?) repaired.
* Our scalability testing (very rudimentary), exposed some start-up
speed issues with RTC. We're doing some optimization there.
* Installation is being tweaked so we aren't quite so
"blow-it-away-and-re-install"-minded when it comes to the upgrade
process.
With a number of these bugs being performance and tuning related
vs. straight code-fixes, many of these have proven considerably
deeper than initially anticipated (isn't that always the case?).
Anyway, we're working and are hoping to get out of this morass
soon.
The Business We're Building:
While the coding/fixing continues, there's another little project
that continues to loom on the horizon that slowly capturing some
cycles from the team as well--building a business around this
technology.
While we aren't prepared to announce details as yet, I wanted to
mention that this project is actively underway with a phenomenal
core team dedicated to building a unique offering with OpenNMS as a
centerpiece. And while I'd love to claim "technical purity", there
are a few business-related demands that are beginning to sap my
time. But that's to be expected (and welcomed by everyone hoping
for long-term viability of our project team).
Hopefully, we'll be able to share more soon. In the interim, thanks
for you sensitivity to the current demands on our time, both
technology and business related.
Coding Projects Underway:
* CDP/L2/Mapping -- No update.
* Snort Integration -- With the IDMEF output plug-in announcement,
it seems our work should be minimal. Still looking for someone to
do this minimal work.
* Solaris Port -- Fred Reimer has offered up his hardware and
assistance to get OpenNMS up and running on a Sparc box. No
further update available.
* NT/2K Port -- Weave is looking for someone to help with
autoconf/automake-ing the new ICMPD, and part of this effort will
eventually lead to getting it built for Win32. Any takers?
* SNMP Poller/Data Collection -- Please send your Cricket/MRTG/*
SNMP data collection configurations to us for inclusion in our
DataCollections.xml.
* User Interfaces -- Larry, Jacinta, and Jason are wailing on the
interfaces. Looking good!
* New Pollers/Plug-Ins -- SMB and DHCP are in for 0.7.6.
* Agent Technologies -- We have two efforts at play here. Craig is
looking for someone to hand his Jabber-based agent architecture
off to, and I'd like to talk to anyone interested in building out
a compatible interface to allow us to use the NetSaint agents.
Anyone out there familiar enough to help here?
* Bug Fixing, RTC-Style -- The mechanism for sharing data between
RTC and Tomcat has changed in CVS. If you are seeing strange
results, please open a bug in Bugzilla.
* JSDT Replacement -- Starting to review potential alternatives to
JSDT, should the need arise. Anybody have any experience with
JMS/OpenJMS?
* Stefan Wasilewski has bellied up to the DEB-building bar, but I
haven't heard anything since.
===================
Upcoming Road Shows
===================
The OpenView Forum was a great place to see people, but attendance was
down considerably and there were still no real ground-breaking
technologies to see on the show floor. My personal Best of Show award
this year goes to, for the second year in a row, OpenNMS! Woo-hoo!
* July 25 - O'Reilly Open Source Convention, San Diego, CA
* August 28-30 - Linux World Expo, San Francisco, CA
* October 30-November 1 (UNCONFIRMED) - Linux World Expo, Frankfurt,
Germany
For additional details on these appearances and others, check out the
web site at http://www.opennms.org/sections/opennms/events
======================================================
Early Adopter Program Status - Courtesy Jeff Schneider
======================================================
The planned upgrade of all Early Adopters to 0.7.6 was stymied by the
distinct lack of version 0.7.6.
Everyone in the program has now officially joined the rest of the
world in wild anticipation of the next stable/unstable releases.
There's good stuff in the works (I've seen it!)
Following the release and a round of CYA testing, we'll be back in
touch to start getting folks up to the "latest and greatest".
* Tip Of The Week *
Running "killall java" is not the recommended strategy for exiting
OpenNMS. However, should you find yourself in a predicament where
nothing else seems to work...remember that a "./opennms.sh scm
clean" will take care of the portmapper registration for you.
=============
The Wish List
=============
And now, on with the list...
* I've heard rumblings about GETBULK support in the SNMP poller and
CAPSD. Interested?
* Our new ICMPD needs to be compiled for Win32. Got an appropriate
environment that you can help?
* In the 0.7.5 release (and CVS), checkout the TODO file
* Any progress reports on testing notifications?
* New Data Collection configs wanted for the DataCollection.xml
* Any interest in more TCP pollers? Let us know (or better yet,
build one yourself...)
* Want to build some bridges between NetSaint and OpenNMS?
* Documentation and development your game? How about a white paper
on how to extend OpenNMS with custom pollers, custom configs,
and/or your own scripts/code.
* Any additional help we can get proving our documentation either
right or wrong is appreciated. Thanks.
* Got any creative applications for OpenNMS that we haven't
considered? Let us know!
* A Security analysis of OpenNMS?
* Got an environment that could stress test OpenNMS, from a
scalability perspective? We'd love the feedback!
=============
Afterthoughts
=============
For those of you who missed your fix of my witty repartee last week,
my apologies. I found myself in beautiful New Orleans, LA with a
bright, shiny new Linux kernel (2.4.5) with PCMCIA services that
didn't like my current version of pppd. So no dial-up. And my other
option for Internet access was $7.50 to sit down and $3 a minute, and
I just don't type fast enough to make that worth anybody's while.
And with Bourbon Street 3 blocks away, I didn't even do the math.
I'm back to work. Be patient, there's good stuff a-comin'!
It's always nice to see strip clubs welcoming Baptist conventioneers,
Shane O.
========
Shane O'Donnell
OpenNMS.org
shaneo@opennms.org
==================
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