perfSONAR Announcements

[Andrew Lake <>]

All,

The final version of perfSONAR 3.4 is now available for all users. Version 
3.4 includes a number or changes from the 3.3.X versions of the toolkit 
including:

- A new measurement archive that stores all types of active measurement data. 
It boasts a new REST interface and significant performance improvements over 
the previous archive
- A new "full install" distribution similar to the NetInstall but all 
installed packages are included on the downloaded ISO
- New graphs that can display results from throughput (bwctl+iperf3/iperf) 
and latency (owamp and ping) tools on the same graph
- First steps toward unifying the projects formerly known as perfSONAR-MDM 
and perfSONAR-PS into one development effort with the inclusion of the OPPD 
Measurement Point
- A number of security enhancements including the enabling of automatic 
updates by default for all new and existing installations
- New documentation at http://docs.perfsonar.net
- …and much more detailed on our release notes page: 
http://www.perfsonar.net/release-notes/version-3-4/

A brief summary of how to install perfSONAR 3.4 can be found below:

- Brand new installations may visit 
http://software.internet2.edu/pS-Performance_Toolkit/ to get the latest ISO 
images. Please see http://docs.perfsonar.net/install_getting.html for more 
information on choosing the right distribution and pointers to detailed 
installation instructions

- For NetInstall users updating from version 3.3.X of the Toolkit you should 
run "yum update" and then "reboot". Note that all your data will 
automatically be migrated to the new measurement archive in a background 
process. See 
http://docs.perfsonar.net/manage_update.html#special-upgrade-notes for more 
details

- For NetInstall users updating from version 3.4rc2 or 3.4rc3, run the 
following:
  yum update
  yum clean all
  yum update
  reboot

- For 3.3.X LiveCD/LiveUSB users, note that we are not providing a 3.4 
LiveCD/LiveUSB. It is recommended all users transition to one of our other 
installation types prior to the previously shared EOL date of April 10, 2015. 
For instructions on how to do so see 
http://docs.perfsonar.net/manage_update.html#migrating-from-a-3-3-2-livecd-liveusb

- Note that upgrading from versions of perfSONAR older than 3.3 is NOT 
supported


IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT AUTOMATIC UPDATES FOR ALL USERS: When you install a 
brand new toolkit or update from a previous version of the Toolkit, automatic 
updates will be enabled by default. This means all the packages on your 
system will be updated on a nightly-basis. Automatic updates will assist in 
getting the latest packages on your box in a timely fashion. This does not 
mean you are off the hook for patching your box. Not only will there be a 
time window of up to 24 hours where you do not receive a patch, but depending 
on the nature of the vulnerability there may be additional service restarts, 
system reboots or other tasks required to completely apply a patch. Pay close 
attention to the the perfsonar-announce mailing list for more details. Also 
be aware that automatic updates have the potential to grab packages that may 
break services on your box. The perfSONAR team does not get early access to 
third-party packages prior to their release (nor are we perfect when it comes 
to our own packages) so this is a very real risk. If a temporary outage 
caused by an automatic update is a concern for you, then you may consider 
disabling them. Please see 
http://docs.perfsonar.net/manage_update.html#automatic-updates for more 
details on making this decision and how to enable/disable automatic updates.

Hopefully above provides you with all the information you need to get 
started. Thanks again to all the great user feedback that led to this release 
and the numerous people that helped test via our release candidates or 
otherwise. For questions please consult http://docs.perfsonar.net or email 
.

Thank you,
The perfSONAR Development Team