This document is preliminary and subject to change.
In this document, you will find all of the new features, enhancements and visible changes included to the Jelastic PaaS 5.1 and 5.2 releases:For detailed information on using any of Jelastic features, please refer to the users’ documentation.Features
Transition of Platform Infrastructure into Docker Containers
Jelastic infrastructure node represents a set of internal components, responsible for performing all operations within a Platform (e.g. managing resources, processing requests, supporting system maintenance, etc). Starting with 5.1 Jelastic release, all infrastructure modules are provisioned as Docker containers, ensuring the following inherent benefits of this containerization technology:
- resource utilization - allows to apply more lightweight solutions with lower resource consumption to run applications
- standardization and compatibility - reduces risk to meet problems with resolving application dependencies or OS related issues, as Docker containers run in the same way on any hardware
isolation and security - ensures infrastructure modules’ insulation (so that containers can’t affect host system or each other), which grants complete control over traffic flow and management
As a result of such transition, the Platform upgrade procedure was notably simplified and accelerated, allowing to deliver new Jelastic features much more quicker.
Optimized UX for Deployment, Tasks and Env Management Panels
In order to simplify operating with multiple environments in Jelastic dashboard, its user interface layout has been updated. For that, Deployment Manager and Tasks sections were merged into a single collapsible frame with the appropriate tabs being available at the bottom of the dashboard. If needed, this panel can be minimized to free more space for your environments list display, making it easier to access the required options.
Also, upon working with a particular environment, a dedicated tab will be opened at the bottom of the above-mentioned frame (next to the default Tasks and Deployment Manager ones). Here, all available management operations for this environment (like Settings, File Manager, Logs, Statistics, etc) are grouped, being opened into separate sub-frames within a single tab. Herewith, such additional environment-dedicated tabs can be closed if they are no longer needed, while Tasks and Deployment Manager ones are opened permanently.
Billing History Data Export
To help you with financial analysis of hosting spends, a possibility to download billing history as a csv file was implemented within the current 5.1 Platform version. The appropriate Download CSV button was added to the Billing history section (for both per environment and per account options). In order to make the displayed data more clear and to speed up its fetching, the following gradation was added for the Interval field:
- hour - can be used with 1 day period
- day - can be used with 7 days period
- week - can be used with 4 weeks period
- month - can be used with 1 year period
year - can be used with 10 years period
Herewith, by shifting the data range (with the appropriate Start and End fields), you can get a granular billing history info even for the oldest data. For example, to get statistics on daily spends from a year ago, specify a period with 7-day difference or less (e.g. from 01-01-2016 to 07-01-2016).
Auto-Update of Dockerized Stack Templates
Within the current Platform upgrade, a special tags auto-update option was implemented for dockerized templates. This feature is intended to regularly renew the lists of provisioned stack versions according to the latest updates within the central Jelastic templates repository. As a result, new software releases become automatically available for you with almost no delay due to eliminating the necessity of hosting provider’s manual intervention. Herewith, the update frequency and enabling of this feature in general depends on a particular Platform settings.
In conjunction with the latest tag improvement, such tags auto-update approach allows to keep utilized server software actual - the delivered updatescould be easily integrated by means of the Docker container redeploy functionality.
FTP Access to Storage Container
In order to make data management within Jelastic Storage container more comfortable, FTP support was implemented for this type of node. Within the current 5.1 Platform release, FTP add-on was updated to enable its installation on Storage environment layer just as on any other one (load balancer, application server, etc). Immediately after that, you can start working over FTP with any prefered client application (e.g. FileZilla) to transfer files, read and download logs, edit configurations, synchronize folders content and so on.
Improvements
UI/UX Improvements
Latest Tag for Dockerized Stack Templates
Basic Management Options within Empty Environment Group Layout
Clarification on Port Settings for Docker Containers
Basic Management Options within Empty Environment Group Layout
Clarification on Port Settings for Docker Containers
Latest Tag for Dockerized Stack Templates
To simplify operating with various software, all Jelastic dockerized stacks were complemented with dedicated latest tags: per whole template (tomcat:latest, mysql:latest, etc) and per each major stack version (tomcat:7-latest, mysql:5.7-latest, mariadb:5-latest). Herewith, the appropriate grouping is automatically applied to stack tags list within topology wizard:- if stack has several versions, they will be shown in the expandable list with the latest tag at the top (hover over to see the exact version)
if stack has several minor versions of the same major one, the appropriate record will be converted into a general view (e.g. 7.x.x) with a list of exact minor releases and the corresponding latest tag (e.g. 7-latest)
Back to the list of UI Improvements
Basic Management Options within Empty Environment Group Layout
With an aim to make dashboard UI more intuitive, background for an empty environment group was updated with buttons on a number of common actions, which may be needed to get started with this feature. Namely, quick access was provided to the following operations:And for the case there are no environments within an account at all, the similar background was added to the dashboard start page. Herewith, the Collaborate on Shared Environment option is shown instead of the Add Environment to This Group one.
Back to the list of UI Improvements
Clarification on Port Settings for Docker Containers
By default, all Docker containers within Jelastic PaaS are provisioned with the following open ports: 80, 8080, 8686, 8443, 4848, 4949 and 7979. In case any other container port is needed to be accessed via Shared Load Balancer, the appropriate endpoint can be easily attached to the environment. Alternatively, Public IP can be used to get direct access to all container ports.
To make such specifics more clear, the appropriate Ports tab within the Docker container settings wizard was updated. For now, it provides a core information on default ports, endpoints / Public IP usage and has a special explanatory image to visualize ports behaviour, making it easier to percept.
API Improvements
New GetEnvs Method with Pre-Sorted Response
Set- & Get- ContainerEnvVars Methods for Environment Layer
Support of Parameters Aliases within CLI Commands
Updated Namespace for API Calls within Cloud Scripting
Set- & Get- ContainerEnvVars Methods for Environment Layer
Support of Parameters Aliases within CLI Commands
Updated Namespace for API Calls within Cloud Scripting
New GetEnvs Method with Pre-Sorted Response
The GetEnvsByCriteria is a new API method which allows to get information about all your environments whilst sorting them to simplify the perception. It uses a special criteria parameter (specified in JSON format) with the following options:- order - can be assigned either ASC or DESC value to sort environments in ascending / descending order respectively
orderField - sorts environments by either status (e.g. running, stopped) or name
In case of a big number of applications and projects being run on an account, this method can help to speed up and simplify the appropriate data fetching.
Back to the list of API Improvements
Set- & Get- ContainerEnvVars Methods for Environment Layer
In the present Jelastic 5.1 release, two new API methods were added to help managing environment variables in Docker containers and dockerized stacks. Both operations were designed to work with all the nodes within a layer:- GetContainerEnvVarsByGroup - gets list of all the environment variables
SetContainerEnvVarsByGroup - sets variable values for nodes of a particular type
In conjunction with the on-going conversion to the dockerized templates, these API methods will be especially useful, as they will become applicable for all Jelastic-managed staks.
Back to the list of API Improvements
Support of Parameters Aliases within CLI Commands
A lot of API methods in Jelastic have a number of aliases for their parameters (i.e. alternative names, which can be used on a par with original denominations). Usually, such variations appear due to steady API development, supporting legacy implementations and ensuring backward compatibility. For example, the frequently used envName parameter can be equally replaced with its previous appid or domain denominations, whilst zdt parameter name can be similarly substituted with the atomicDeploy string, and so on.
In the current 5.1 Platform upgrade, support of such aliases was implemented for Jelastic CLI as well (including the appropriate parameters designation within JSON files). This allows developers to operate with the same preferred parameter denominations when using both API and CLI.
Back to the list of API Improvements
Updated Namespace for API Calls within Cloud Scripting
Jelastic API documentation provides examples on calling methods via HTTP using URL (REST) and through Cloud Scripting (Scripting). In the current upgrade, namespace for the latter one was updated to a new format through substituting its hivext part with jelastic string. As an example, for now the following expression should be used when referring to VCS API requests - jelastic.environment.Vcs.{method-name}. Herewith, the former version (i.e. hivext.environment.Vcs.{method-name}) is considered outdated, although remaining operable for compatibility reasons.
MySQL/MariaDB Security Enhancements
According to native MySQL and MariaDB implementation specifics, a one will see the appropriate directory content if accessing a page with no specified entry point on these servers via direct URL. In most cases, such behaviour should be avoided as it may reveal some sensitive data (e.g. backups, temporary or hidden files, etc), which must not be exposed for clients. Thus, restriction on directory indexing was enabled for both MySQL and MariaDB stacks.
Another implemented improvement is automatic generation of self-signed certificates for MySQL/MariaDB nodes, which allows to establish encrypted HTTPS connection to their admin panels via Public IP right after instance creation, i.e. without any additional configurations being required.
Default Aliases for Container Hostname
When referring to a particular container, two formats of a hostname could be used in Jelastic internal DNS (with either hyphen or period as a separator):
- node{node_id}-{env_name}.{hoster_domain} - default record for all node types
node{node_id}.{env_name}.{hoster_domain} - additional record for Docker containers (i.e. beside of the default common one)
- {node_id} - unique container identifier
- {env_name} - internal environment domain (based on environment name, set during its creation)
{hoster_domain} - domain name of a Platform a node was created at
From now on, both of the above-specified records will be automatically added for each new container and can be used for refering to both native and Docker containers. Herewith, for the already existing containers, number of DNS records will remain the same.
Master Node Environment Variables (5.2)
When setting up an environment topology, the very first instance to be created on a particular environment layer is automatically considered as a master, i.e. the main one. For example, such initial container will be taken as a template for all layer nodes during environment cloning or, in case High-Availability is enabled, applications will be deployed only to the master node. Starting with the 5.2 Platform version, each newly created Docker container (and Jelastic dockerized stack) is provisioned with the master node details for a layer it is placed at, which are defined within the appropriate variables:
- MASTER_ID - unique digit identifier (Node ID), e.g. 226501
- MASTER_HOST - network address for referring to a master node, composed of container ID and environment name (without the Platform domain suffix), e.g. node226501-my-app
MASTER_IP - master container internal IP address, e.g. 192.168.13.31
Such implementation will help to identify master node much easier - for example, to discover a container where the data is actually stored when utilizing master as a storage for sharing data across the layer. Also, when packaging clustered solutions via JPS, these variables allows to prescribe the appropriate master node host and IP address fetching without an environment being actually created yet.
Fixes Compatible with Prior Versions
Below, you can find lists of fixes which except of being implemented within Jelastic 5.1 and 5.2 releases, have been also integrated to Platforms with preceding Jelastic versions by means of the appropriate patches:
| Jelastic 5.1 | ||
|---|---|---|
| # | Compatible from | Description |
| JE-28966 | 2.5 | The File Synchronization add-on can not be installed due to the deprecated CS format used in the manifest file |
| JE-27263 | 3.3 | Error occurs, while installing the Cyclos 4 package |
| JE-32240 | 3.3 | Correcting default email settings for the osTicket package |
| JE-32739 | 3.3 | Adjusting File Synchronization add-on to enable its installation on top of dockerized stacks |
| JE-27140 | 4.2 | Validation message clarification for the user name field in the FTP Users add-on |
| JE-25656 | 4.5 | Crash report appears, while updating a New Relic add-on, which is installed on top of Apache PHP application server |
| JE-31739 | 4.8 | Incorrect documentation link within the Traffic Distributor package description at Jelastic Marketplace |
| JE-29996 | 4.10 | Support and integration of a new Spring Boot Java application server |
| JE-31252 | 4.10 | Indication of environment groups and layers within SSH Gate menu at terminal |
| JE-31970 | 4.10 | Making environments in the nested (child) environment groups being displayed within SSH Gate terminal menu |
| JE-32560 | 4.10 | Shared environments can not be accessed by collaborators via SSH Gate, due to owner UID usage by SSH client |
| JE-32569 | 4.10 | Ability to connect to nodes without internal IP via SSH Gate |
| JE-32721 | 4.10 | Updating legacy VDS labeling for VPS nodes in SSH Gate terminal menu |
| JE-32722 | 4.10 | Pre-sorting of containers by environment layer within SSH Gate terminal menu |
| JE-31155 | 4.10.2 | Fixed issue with MSSQL node creation failure due to the password for sa user occasionally being not generated by the system |
| JE-31300 | 4.10.2 | Sometimes Jelastic CLI could not be installed due to Java exception |
| JE-26792 | 5.0.5 | Fixed error during restarting dockerized Varnish load balancer stack |
| JE-31473 | 5.0.5 | Crash report appears when installing the TimeZone add-on on top of dockerized stacks |
| JE-31553 | 5.0.5 | The Drupal package from Jelastic Marketplace can not be opened in browser due to incorrect Apache version |
| JE-31812 | 5.0.5 | The /use/java/tzupdater.jar file is absent within Java-based dockerized stacks (i.e. Tomcat and TomEE) |
| JE-31875 | 5.0.5 | Incorrect permissions for the /var/spool/cron/nginx file on the dockerized stack of Nginx PHP |
| JE-31910 | 5.0.5 | The logdb_bckp.log file is not created after first backup procedure on the dockerized stack of MySQL 5.7 |
| JE-32633 | 5.0.5 | The locale command return errors after updating glibc on dockerized stacks |
| JE-32645 | 5.0.5 | Unmasking systemd-logind to avoid warning messages in var/log/messages |
| JE-32679 | 5.0.5 | Error message appears during successful MySQL / MariaDB / Percona databases restart |
| JE-32715 | 5.0.5 | The screen session can not be opened, while connected to container with dockerized stack via SSH Gate |
| JE-32719 | 5.0.5 | Updating tag label for MariaDB 10 based on the actual database version |
| JE-32809 | 5.0.5 | Forbidding directory listing on the dockerized PHP stacks after Git / SVN deploy |
| JE-32893 | 5.0.5 | The dockerized TomEE stack can not be accessed via SSH Gate |
| Jelastic 5.2 | ||
|---|---|---|
| # | Compatible from | Description |
| JE-31984 | 4.10 | Displaying environment topology changes after refresh in SSH Gate terminal menu |
| JE-32965 | 5.0.5 | Adding system libraries, which are required for some dynamic extensions, to the PHP module |
| JE-32913 | 5.1 | Updating permissions for the keys folder on the dockerized Varnish stack to allow file creation |
| JE-32967 | 5.1 | Setting proper Common Name for the auto generated self-signed certificates on databases with Public IP |
Software Stack Versions
The most notable software stack updates in confines of Jelastic 5.1 and 5.2 releases are:
- the legacy Ruby versions (namely 1.9.3, 2.0.0 and 2.1) are no longer maintained by Jelastic
- the latest Ruby 2.4 release was added
the RHEL OS template support was implemented for Docker containers
This way, for now the list of the component templates versions is the following:
| Stack | Jelastic 5.1/5.2 |
|---|---|
| Tomcat 6 | 6.0.53 |
| Tomcat 7 | 7.0.77 |
| Tomcat 8 | 8.5.5 |
| TomEE | 7.0.3 |
| Jetty 6 | 6.1.26 |
| GlassFish 3 | 3.1.2.2 |
| Java 6 | 1.6.0_45 |
| Java 7 | 1.7.0_79 |
| Java 8 | 1.8.0_131 |
| MariaDB | 5.5.56 / 10.2.6 |
| MongoDB 2.6 | 2.6.11 |
| MongoDB 3.0 | 3.4 |
| MySQL | 5.6.36 / 5.7.18 |
| PostgreSQL | 9.5.5 |
| CouchDB | 1.6.1 |
| nginx | 1.10.1 |
| Maven | 3.5.0 |
| Centos 7 | 7.2 |
| Memcached | 1.4.24 |
| Apache | 2.4.6-45 |
| NGINX PHP | 1.10.1 |
| NGINX Ruby | 1.12.0 |
| PHP 5.3 | 5.3.29 |
| PHP 5.4 | 5.4.45 |
| PHP 5.5 | 5.5.38 |
| PHP 5.6 | 5.6.28 |
| PHP 7 | 7.0.13 |
| PHP 7.1 | 7.1.0 |
| Ruby 2.2 | 2.2.7 |
| Ruby 2.3 | 2.3.4 |
| Ruby 2.4 | 2.4.1 |
| Python 2.7 | 2.7.12 |
| Python 3.3 | 3.3.6 |
| Python 3.4 | 3.4.5 |
| Python 3.5 | 3.5.2 |
| Node.js | 0.10.46 / 0.12.15 |
| Node.js 4 | 4.26 / 4.3.0 / 4.5.0 |
| Node.js 5 | 5.1.1 / 5.6.0 |
| Node.js 6 | 6.5.0 |
Bug Fixes
In the table below, you can see the list of bug fixes in Jelastic PaaS & CaaS 5.1 and 5.2:
| Jelastic 5.1 | |
|---|---|
| # | Description |
| JE-19273 | Parameters set by the JAVA_OPTS variable are not applied and not exported on Jetty 8 and JBoss 7 |
| JE-24012 | Jelastic CLI client displays a login prompt, while a user is actually trying to sign out |
| JE-26295 | Jelastic API allows to add and edit a project with Maven where interval to check and auto-deploy updates has a negative value (less than 1 minute) |
| JE-27765 | String index exception occurs while moving any file from the ~/jelastic directory and running it with parameters via Jelastic CLI |
| JE-28497 | Permissions to sub-directories differ from the ones to ROOT |
| JE-28536 | Ability to execute the BindSSL API request for environment without Public IP or with unsupported node type |
| JE-28667 | Unhandled error occurs while importing the corrupted JSON manifest from a local file |
| JE-28913 | Member of collaboration with the Viewer permissions can delete log files on a shared environment |
| JE-28954 | Member of collaboration with the Viewer permissions can deploy projects to an application server on a shared environment |
| JE-29435 | Incorrect class names are provided for some API methods |
| JE-29863 | The star icon is displayed next to the level-up arrow after clicking Refresh in the Config Manager |
| JE-29876 | Ability to create new MongoDB database and user with no access restrictions |
| JE-29943 | Incorrect validation for right-to-left (RTL) text in domain names |
| JE-30064 | Environment status is not changed after cloning |
| JE-30197 | Unknown error occurs while creating a new environment |
| JE-30465 | The getdockerenvvars and getcontainerenvvars API requests return an unknown error |
| JE-30567 | Unhandled error occurs instead of a custom error when using custom buttons in Cloud Scripting add-on packages |
| JE-30685 | Impossible to mount directory from environment with cyrillic symbols in the name |
| JE-31001 | The Enter key doesn’t work while adding new environment group or applying changes to the existing one if the cursor is out of the input field |
| JE-31007 | Improper behavior of the Disk Limit slider box in the wizard |
| JE-31019 | The Delete button appears cropped for environments with long names and aliases in the Add Group dialog box |
| JE-31020 | The environment status is not clear from the icon that appears while adding environment to a group |
| JE-31066 | Unclear description on how to create a new environment group from the + Add to Env Group dialog box |
| JE-31068 | The Groups list remains displayed after pressing Enter to select a particular group |
| JE-31143 | Inability to create or rename a file located in a directory that was earlier renamed |
| JE-31739 | Invalid link to the Routing Methods page in the Traffic Distributor installation box |
| JE-31872 | Installation of the Cloud Scripting package with Payara Micro Advanced Cluster fails |
| JE-31892 | Error appears while editing or removing a Git/SVN project deployed to the mounted context |
| JE-31911 | Backup script for MariaDB is not executed with the dumpall option |
| JE-31987 | The su root root value is not returned from the logrotate config file on Fedora Docker image |
| JE-31997 | Renaming a child environment group can make it disappear or cause an unknown error |
| JE-32037 | No valid login shell is available for user in run.log on the RHEL-based Docker image |
| JE-32039 | Incorrect Disc Limit set for some nodes |
| JE-32087 | Error occurs while adding custom SSL certificate to the GlassFish-based environment |
| JE-32132 | Some common vulnerabilities and exposures affecting the MySQL server |
| JE-32140 | Incorrect firewall rules for the dockerized stack template with Memcached |
| JE-32161 | Member of collaboration with the Viewer permissions can’t access the Mount Points and Exports directories on a shared environment |
| JE-32168 | Newly added variable is missing within the scaled nodes of a dockerized stack template |
| JE-32202 | Account limits are exceeded while importing the Cloud Scripting package on an account with sufficient permissions |
| JE-32281 | Failure to deploy EJB project to TomEE application server |
| JE-32350 | The Scaling Limit box appears cropped in the wizard for a deselected stack layer |
| JE-32377 | The High-Availability button is present in the wizard for unsupported stack layers |
| JE-32394 | The sendmail service is not available on a dockerized stack template |
| JE-32420 | Member of collaboration with the Viewer permissions can’t stop or start a shared environment |
| JE-32505 | No active tasks are displayed in the Tasks panel while uploading an archive from a local file |
| JE-32507 | HTTP transport error appears while uploading an archive with a size larger than allowed |
| JE-32538 | Failure to install the Let’s Encrypt add-on on Apache-PHP due to the broken locale identifiers |
| JE-32610 | The Redeploy containers list for dockerized stacks includes tags that are not provisioned by the hosting provider |
| JE-32664 | Inability to redeploy dockerized containers in case a selected tag was repealed by a hosting provider but remains available within the source image on Docker Hub |
| JE-32792 | Incorrect formatting of SSH connection string sent to a user via email |
| Jelastic 5.2 | |
|---|---|
| # | Description |
| JE-30851 | Incorrect redirect from the 80th port after the Node.js application server restart |
| JE-32293 | Two external IPs are added, while attaching Public IP to the stopped container |
| JE-32720 | Collaboration members can’t change topology after being granted the sufficient permissions |
| JE-32749 | Docker containers, which specify users via uid can not be created |
| JE-32751 | Maven node fails, while building EJB project that contains a JAR file |
| JE-32807 | Environments, which are stuck in the Creating status, are not automatically removed |
| JE-32879 | Inability to export data from Storage container |
| JE-32901 | Incorrect display of the Actions log tab after restarting node |
| JE-32907 | Sometimes, the ResetServicePassword, ResetNodePassword, RestartServices and RestartNodes API methods don’t respond |
| JE-32928 | Error occurs while saving changes to a file, which contains pictograms via the Config manager |
| JE-32932 | Error appears while creating environment with the MSSQL or IIS Windows-based stacks |
| JE-32939 | Calling the API request with legacy APPID format fails |
| JE-32944 | Topology wizard is not updated after switching from the Docker container tab |
| JE-32946 | Owner can manage environment after transferring it to another account |
| JE-32968 | Simultaneous creation of several environments fails due to SSL-related errors |
| JE-33002 | Unhandled error occurs while adding mount point to a file |
| JE-33003 | Session error appears while building project with Maven node |
| JE-33005 | Archives with spaces and special symbols in name can not be deployed |
| JE-33012 | Incorrect template names are displayed in the Quotas & Pricing > Software tab |
| JE-33023 | Rarely environments can not be created due to inability to connect to GitHub |
| JE-33024 | Deployment to environment fails due to missed DNS records |
| JE-33068 | The Tasks tab is empty after creating first environment on a new account during the Welcome tutorial |
| JE-33075 | Jelastic SSH Gate can not be access by users during Platform maintenance |
| JE-33100 | SSL certificates uploaded via Deployment manager are displayed incorrectly |
| JE-33154 | Email notification about account deactivation is not sent to users |
| JE-33178 | Environment transfer request can not be resent after the previous one being cancelled |
| JE-33181 | Email notification about account being destroyed is not sent to users |
| JE-33212 | Content of the mounted folder is not available on the scaled GlassFish instances |