[FreeNX-kNX] FreeNX 0.4.2: "Solaris / Bugfix Release -- Linux-InfoTag Pforzheim Edition"

[Fabian Franz]

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Hi,

the FreeNX Team proudly presents the second minor release of the 0.4.x 
tree. We called it "Solaris Bugfix Release -- Linux-InfoTag Pforzheim 
Edition".

This release...

 ...continues to support the NoMachine 1.4.0 "stable" releases of the 
    GPL'd core source code components, as well as 
 ...the latest known "snapshot 4" of the developing 1.5.0 release of 
    the NoMachine GPL'd core NX components. 

NOTE: FreeNX 0.4.2 is not yet tested with the final NoMachine 1.5.0 
stable release, which only happened 2 days ago. If required, we will 
focus on getting a 0.4.3 out as soon as possible to support NoMachine 
Core NX 1.5.0 as well.


Details
=======

The main focus for this 0.4.2 release lies on stability; it is again 
a bugfix release.

FreeNX should now be much more reliable in reconnecting to a suspended
session. The fixes even cover cases where users pressed "Cancel". In
cases where the server was shutdown (or even when a power failure 
occurred) it happened before that there were false "running sessions" 
offered to users which were of course fake. Now everything is cleaned 
up, before the FreeNX server takes up operations again.

Another focus (and the main reason to trigger the work for this 
release) is explicit support for Solaris brought to FreeNX by an 
"anonymous" patch (frankh -- thank you very much; what is your email 
address?). We received this patch in our BerliOS Patch Tracker 
(http://developer.berlios.de/patch/?group_id=2978). After a close 
review of the patch, it was accepted into 0.4.2.

It happened that this release was again made during a talk we held at 
the "Linux-Infotag Pforzheim". The talk was scheduled for 45 minutes, 
but we exceeded by almost another hour ;-) showing off lots of new 
features and tricks for FreeNX to an ever growing audience (granted,
this was the last talk of the evening, and probably lots of people
just wanted to avoid helping with the cleanup that happened outside
the presentation room ;-).


Stability issues
- ----------------

* Removed the previous way of "forwarding an incoming session to a
  NoMachine NX server" which used the "freenx.<user>" username syntax.
  This concept was too buggy; the new design that forwards sessions
  via different ports works much better.

* Performed a complete code-review of nxserver and nxnode:

    - Added exit handlers for better cleanup on server reboot / halt.

    - Catched many cases, where processes were kept running without 
      in the session database. (jonachen and an entry others reported 
      those problems)

    - Reconnection failures should now happen less frequently; error 
      messages are now displayed on client side, so users know at 
      least instantly _why_ it failed.

* Added the 'nxserver --cleanup' option. This immediately terminates
  _all_ running sessions; so use it with care! This should be useful 
  in an nxserver-cleanup initscript running in runlevel "S".

Is there anyone willing to implement such a cleanup script?


Fixed Bugs
- ----------

* Choosing PNG and JPEG "level 0" now does acutally work. (Well, 
  during the codereview we found a big TODO ;-) and remembered that
  PNG levels did never work for me. OK, it does now at last... :-)

* Now checking TCP/IP ports used by nxagent are via "netcat -z" (just 
  scan) before we start nxnode and lock the display.

* Fixed problems with GNOME sessions: Gnome didn't start at all -- 
  screen remained black. You should now be able to fully enjoy Gnome
  sessions with FreeNX 0.4.2.

* Added Solaris support patch. This patch should also help the various 
  *BSD systems out there to require less of their own patches.


Next plans
- ----------

Next plans are now to branch off the 0.5.x from 0.4.2/0.4.3; one of 
the new features will be to permanently introduce loadbalancing.

Of course, 0.5.0 will add support for the final NoMachine Core NX 
1.5.0 source components and the binary-only NX Clients.

The next major changes will include, ordered by ascending difficulty:

 * the adaption to the reported changes with "fake cookie 
   authentication" for 1.5.x 

 * support for the NoMachine NX 1.5.0 clients support

 * support for server based profiles.

For the FreeNX Team,

Fabian
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