Version 2.0.9

This release enables the CentOS Vault repos and removes the no-longer-used main repos. Users are suggested to upgrade.

• This release is expected to be the last release. Yes, we said that with 2.0.8, but this release is needed to enable CentOS-Vault repos.

In addition, some minor bugs were fixed;

• Several variable insertion and string related bugs.
• Better support for single-socket nodes.

Version 2.0.8

This is a major release over v2.0.7, all users are strongly urged to upgrade.

Main Feature Upgrades;

• Major overhaul to striker-installer. It can now run against a standard minimal OS install. Stage-1 install from ISO/USB is no longer required (though still supported). This allows pure UEFI systems to used for Striker dashboards.
• Added a new scan-hardware that tracks RAM DIMMs and CSS LEDs state.
• Updated the DB archive trigger values to improve DB performance.
• Modified scan-storcli to no longer set a health score against node until/unless a drive's media or other error counts exceed 5.
• Added support for Windows 2019 and improved handling of Win10 and Win2016 guests.
• Created 'anvil-rehome-server' to handle migrating hosted servers between Anvil! node pairs.
• Created anvil-report-usage and created a stand-alone variant to show at the command line what resources each server uses and what resources are available still.

Main Bugs Fixed

• When archiving databases, it's possible that all entries for a given UUID will be purged from the history schema, leaving a record in public without it's history pair. The broke scan agents and ScanCore itself when trying to resync. This has been fixed.
• Added a new 'anvil-node-suicide' that will terminate a node that begins a shutdown and hangs (ie: because of a DLM hang).
• Added a new 'fence_delay' fence agent that always fails when asked to fence. This agent ensures that fence_ipmilan will not be called before the BMC has time to reboot in a case where the PDUs killed the power to the node but the agent reported a failure.
• Fixed a bug in scan-storcli where disks with EID:SID of 0 were being missed.
• Fixed numerous small bugs in all sections of the Anvil!.

This is expected to be the final m2 release. All active development now switches to M3 and only critical bugs will be fixed going forward. See you all on EL8!

Version 2.0.7

This is the first release since March, 2018. Users are advised to upgrade.

Main bugs fixed;

• Fixed install issues for Windows 10 and 2016 clients.
• Improved duplicate record detection and cleanup in scan-clustat and scan-storcli.
• Disabled the detection and recovery of 'paused' state servers (it caused more trouble than it solved).

Notable new features;

• Improved the server boot logic to choose the node with the most running servers, all else being equal.
• Updated UPS power transfer reason alerts from "warning" to "notice" level alerts.
• Added support for EL 6.10.

Version 2.0.6

This is a minor, but important, update. Users on v2.0.5 are urged to upgrade.

A line of debugging code was left in ScanCore that caused it to exit when it resync'ed the nodes_cache table. This causes ScanCore to effectively stop working when an update is needed.

Version 2.0.5

This is a minor release over 2.0.4 that fixes two bugs;

• Windows 2016 guests would not provision correctly
• In some cases after a new Striker dashboard is created, the nodes_cache table would be queried before it was resynchronized, causing a potential conflict.

Users of 2.0.4 are advised to update if they plan to host Windows 2016 guests.

Users of v2.0.3 or earlier are strongly recommended to update.

Version 2.0.4

Welcome to the Anvil! Intelligent Availability™ release v2.0.4!

This is a significant release with new features and bug fixes. Existing users are encouraged to update.

Notable New features;

• HP Proliant servers are now support via the new scan-hpacucli scan agent. Note: We can not include the hpacucli RPM with the Anvil! install media. Please install this RPM on each node manually to enable this agent. Nothing beyond installing the RPM is needed.
• Dell Poweredge servers are now fully supported.
• Added support for LANPlus-based IPMI fencing, as well as custom IPMI user names in Install Manifests.
• Created the new anvil-manage-disks tool for adding, removing or growing "hard drives" connected to servers.
• Created the new fence_apc_alteeve fence handler that properly handles newer APC PDUs that report an SNMP error on outlet state change, causing fence_apc_snmp to report fence failure when the fence action in fact succeeded.
• Added the new scancore::agent_timeout variable (default 300 seconds) that limits how long an agent can run for before being declared hung and terminated.

Notable Bug Fixes;

• The scan-apc-ups agent properly removes UPSes that are removed from the hosts file. This improves the handling of load shedding and emergency shutdown decision making in complex power configurations.
• Improved handling of node cache data when the password is changed on an Anvil! node.
• Fixed how striker-update updates data in the HTML directories on Striker dashboards.
• Fixed a bug where a notification target with an empty recipient name would cause alerts to not be delivered to that recipient.
• Improved handling of ScanCore database resync after extended node or dashboard downtime.
• Improved storage partition handling and "Restart" button linking when an Install Manifest run had to abort and be restarted.
• Fixed a bug on RHEL-based Striker dashboards with ASIX-based USB ethernet adapters that weren't recompiled after a kernel update.
• Added better handling of new APC UPS firmware that removed some OIDs.

A full listing on changes can be found here.

Special thanks to "nummysquee" who did the heavy lifting of testing and re-testing this release!

Version 2.0.3

This is a minor update to resolve an issue with the inaccurate system RAM being reported in the Striker UI.

Updating is only suggested if the unreported RAM is causing you trouble.

Version 2.0.2

This is a minor point release. It tunes a few alerts levels.

Version 2.0.1

This is a minor update to v2.0.0 that fixes a bug in anvil-generate-iso caused by how the source URL changed when v2.0.0 was tagged (and beta-rc taken off the name).

No functional code changes elsewhere in the program were made in this release.

Version 2.0.0 - Final

Anvil! m2 :: Striker + ScanCore

Welcome to the v2.0.0 release of the Anvil! m2 Intelligent Availability™ platform!

What is an Anvil! Platform?

• It is the first server platform designed with the singular focus of protecting your servers and keeping them running under even extreme fault conditions.
• It is fully self-contained, making it ideal for totally offline operation.
• It is a "self driving" server availability platform that can continuously monitors internal and external data sources, compiling, analyzing and autonomously deciding when and what action to take to protect your servers. It is ideally suited for extended remote deployments and "hands off" operation.
• It is based on an extensively field tested, open architecture with full data, mechanical and electrical redundancy allowing any component to be failed, removed and replaced without the need for a maintenance window. The ANvil! platform has over five years of real-world deployment over dozens of sites and an historic uptime of over 99.9999%.
• It is extremely easy to use, minimizing the opportunity for human error and making it as simple as possible for "remote hands" to affect repairs and replacements without any prior availability experience and minimal technical knowledge.

In short, it is a server platform that just won't die.

This release has been extensively tested on Fujitsu Primergy servers, Brocade ICX switches and APC SmartUPS UPSes and Switched PDUs. The Anvil! platform works best on these devices, but it is designed to be hardware agnostic and should work just fine on Dell, Cisco USC, Lenovo x-series, and other tier-1 server vendors.

If, by some chance, you run into any trouble building an Anvil!, Alteeve actively supports the open source community. We also offer commercial support contracts to assist with any stage of deployment, operation and custom development.

With this release, the ''Anvil!'' IA platform is ready for general use. As with all x.0.0 releases, extra testing is advised. We hope you will fine that this release is quite reliable and ready for production.