[cvsnt] Latest Updates - CVSNT 2.5.04 Build 3229 (RC9)

[Arthur Barrett]

CVSNT 2.5.04 (Zen) Build 3229 (RC9)

You can download this release from:
http://www.cvsnt.org/wiki/Download#testrel



Fixed in this release:
------------------------
4956  cvswrappers "*" overrides all other wrappers always  
5154  When a changed file is committed with a renamed flie,
.directory_history is not created
5389  .ttf - true type files should be binary by default
5397  Do not put advertising in commit message if supplied with -M  
5398  On commit put an advertising message in the 'log'  

Fixed in a previous release:
-----------------------------
5396  .cur files should be added as binary as default  


I'll release a summary of all the bugs/features since 2.5.03 when 2.5.04
is released stable.

Latest documentation:
-----------------------
http://www.cvsnt.org/manual_testing_2.5


Description:
--------------

RC9 was released today and is the third that includes binaries and
testing on all supported platforms:
* Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008
* Red Hat Linux 9/ES4/ES5
* Mac OS X Intel 10.4+
* HPUX 11i pa-risc 32 (64 bit may be available later)
* Solaris 9/10 sparc 32 and 64 bit

Note: it is not possible to build 2.5.04 for powerpc 10.3+ and at this
point I have no integtion of doing a universal binary or a powerpc build
for 10.4+ (use 2.5.03.2382 instead).  I hope to eventually get around to
doing a universal build.

This RC is is just a precautionary check before going stable later this
week - no further changes are planned.

Remember that 2.5.04 RC6 and higher do change the audit database schema
from previous 2.5.04 releases which in turn were different to 2.5.03
releases.  The 'upgrade' button should smart enough to handle this - run
the upgrade-1 then run the upgrade-2, but I may be wrong.

Also 2.5.04 has a different API to 2.5.03 which means that custom
ActiveScript and C++ triggers will need to be updated to the new API -
but this is not particularly new with this release.

This RC is considered 'stable', but I'd like feedback on:
* works on RHEL4/RHEL5/RedHat9?
* works on OSX Intel?
* works on Debian/Ubuntu?
* does the oracle audit work?
* upgrading from 2.5.03 audit?
* works on Vista?
* works on Vista x64?
* works on W2008 x64?

There are no more RC's planned before 'stable'.


Immediate Forward Plan (2.5.04 stable/EVSCM RC):
-------------------------------------------------
Release as stable.  Release EVSCM as stable.


Forward Plan:
--------------

EVS client can work with CVS/CVSNT servers, so in the future we may
start encouraging client users (particularly windows users) to use that
instead of CVSNT.  

The profile of a person who will run CVSNT server versus EVSCM server
are very different (you need a database and a very modern OS and
computer to run EVSCM), so trying to 'push' CVSNT Server users to EVSCM
seems counterproductive to me (for now anyway), however right at this
point in time I think that CVSNT server has reached the pinnacle of it's
evolution.  Certainly there are things that people want CVSNT to be able
to do, however those requirements also indicate that those people should
be switching to EVSCM (ie: they are large scale/high end requirements of
large organisations/teams).

Work will begin on 2.5.05 almost immediately, however those changes are
almost entirely aimed at our commercial support requirements and would
not be of much use to anyone else.  I will remove default support for
":ext:" on windows (should be ":ssh:") and ":local:" on windows (though
I'll probably leave some way to re-enable them), and I'll update the
included version of pcre to something a little more recent.

I do have some really interesting feature patches that have been
submitted that unfortunately are based on CVS 1.11 or 1.12 - but I'd
like to have a go at incorporating them into CVSNT at some stage (eg:
using the audit database for tag operations rather than the RCS files),
but budget constraints pretty much precludes any of that, and again,
EVSCM is a better solution for the types of problems the patches solve
anyway.

The latest build of CVS 1.12 includes a new 'sign commits' feature that
we've been asked to support at least in the CVSNT client, and does
occasionally come up as a feature request for the server.  Unfortunately
the feature as implemented in CVS 1.12 seems to have an interdependency
with several 'offline' features committed at the same time which we are
reluctant to add (basically your sandbox is doubled in size because
there is a copy of every file checked out in the hidden CVS directory).
Provided we can find a way to support this only when the user wants it
then we'll try and get that added - however it'll likely be added to EVS
client not CVSNT client.  Ideally we'd like a signed commits feature
that can be used with EVS and CVSNT server that doesn't have this
dependency, but again - we have lots of ideas and not enough resources.

So in short - please download the beta of EVSCM (particularly the
client) and do some testing, and pester your line manager to either
allow you some time to contribute back to the EVSCM/CVSNT project, or to
purchase a copy of CVS Suite (with the CVS Suite Studio and Microsoft
Visual Studio 2005/2008 integration) or a CVS Professional Support
Subscription (1+years) so that we can continue to facilitate the
deveopment of EVSCM and CVSNT on your behalf.

Zen:
-----

(These notes are largely unchanged from RC7/RC8)

This build is (hopefully) the last RC of the CVSNT 'Zen' project.  This
is a 'feature' release and apart from a few exceptional 'bugs' does not
fix any 'bugs' in the previous 2.5.03 'Scorpio' project.  The reasons
for this are:
* there have been almost no bug reports on the newsgroup about Scorpio
* the Zen project was always about adding specific features that were
often requested, but not previously considered to be a high priority

The CVSNT project got started many years ago because there were features
that the developers wanted in CVS 1.10 but the CVS 'charter' prevented
having these changes applied to the CVS source code repository -
basically the charter says that if any developer rejects the patch then
it wont be applied, and with all the developers active on the project
there was always bound to be one that would reject a patch for what can
be primarily described as 'philosophical' reasons.  

The CVSNT project does not have such a charter and we try to ensure that
we don't reject ideas for features just because some developers don't
agree with the need for such a feature - though we do like to ensure
that new features are 'optional' - ie: you don't have to use them if you
don't want to.

This is the first CVSNT development I can recall where the entire
devlopment features were things that Tony and I really didn't think were
*needed*.  This partly explains why this release has been a long time
coming.  We do however understand that other people do find these
features important so we've worked hard to bring them to you.

The features that we really DID think were needed just could not be
supported by the current generation of the souce code, hence why most of
our effort has gone into EVSCM (previously known as CVSNT 3.x).

The particular features that Zen set out to address are:
1. multi site repositories (multiple repository locations)
2. use of checksums on large files to improve WAN performance
3. trusted Windows DLLs - DLLs are signed and signature checked before
loading
4. a single download that is easy for 'windows end users' to use
5. better statistics of project adoption
6. cvsnt server control panel support for Vista UAC

* Items 1 and 2 are specifically to address some users belief that CVS
will run faster if there is a local repository cache.  After much
analysis and discussion internally we cannot see any benefit for this
since the CVSNT protocol was designed for telecommunications networks
far slower and less reliable that what is available today.

Secondly in hypotheticals about 'if we did do multi-repos' - we could
not see any benefit in a quorum based system where the changes on
onerepository are mulitcast to several servers simultaneously, since the
quorum needs to be tracked and the 'excluded members' of the quorum are
just as incapable of accepting patches as is a single repository shadow.


The solution we have come up with is a 'master' repository and multiple
shadows.  If you like  you can change which is the 'master' at any time
you like.  

We have been using the 2.5.04 repostiory cache/shadow feature for quite
a while internally and it works very well - and if you have
largebinaries in the repo or your processes require 'fresh checkouts'
rather than 'updates' then installng a shadow does improve performance.


Changing your procedures to use 'udpate' would do the same thing and
would have required 2 years less effort.  

We cannot stress enough just how unnecessary repository replication and
caching is for 99.9% of organisations - if you are experiencing multi
site performance problems there are probably much 'better' ways to fix
it that using repository replication and caching.

If you want more info on the repository replication stuff please see the
previous newsgroup posts:
http://www.cvsnt.org/pipermail/cvsnt/2008-May/030637.html
And
http://www.cvsnt.org/pipermail/cvsnt/2008-May/030642.html
And
http://www.cvsnt.org/pipermail/cvsnt/2008-May/030653.html
And
http://www.cvsnt.org/pipermail/cvsnt/2008-May/030655.html
And
http://www.cvsnt.org/pipermail/cvsnt/2008-May/030659.html


* Item 3 solves two problems on windows:
3a) solves 'DLL hell' where CVSNT would fail to run on some systems
because it would find the wrong version of a DLL (eg: libiconv) 
3b) increases security - users of the builds from march-hare.com web
site can be sure that the application .exe and .dll signatures are valid
and CVSNT will not load an unsigned protocol or trigger.  If you build
your own windows DLLs then only a warning will be issued instead of the
application aborting (see (#define COMMERCIAL_RELEASE).


* Item 4 is simply to create our own MSI that includes all the goodies a
typical windows client user is looking for: WinCVS, TortoiseCVS,
WinMerge, CVSNT - we also include a 'free' edition of our
WorksaceManager/CVS Suite Studio which is a lot like a 'simple' version
of WinCVS that uses TortoiseCVS for much of the client functions.  We've
also added a window to most gui dialogs to show the recent newsgroup
postings so that people are encouraged to read the newsgroup and
contribute to discussions.

* Item 5 is to give us more ammunition when advocating for the use of
CVSNT.  We already track how many downloads of CVSNT we get, and
SourceForge track the downloads of CVSNT as a part of TortoiseCVS and
WinCVS - 1.4 million annually last time I added them all up.  However
that does not tell us if they are ever installed, and how they are used.
So the client and server installers now attempt to notify us of an
install (no IP address is kept, though we do a geoip lookup using
maxmind data to determine the country).  

If you install the server then the server process keeps statistics about
how the server is performing (number of users, process duration etc)
which an admin can see by looking at the control panel.  The statistics
which are collected are then sent to our server weekly so we can 'see'
how the CVSNT servers are performing in the real world (again: no IP
address is kept, though we do a geoip lookup using maxmind data to
determine the country).

These statistics will let us post information on the web site and/or
newsgroup about how many CVSNT servers are out there 'in the wild' and
how they perform.  If your performance characteristics are significantly
worse to the ones we are publishing then you know you can improve
things.

I cannot stress enough how important obtaining this information is to
the future of the project.


* Item 6 is to allow the gui control panel on vista/w2008 to work under
the UAC security.  Note: all versions of CVSNT server and client run
fine on Vista - it is only the GUI control panel which is improved for
vista in 2.5.04/Zen.


Regards,


Arthur Barrett