v4.2 Release Notes

Acknowledgments

Thank you to all of the community members who contributed code, documentation, suggestions, bug reports, and other assistance across the project! We would like to recognize the following individuals for their contributions to the Open OnDemand version 4.2 release.

mrobbert contributed the cluster_info API for the PBSPro job adapter in ood_core, and ensured KDE desktops can correctly use startplasma-x11 when available.

james-s-willis fixed quota bar display, preventing bars from extending over 100%, and fixed the file_quotas widget on custom pages.

andrejcermak contributed adding an OpenStack helper and refactoring coder logs functionality in ood_core, as well as caching improvements for BatchConnect::App.from_token in ondemand.

harshit-soora contributed the OOD_WORKFLOW_SYNC_KEY feature, enabling synchronized launchers within a workflow, as well as updates to the Project Manager tutorial and documentation.

robinkar fixed parsing of canceled sacct job states in ood_core and improved escaping of option values for CSS selectors.

karcaw contributed mod_ood_proxy HSTS header support.

finchnSNPs and folkwest reported accessibility gaps in the job status table, files app, and the Project Manager, which contribute to the community feedback that helps improve Open OnDemand.

We'd also like to extend a big thank you to those listed below for contributing to Open OnDemand for the first time in this release. These contributions span the ondemand, ood_core, and ood-documentation GitHub repositories and include 9 first-time contributors.

Authentication and Security

Software Bill of Materials

Version 4.2 includes a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) that outlines the operating system-level software dependencies for Open OnDemand. Based on community feedback, the SBOM has moved to an industry-standard format and will be maintained in a dedicated OSC repository.

The Open-OnDemand-SBOM repository is available for version 4.2, with additional structure and documentation still being built out. This repository is intended to help sites review dependency information for security and compliance workflows.

Accessibility

Overview

Open OnDemand v4.2 includes many accessibility improvements across the dashboard and core applications. These include:

  • Additional support for keyboard navigation

  • Improved labeling for form items and icons

  • Additional regions and landmarks

  • Improved announcement and focus handling on automatically updating pages

  • Contrast improvements for links and buttons

  • Improved alerting experience with screen readers

Accessibility Conformance Report

Developers have uploaded the Open OnDemand 4.2 VPAT online which you may retrieve and review. This document is from the voluntary product assessment template a registered service mark of the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI).

Changes in version 4.2 ensure that immutable aspects of OnDemand are accessible by default, but do not account for customizations configured on individual instances.

Additional Accessibility Configurations

Here is a list of additional configurations that are needed to achieve full compliance with the WCAG 2.2 guidelines. Open OnDemand cannot ship with as they may be site specific.

Operating System Support

  • Open OnDemand version 4.2 adds support for Debian 13 and Ubuntu 26.04.

  • Open OnDemand version 4.2 drops support for Ubuntu 22.04.

Dependency Updates

This release updates the following dependencies:

  • Passenger 6.1.2

  • NGINX 1.28.0

  • ondemand-dex 2.45.1

Ubuntu and Debian repository signing change

Debian and Ubuntu repositories are now signed using a SHA512 key rather than the previous SHA1 key.

Using the OnDemand release packages will result in the correct key being used.

If not using OnDemand's release packages, the DEB-GPG-KEY-ondemand-SHA512 should be downloaded and used by the OnDemand repository's signed-by.

curl -fsSL https://apt.osc.edu/ondemand/DEB-GPG-KEY-ondemand-SHA512 | gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/ondemand-web.gpg

source /etc/os-release
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/ondemand-web.gpg] https://apt.osc.edu/ondemand/4.2/web/apt $VERSION_CODENAME main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ondemand-web.list

Behavior Changes

Active Jobs Extended Details Panel Opens to the Side

In order to make the Active Jobs table accessible to screen readers, the mechanism for viewing the extended details of a job has been changed. Instead of opening the panel inside the table, it now opens either above or beside, allowing table navigation to proceed normally.

Interactive App Popovers Persist Under Hover and Focus

The app preview popovers shown in the 'Interactive Apps' list now open when focus lands on the trigger. The popovers will remain open as long as hover or focus remains within the trigger or popover content, allowing users to click links inside the popover.

Workflows Now Provide OOD_WORKFLOW_SYNC_KEY to Launchers

It was previously difficult to synchronize launchers within a workflow and pass data between launchers without overwriting the data on each run. The introduction of the OOD_WORKFLOW_SYNC_KEY environment variable fixes this by providing a unique alphanumeric value for each run of a workflow, which launchers can include in file and directory names when reading or writing data. The feature can be enabled for individual workflows upon creation or by editing an existing workflow. See the updated Project Manager Tutorial for additional details and strategies for using OOD_WORKFLOW_SYNC_KEY in your workflows.

Session Object Now Available in view.html.erb

The full session object is now available for running job views, matching the behavior of completed session views. This does not in any way affect the view and connect variables that were available before, but does allow access to previously unavailable session details, like the session id. For more details on using the session object in views, see Session Information.

Upgrade Instructions

Warning

Update the development and/or test instances of OnDemand installed at your center before you modify the production instance.

Warning

We have tested the upgrade from version 4.1.4 to version 4.2.0 at OSC's Open OnDemand instance.

  1. Update Open OnDemand repository.

    sudo yum install -y https://yum.osc.edu/ondemand/4.2/ondemand-release-web-4.2-1.el8.noarch.rpm

  2. Update Open OnDemand.

    sudo yum clean all
sudo yum update ondemand

  3. (Dex users only) Update the ondemand-dex package.

    sudo yum update ondemand-dex

  4. Update Apache configuration and restart Apache.

    sudo /opt/ood/ood-portal-generator/sbin/update_ood_portal

    sudo systemctl try-restart httpd

  5. (Dex users only) Restart the ondemand-dex service.

    sudo systemctl try-restart ondemand-dex.service

  6. (SELinux users only) Update SELinux policies.

    See SELinux after Updates.

  7. Force all PUNs to restart.

    sudo /opt/ood/nginx_stage/sbin/nginx_stage nginx_clean -f