v2.1 Release Notes

Warning

There are some breaking changes in 2.1. See the upgrade directions below for details.

Highlights in 2.1:

Upgrading from v2.0

Breaking Changes

context.json file locations have changed

This is an interal item to Open OnDemand and not likely to really affect you at all.

In versions 2.0 and below, batch connect apps wrote a context.json file to a directory like ~/data/sys/dashboard/batch_connect/sys/<APPNAME>/context.json. OnDemand uses these files to cache the choices a user makes for the next time they use that app.

Version 2.1 now writes files like ~/ondemand/data/sys/dashboard/batch_connect/cache/<APPNAME>.json

Deprecations

Autoloading during initialization is deprecated.

This comes from the Ruby on Rails framework that Open OnDemand utilizes. It affects initializers you may have written, for example to Add Shortcuts to Files Menu.

To resolve this, wrap your code in a Rails.application.config.after_initialize block.

For example, if you have:

# /etc/ood/config/apps/dashboard/initializers/ood.rb

  OodFilesApp.candidate_favorite_paths.tap do |paths|
    # add User project space directory
    paths << FavoritePath.new("/fs/project/#{User.new.name}")
  end

You will need to modify that file like so:

# /etc/ood/config/apps/dashboard/initializers/ood.rb

  Rails.application.config.after_initialize do
    OodFilesApp.candidate_favorite_paths.tap do |paths|
      # add User project space directory
      paths << FavoritePath.new("/fs/project/#{User.new.name}")
    end
  end

Upgrade directions

Warning

As always please update the development or test instances of OnDemand installed at your center first to test and verify before you modify the production instance.

Warning

The OnDemand upgrade has only been tested going from 2.0.x to 2.1.x.

  1. Update OnDemand release RPM

    sudo yum install -y https://yum.osc.edu/ondemand/2.1/ondemand-release-web-2.1-1.noarch.rpm

  2. Enable dependency repos

    RHEL/Rocky 8 only

    sudo dnf module reset nodejs
sudo dnf module enable nodejs:14
sudo dnf module reset ruby
sudo dnf module enable ruby:3.0

  3. Update OnDemand

    sudo yum clean all
sudo yum update ondemand

  4. (Optional) If using Dex based authentiction, update the ondemand-dex package.

    sudo yum update ondemand-dex

  5. Update Apache configuration and restart Apache.

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

    RHEL/Rocky 8 only

    sudo systemctl try-restart httpd

    RHEL/CentOS 7 only

    sudo systemctl try-restart httpd24-httpd.service

  6. (Optional) If ondemand-dex was installed, restart the ondemand-dex service.

    sudo systemctl try-restart ondemand-dex.service

  7. (Optional) If ondemand-selinux was installed, see SELinux after Updates

  8. Force all PUNs to restart

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

  9. (Optional) Remove old dependencies from prior versions of OOD if they are not used by other applications.

    Warning

    See Dependency updates warning before uninstalling old Ruby versions.

    RHEL/CentOS 7 only

    sudo yum remove rh-nodejs12\* rh-ruby27\*

Details

EL9, Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 20.04 packages

See Install Software for instructions on how to install OnDemand using the new EL9, Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 20.04 packages.

Dex behind Apache reverse proxy by default

Warning

Dex behind the Apache reverse proxy is a behavior change from OnDemand 2.0 where the reverse proxy configuration was optional. This is to improve security as well as allow Apache to provide access logs. If you have opened ports for Dex they can be closed as all traffic to Dex will flow through Apache.

By default Dex now sits behind the Apache reverse proxy. If you wish to go back to Dex being directly accessed set the following in /etc/ood/config/ood_portal.yml:

dex_uri: false

Automatic Form Options

2.1 ships with some form.yml options that populate forms automatically. This includes auto_primary_group, auto_groups, auto_accounts and auto_modules.

See the section on Automatic Predefined Attributes for all available options.

Support for remote files

2.1 ships with the ability to browse, edit and download remote files from rclone. Refer to Accessing Remote File Systems for how to turn this feature on.

Quick Launch Apps

Quick Launch Apps launch with one click and hard coded settings. This allows for sites with common resource requests to hard code those requests into the app such that the user is never presented with the form.

These launch with 1 click from the user and do not allow for choices. I.e., the user is never presented with a form to fill out, the app simply launches when clicked.

See the documentation for Quick Launch Apps for more information.

Deleting old interactive app directories

2.1 provides a mechanism to automatically delete all the directories that interactive applications create in ~/ondemand/data/sys/dashboard/batch_connect/... after some time period. The system provides two options for this: One to enable the feature altogether and the other is to specify how old a directory must be to be removed.

See the configuration options for removing old directories for more details.

Disabling interactive app versions

Sites can now disable showing interactive application versions through the hide_app_version ondemand.d property.

Recently Used Apps widget

In 2.0 we provided a way to change the dashboard layout. Now, in 2.1 there are more widgets to choose from, namely the recently_used_apps widget.

This widget will show the last 4 recently used applications. What’s more is, they’re Quick Launch Apps so users only need to click on them to submit the job with the same parameters they used before.

Running Sessions widget

Along with recently_used_apps widget above, we’re also providing the sessions widget which will show the same cards that are shown in the My Interactive Sessions page.

This means users who have running interactive applications can now connect to them through the landing page without having to navigate anywhere else.

Displaying Form options

Sites can now display form choices in the resulting connection card.

See Displaying form items in the session card for more information.

Submitting Help tickets

Sites can enable submitting help tickets from interactive cards.

see Support Tickets for more information on how this behaves and how to enable it.

Dependency updates

This release updates the following dependencies:

  • Ruby 3.0

    Warning

    The change in Ruby version means any Ruby based apps that are not provided by the OnDemand RPM must be rebuilt or supply their own bin/ruby to use the older version of ruby.

    Note

    Ruby 2.7 is still supported and used by Ubuntu 20.04.

  • NodeJS 14

    Warning

    The change in Node version means any Node based apps that are not provided by the OnDemand RPM must be rebuilt.

  • Passenger 6.0.14

  • NGINX 1.20.2

  • ondemand-dex 2.32.0

  • OnDemand package now depends on Python 3 instead of Python 2

SELinux changes

The ondemand_use_shell_app SELinux boolean was removed and replaced with ondemand_use_ssh that is enabled by default.

The ondemand_use_kubernetes SELinux boolean was added and is disabled by default.

See the OnDemand SELinux documentation for details