From this version of m23 on, the m23 server can be installed on the new Debian 9 (Stretch), and can also install m23 clients running Debian 9. Further client-system related updates include some additional perks for Linux Mint 18.1 Serena and a preview for Devuan 1 Jessie. The new functionality for "Automatical Updates" allows you to update your m23 clients at predetermined points of time. Of course, there are also a couple more smaller changes and improvements.

Debian 9 + LinuxMint 18.1 + Devuan 1 Jessie

Many of the updates for this version of m23 concern the available distributions.
For the first time, the m23 server can be installed on the recently released Debian 9, a change that required many adjustments. m23 will now use the MySQL fork MariaDB, when packages for MySQL are unavailable. The m23 source code has undergone changes that make it compatible to PHP 7 and simultaneously 'fix' some inconsistent legacy code parts, which were still valid in previous PHP versions. Amongst other things, these changes were related to accessing non-initialized array elements and variables, and to class constructors in PHP4 style.
For m23 clients with Debian 9, the familar range of desktop environments is available for installation: Mate (optionally in a minimal variant with only the absolutely necessary packages), Cinnamon, Gnome, KDE, LXDE and Xfce.

For Linux Mint 18.1 Serena, the desktop environments KDE and Xfce are now available for installation on m23 clients. The package mintupdate is going to be removed, as it prevents updates initiated by the m23 server, when it is accessing the client's package database. Also, the package tilda will be removed, because it reassigns keyboard shortcuts and thus makes some desktop functionalities inaccessible. In the MDM session manager, the user list will now be hidden, which improves the orientation especially when there are lots of user accounts included via LDAP.

The systemd-free Debian fork Devuan as an additional client distribution is now in preview stage in m23. Information for available Devuan packages cannot yet reliably be downloaded by the m23 server. This prevents the selection of a kernel, and, in consequence, booting the Devuan installation. If you would like to use Devuan on your m23 clients, or if you would like to help solve the issue, please get back to us :-)

Automatical Update

The much-requested functionality for automated and scheduled updates for m23 clients now found its way into m23.
Now you can regularly and automatically update your m23 clients during predetermined time periods. In the new, clearly-structured dialog, you can set the number of clients which will be allowed to update fully (corresponds to apt-get dist-upgrade) or normally (corresponds to apt-get upgrade) simultaneously. You will create update groups, that may consist of an arbitrary number of client groups and that can be updated within an arbitrary number of time intervals.
The clients' protocols will contain the log entries for successful and failed update attempts.

Odds and Ends

A lot of smaller changes made it into the latest m23 version:

Updates

The software included with m23 has been updated: for the m23 web interface, the phpLDAPadmin version is now at 1.2.3/git and phpMyAdmin is at 4.6.6. The Linux kernel for the network boot images and ISO files for m23 clients and server is now available in version 4.9.32.

Convenience improvements

When you are creating package selections, you will now find the name of the last package selection that has been created preset as a name for saving a new one. This is especially useful when you want to edit an already saved package selection. For Debian Stretch and Ubuntu Xenial, m23 now offers package configuration pages where you can set the debconf values for the respective packages. When creating new user accounts via LDAP, the m23 web interface now outputs more detailed error messages (e.g. when the selected password is too short).

Miscellaneous

The script dem23Client.sh, which cuts off the connection of an m23 client to the m23 server, to enable using the client outside an m23 environment, will now also remove some lines from the sources.list. The routines that detect whether m23 server and client are running within a CloudStack environment should now work more reliably and no longer be tricked by routers that answer arbitrary HTTP requests. The function that resolves library dependencies during the build of boot media now works with a database that is created when CPU architecture and target architecture are identical. When they differ, the database can be loaded and necessary libraries can be included. This will (hopefully) ensure that all dependencies can be detected automatically, which previously required manually adding the necessary libraries when architectures didn't match.

Downloads / Update

The latest version is available as an update via the m23 interface, via APT (Note: package source server for packages specific to m23 is now "deb http://m23inst.goos-habermann.de ./", configure as is described in the installation guide.), as ISO file to create an m23 server installation medium, as preinstalled virtual machine or as image file for RaspberryPi (the latter three are available in the download section).

We are happy to be part of the Chemnitzer Linux-Tagen (21.3. und 22.3.) with an m23 booth for the second time :-)

At our booth, we will demonstrate m23 (live) on virtual machines and will be answering all your questions and be available for technical discussions. So if you always wanted to know why your enterprise / organisation etc. really needs to use m23, visit us at our booth ;-)
If our booth is big enough (tbd), we will also bring our Tux Droid Quiz (Watch video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2TeivPwwGY), which allows you to demonstrate your vast knowledge about Linux, m23 and penguins.
And it may just be that we also bring m23 rock 17.2 (eg. with support for Debian 9) :-)

Don't miss our tombola with t-shirts sponsored by getDigital.

Workshop: Inkscape für Einsteiger

On Saturday, March 11 2017, you can take advantage of participating in Maren's workshop "Inkscape für Einsteiger" (Inkscape for beginners). As there is only a limited number of seats available, you should hurry to reserve yours! ;-) Reservation deadline is on March, 8th 2017.
Further info (room, needed previous knowledge etc.) and the reservation form can be found at Inkscape für Einsteiger.

Have fun - and hope to see you soon in Chemnitz!

From this version on, m23 supports the installation of clients with Linux Mint 18 Sarah and Linux Mint 18.1 Serena. As usual, there are a couple of desktop environments included. The new functionality for comparing the package status allows for a quick overview of packages installed on clients. Of course, this release also includes a couple of changes and other improvements.

Linux Mint 18 Sarah

For your m23 clients with Linux Mint 18, you will have the choice among these four preconfigured graphical desktop environments: KDE, Mate, Cinnamon and Xfce. Mate and Cinnamon are currently available on Linux Mint 18.1 clients. The new release contains a set of new or updated programs. The full range of functionality of m23 is now available for Linux Mint 18 / 18.1, too.

Fortunately, the adaptations needed for adding the new Linux Mint release were rather small, which is why this m23 version is available rather shortly after the release of the previous version. Contrary to Linux Mint 17.x (where there were issues with the configuration), the VirtualBox guest additions are now installed and configured automatically, when a client with Linux Mint 18 / 18.1 is running inside VirtualBox. The KDE version of Linux Mint now uses the login dialog provided by SDDM.

Compare package status

In the new dialog "compare package status", which was requested by a client, you can now compare the packages of two client systems.

The comparison takes package names, version numbers and the packages' installation status into account. This allows you to see if packages have a history on both clients, and if their version number and installation status match. Differences are highlighted by color in the resulting table. The functionality can not only compare two clients directly, but can also make use of files that contain the package status of a client. Thus, it's possible to compare between two clients, two package status files, or a client and a package status file. The package status file can be created in the client control center.

This and that

The Editing functions of the m23 API have been extended by a function to comment out all lines that contain a specific key word. From this version on, the m23 package, when installed or updated, will execute the script /m23/bin/postinstHook.sh, if the file is available. This feature is especially useful when used together with m23customPatch, to make sure that your changes will be available after an update of your m23 server.
Upon installing a new client, two new tests now check if the base system archive was downloaded and unpacked to the client successfully. If this isn't the case, the client will not proceed with the installation and instead will commuicate a critical status to the m23 server.
New help texts now mention a script that will remove the m23-specific configurations (e.g. package proxy in APT) from a former client system after removal of the client. The source code that generates an error message about another DHCP server in the network, which is displayed in the m23 web interface, is now enclosed in a deletable m23customPatch region, so you can remove the message in your m23 environment, if needed.
During Integration of existant, Debian-based systems, the release name of the distro will now be detected more reliably and will be sent to the m23 server. If no GPG key is selected, a warning will be shown on pages that (optionally) use the key, telling you that, without a key, signature and encryption functionalities will not not available.

Downloads / Update

The latest version is available as an update via the m23 interface, via APT (Note: package source server for packages specific to m23 is now "deb http://m23inst.goos-habermann.de ./", configure as is described in the installation guide.), as ISO file to create an m23 server installation medium, as preinstalled virtual machine or as image file for RaspberryPi (the latter three are available in the download section).

Some m23 servers seem to be unable to install or update m23 from the package repository on the SourceForge mirrors currently. The error is shows as "Hash Sum mismatch" during apt-get update. A new repository was created to solve the problem.

Edit the /etc/apt/sources.list on your m23 server, if you get this error too. Delete all lines containing sourceforge.net. Add a new line with deb http://m23inst.goos-habermann.de ./ at the end of the file.
Update the package index via apt-get update. For an update use the command apt-get dist-upgrade. For installation of m23 use apt-get install m23.

The latest version of m23 comes with a new option to sign local package sources (including GPG key management), new configuration settings for an m23 server that is using a proxy and a new command line tool that allows users to modify the m23 source code in predefined locations. This release also includes a bunch of smaller changes and fixes.

Signing Package Sources

To enable the installation of m23 clients using a fixed set of packages, or to allow for a setup without internet connection, it has already been possible to set up local package sources on the m23 server for a long time. What's new is that these can now be signed, to protect them from being tampered with. The m23 interface now provides a dialog for managing your GPG keys and an option to add a signature in the package source architect and the package architect dialogs. The public key of the GPG key that was used for the signature will be imported to the m23 clients to allow them to verify the package authenticity.

System-wide Proxy Settings

In the case of running an m23 server behind a proxy server, it was previously necessary to change the settings in different places in order to allow the m23 server to work as usual. Now there is a quick an easy option to configure a proxy server system-wide, and to activate / deactivate using it, available in the m23 interface. The proxy settings from this dialog will be used for all apt and wget calls, for accessing the internet from the m23 api and for the squid proxy that caches client packages.

Modifying the Source Code with m23customPatch

With the m23customPatch tool, users can modify the m23 source code in predefined places. The modifiable code regions are marked as being deletable / modifiable. With the help of a corresponding m23customPatch file, it is, for example, now possible to exchange the logo in the m23 web interface.

This and That

During the installation of the client base system, the package apt-transport-https will now be included, to enable access to package sources using HTTPS. A new option for client recovery allows to merge multiple identical client jobs into one. Client groups can now have a description associated with them. The m23 api was extended by functions for writing and reading the key-value database for client parameters. The modular m23 command line tool can now also be used to create, delete or list admin accounts for the m23 web interface. Instead of a (possibly insecure) DSA SSH key, the m23 server will now create an 8k RSA SSH key when it is being installed.

Corrections

Upon integration of an existing client, m23 no longer waits for the download of a non-existant base system archive to finish. The function HELPER_xargsRecursive, which is, for example, used to split package lists, now takes all elements into account. For packages that are being downloaded into a local package source, the file names will now be adapted, so they only contain valid characters. The bash code that writes m23fetchjob works correctly now and ASSI_prepareClient no longer calls a non-existant function.

Downloads / Update

The latest version is available as an update via the m23 interface, via APT (Note: the package sources server for packages specific to m23 is now"heanet.dl.sourceforge.net", setup as described in the installation guide), as ISO file for the creation of a bootable medium, as preinstalled virtual machine or as image file for RaspberryPi (the latter three can be found in the download section).