We the Cacti Group are proud to release the following:
- Cacti 0.8.7g Beta 1
- Spine 0.8.7g Beta 1
- Cacti Plugin Architecture 2.8 for Cacti 0.8.7g Beta 1
- bug: Warning in lib/snmp.php caused by misspelled variable
- bug: Use windows-aware shell escaping
- bug#0001747: oid_suffix do not work correctly for data queries input direction
- bug#0001756: Alternate font styles do not work correctly
- bug#0001763: Adding permissions doesn't work
- bug#0001757: LDAP realm authentication outputs warning for undefined index
- bug#0001765: Tech support does not work correctly with RRDTool 1.4.x
- bug#0001766: Page refresh setting not being honored
- bug#0001771: "index count changed" not implemented for query_unix_partitions.pl, query_host_partitions.pl, query_cpu_partitions.pl, ss_host_cpu.php and ss_host_disk.php
- bug#0001773: Character encoding problem after upgrade to 0.8.7f
- bug#0001775: Tech support page does account for no memory limit set for PHP
- bug#0001776: Simultaneous database connections are not supported
Change to global.php and config.php
- For legacy plugins, those that must be installed in global.php, we have moved the plugins array out of global.php and into config.php. This was done to insure that global.php remains pristine. It is a file that is not intended to be modified, so with the PIA installed, you should not have to.
- The variable "URL_PATH" has also been moved from global.php to config.php for the same reason as the plugins array. For those of you upgrading from very old Plugin Architectures you should know that in the past, we attempted to "detect" this path. However, the process was not reliable. Therefore, you have to specify that path in config.php.
Visual changes will not impact the functionality of existing plugins. However, due to some poor practices, some of the page rendering may be a bit off.
To address this issue, The Cacti Group has prepared releases of approximately 17 existing plugins in our stable of addon's to maintain a consistent look and feel. Those plugins will be released during the Beta cycle.
There has been quite a bit of work put into these updated plugins. If you find that there is a feature that you want or need that did not make it into an updated plugin, please open a feature request at http://www.cacti.net/bugs.php .
Changes to Cacti's Core
There are two changes in the Core of Cacti that will affect some plugins. The first change is that we have provided RRDtool segfault detection and correction in Cacti 0.8.7g. What this means to plugins that leverage our rrdtool_function_* functions is that for graphing and certain other functions, those plugins will require a minor change. To date, the plugins that we know of, are THold, Boost, and Realtime. We have not performed a comprehensive audit off all plugins, if you experience problems you should seek out your Plugins' developers to determine the impact.
The other core change in Cacti 0.8.7g, is Cacti's ability to detect SNMP time-outs in the core SNMP functions. So, if you are using cmd.php or you are using things like MacTrack, that leverage the SNMP API in Cacti, you will have much more capabilities to detect problems in the behaviour of Cacti by simply going to the Cacti log file.
Functional Changes in the PIA
When you go to the Plugin Management page, you will notice a fairly significant change. In this release, we tuned up the Plugin Management interface to make it a bit easier to understand how your plugins are loaded and controlled. There is now the concept of a System plugin and a General plugin. You can also define the load order of your PIA 2.x plugins. This is important in that some plugins require other plugins be loaded first in order to work properly. We still do not have an API to control this. That will be delivered in the next release of Cacti. However, for those of your who have been locked down to having your plugins in PIA 1.x due to the load ordering issue, that barrier will be removed in this release.
Reporting Bugs
It's important that you use the forums to have a discussion with amongst the members of the Cacti Community. However, when you find a bug, you need to make sure that you use the appropriate forum to open and bring those bugs to a close. That forum is the Cacti bug tracker ( http://www.cacti.net/bugs.php ). All the developers use this tool religiously. So, we need you to do that as well.
Release of 0.8.7g as Non-Beta
We understand that people where expecting a release of 0.8.7g yesterday June 7th. But after much discussions, we came to the conclusion that we wanted a short Beta period to make sure everything was up to snuff. If all looks good over the course of the next 2 weeks, we will be making an official release of Cacti 0.8.7g, Spine 0.8.7g and Plugin Arch 2.8.
Download Beta
http://www.cacti.net/downloads/beta/
Thanks!
The Cacti Group