Table of Contents
Download links
Please make sure to download VCL from an mirror server. The following link will automatically select one for you that should be close to you. After downloading it make sure you verify it with MD5 or SHA1 sums AND the GPG signature (sums and signature files should be downloaded directly from Apache, not from mirrors).
Download ASF VCL 2.2.1
GPG Signature
MD5 Sum
SHA1 Sum
VCL KEYS file
Run the following command to verify the MD5 sum. It should give output similar to "apache-VCL-2.2.1-incubating.tar.bz2: OK":
md5sum -c apache-VCL-2.2.1-incubating.tar.bz2.md5
Similarly, Run the following command to verify the SHA1 sum. You should get output similar to "apache-VCL-2.2.1-incubating.tar.bz2: OK":
sha1sum -c apache-VCL-2.2.1-incubating.tar.bz2.sha1
To verify the GPG signature (you'll need to have GnuPG installed):
- download and import the VCL KEYS file (if you've imported the KEYS file for previously releases, you do not need to import it again):
gpg --import KEYS
- download the GPG Signature to the same location as the release file
- from the directory containing both the release file and the GPG signature, run
gpg --verify apache-VCL-2.2.1-incubating.tar.bz2.asc
For new installs, visit the on-line installation guide.
For upgrades from version 2.2, visit the on-line upgrade guide.
For upgrades from version 2.1, visit the on-line upgrade guide for upgrading from 2.1.
Release Notes
I. Intro and Description
VCL, Virtual Computing Lab. The VCL can be many things, first and foremost it is an open-source system used to dynamically provision and broker remote access to a dedicated compute environment for an end-user. The provisioned computers are typically housed in a data center and may be physical blade servers, traditional rack mounted servers, or virtual machines. VCL can also broker access to standalone machines such as a lab computers on a university campus.
One of the primary goals of VCL is to deliver a dedicated compute environment to a user for a limited time through a web interface. This compute environment can range from something as simple as a virtual machine running productivity software to a machine room blade running high end software (i.e. a CAD, GIS, statistical package or an Enterprise level application) to a cluster of interconnected physical (bare metal) compute nodes.
Also using the scheduling API it can be used to automate the provisioning of servers in a server farm or HPC cluster.
The release supports provisioning nodes using xCAT 1.3, xCAT 2.x, VMWare Server 1.x, VMWare Server 2.x, VMWare ESX 3.5, and VMWare ESXi with both purchased licenses and free licenses.
II. VCL Roadmap
VCL 2.2.1 (this release)
- removed frontend dependency on jpgraph
- remove any access control that is hard coded in frontend
- added support for VirtualBox hypervisor
- many bug fixes and improvements to VMWare support
VCL 2.3
- Service deployments
- power management
- improve cluster reservations
VCL 2.4
- additional and improved hypervisor support
- KVM and possibly others (virtual box and XEN)
- Allow for additional access methods for environments (port, other protocols, etc)
VCL 2.5
- develop tools for managing both system and user storage
With each release, we'll be working toward making VCL easier to install. As part of our move to development at the Apache Software Foundation, it is an obvious goal to create a community of users and more developers around VCL. Bringing in more developers should become easier as VCL becomes easier to install.
There are five ways to become involved in the ASF VCL community.
- Submit bug reports and feature requests to our JIRA bug tracking system. See section IV below for more information on doing this.
- Create documentation on our Confluence site. Create an account at http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/VCL/Index and just start adding content. (Note to current community: We should create a page explaining the layout so new people will know where to add content better.)
- Submit patches through the vcl-dev mailing list and via the JIRA bug tracking system. Once you have become familiar with VCL, you can begin assisting with the development of it by picking a JIRA issue to fix or by adding a feature needed at your site. Then, contribute a patch of your changes through the JIRA tracking system and send a message to the vcl-dev list explaining what you have done.
- Become an official committer to the project. Once you have shown that you have a good grasp of the project by submitting patches, you can further join the development work by submitting a contributor license agreement (CLA) to ASF and having a committer account created to directly contribute code to the project.
- If you are interested in contributing something to the project, please discuss it on the vcl-dev list BEFORE starting work on it. This allows the community to be involved in decisions and allows current developers to provide some guidance.
IV. How to Submit Bugs and Feature Requests
If you find a bug, please submit a bug report to our JIRA bug tracking system at http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/VCL (you will need to set up an account there if you haven't already done so - it's free to anyone). Also, we would appreciate it if you mentioned that you filed a bug on the vcl-dev list to make sure we don't miss it.
If you would like to requrest a new feature, you can also submit that in the same way through JIRA (just select "New Feature" or "Improvement" as the Issue Type). Again, it would be helpful if you mentioned that you filed a feature request on the vcl-dev list.
After you have created a JIRA issue, you have the option to vote on it to help us know how to prioritize issues. You can also "watch" the issue to see when activity related to it is submitted.
Change Log
Release Notes - VCL - Version 2.2.1
Bug
- [VCL-113] - inconsistances with "None" user group
- [VCL-116] - manage groups interface doesn't correctly handle user groups with editusergroupid set to NULL
- [VCL-152] - problem removing vm from vmhost when vm in reloading state without a reservation
- [VCL-361] - Error is displayed on pages showing image list if last used image is deleted
- [VCL-395] - cannot add new vmprofiles
- [VCL-397] - Hostname not set on Linux computers if DNS is not configured remotely
- [VCL-411] - Legacy VCL logon and logoff scripts may not be deleted during capture causing immediate user logoff
- [VCL-412] - clicking on tomaintenance reload reservation in timetable gives an error
- [VCL-436] - Predictive Level_1 reload module - can select wrong image for computer
- [VCL-437] - delete image/reservation bug
- [VCL-439] - trailing commas in statistics.js keeps graphs from showing in IE on stats page
- [VCL-440] - dashboard last 12 hours of reservations graph not positioned correctly in IE in compatibility mode
Improvement
- [VCL-140] - General variable table
- [VCL-310] - remove jpgraph dependency
- [VCL-312] - remove View Mode and any uses of user.adminlevelid
- [VCL-373] - Enable Windows Server 2008 RDP audio - it's disabled by default
- [VCL-394] - Backend VMware improvements for 2.2.1 release
- [VCL-414] - modify XMLRPCaddUserGroup to accept a paramter specifying value for custom field
- [VCL-424] - Remove unused variables from subroutines in backend modules
- [VCL-425] - modify scheduler to be aware of RAM allocated to VMs on each VM host
- [VCL-426] - modify scheduler to not give user same computer if user had very recent, short reservation and other computers are available
New Feature
- [VCL-232] - add way to delete multiple computers
- [VCL-401] - add manageMapping resource attribute to control resource mapping
- [VCL-403] - make the scheduler aware of image and machine types so that virtual and bare images and computers can be mixed
- [VCL-405] - create provisioningOSinstalltype table to map provisioning methods to OSinstalltypes
- [VCL-406] - add some charts to see how machines are allocated to block allocations