Community Edition 201510

[resplin]

Though still labeled an EA (Early Access), last month's release of Alfresco Community Edition has lots of fixes and improvements over the previous stable release of Alfresco 5.0.d. It has been downloaded hundreds of times, and we have seen no critical issue reports. Multiple people have told me that they have it in production and it runs well.

Now would be a good time to upgrade from 5.0.d. The 201510 release contains Alfresco Platform 5.1.c and Alfresco Share 5.1.c. The next release of Community Edition will be less stable, as we roll in a batch of new features.

Get it here:
https://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Alfresco_Community_Edition_201510_EA_Release_Notes

Background on our new approach to Community Edition releases is here:

http://richard.esplins.org/siwi/2015/10/01/alfresco-community-edition-september-2015/

We wondered if we should call it a GA (Generally Available) release. The GA label is supposed to indicate a few things:
* We are confident that the product is at least as reliable as the previous GA / stable release.
* The documentation, translations, and other items are ready.
* We are testing upgrades from the GA Community Edition to GA Enterprise Edition.

This release appears to improve on 5.0.d, so it meets the first criteria. We are tempted to call it GA and make it the default download. But we are hesitant until we get the documentation and rest of the localization done. Also, Records Management doesn't yet support 5.1. Finally, we won't be testing upgrades to Enterprise Edition 5.1 until the final features are ready.

Maybe we should introduce an LA (Limited Availability) label for these sorts of situations, and make it the default download? What do you think?

[angelborroy]

I've been trying with this one for an enthusiast client (English language) and I'm sad to say that IMO 5.1.c it's not GA yet.

Lack of documentation for configuration (as plain HTTP for SOLR4) and the fact that I'm not able to install it properly from scratch (maybe I'm losing some required instruction) have made us going back to 5.0.d. Maybe just because we have some confident on get it working in a quick an safe process.

[resplin]

I appreciate you sharing your experience.

The documentation is coming. But what problems have you had with the installation?

[angelborroy]

Our configuration for this project has many active subsystems: CIFS, LDAP AD, KERBEROS,… and separate deployment for every component (LibreOffice, SOLR…). As we detect changes in SOLR HTTP configuration and some other problems arose, we decide not to go with 5.1. I have no record on this "other problems", sorry for that.

On the other hand, we're using 5.1 for more "traditional" installations and it's working fine. So, in my opinion, 5.1.c can be GA with minor considerations.

[xarope]

I'm testing an upgrade from 4.2c to 5.0.d, and decided to also do an upgrade from 4.2c to 5.1-201510EA.

Unfortunately, doing exactly the same steps (literally, I am copying and pasting commands and edits from my notes into the console, except of course for changes in paths), I am unable to login to the 5.1-201510EA install once I configure the AD authentication subsystem (which is exactly the same as what was used in the 5.0.d install).  The error message in catalina.out is:

 Nov 16, 2015 1:00:57 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve invoke
SEVERE: Servlet.service() for servlet [Spring Surf Dispatcher Servlet] in context with path [/share] threw exception [Request proces
sing failed; nested exception is org.springframework.extensions.surf.exception.UserFactoryException: Unable to retrieve user from re
pository] with root cause
org.json.JSONException: A JSONObject text must begin with '{' at character 0
        at org.json.JSONTokener.syntaxError(JSONTokener.java:410)
        at org.json.JSONObject.<init>(JSONObject.java:179)
        at org.json.JSONObject.<init>(JSONObject.java:402)
        at org.alfresco.web.site.SlingshotUserFactory.constructUser(SlingshotUserFactory.java:115)
        at org.springframework.extensions.surf.support.AlfrescoUserFactory.constructAlfrescoUser(AlfrescoUserFactory.java:287)
        at org.springframework.extensions.surf.support.AlfrescoUserFactory.buildAlfrescoUser(AlfrescoUserFactory.java:255)
        at org.springframework.extensions.surf.support.AlfrescoUserFactory.loadUser(AlfrescoUserFactory.java:189)
        at org.alfresco.web.site.SlingshotUserFactory.loadUser(SlingshotUserFactory.java:135)
        at org.springframework.extensions.surf.support.AbstractUserFactory.initialiseUser(AbstractUserFactory.java:182)
        at org.springframework.extensions.surf.support.AbstractUserFactory.initialiseUser(AbstractUserFactory.java:100)
        at org.springframework.extensions.surf.RequestContextUtil.initialiseUser(RequestContextUtil.java:259)
        at org.springframework.extensions.surf.RequestContextUtil.populateRequestContext(RequestContextUtil.java:182)
        at org.springframework.extensions.surf.RequestContextUtil.populateRequestContext(RequestContextUtil.java:137)
… <snip>
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Re-doing the install again, but using 5.0.d with a fresh VM instance, and now following the same steps as the 5.1-201510EA notes, my 5.0.d install is working.

Has anything changed in the 5.1-201510EA authentication subsystem for LDAP/AD?

[resplin]

Interesting report xarope. It is very interesting that you tested it with both the 5.0.d and 201510EA upgrades.

I am not aware of any changes to this subsystem. Can you create an issue in the ALF project at http://issues.alfresco.com ?

Please include your stack information like OS, database, and version of ActiveDirectory.

Thank you.

[resplin]

Very useful feedback. Thank you Angel.

[resplin]

The Community Edition nightly builds now contain Virtual Folders and AOS. Those are the last features planned for the 5.1 series of releases, and our goal is to get everything production ready as soon as possible.

We plan to release Community Edition 201512 next week. You can help us make sure it is a good release by testing the nightly builds:

https://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Nightly_Community_Build

[eswbitto]

Hello Resplin,

Is there any update on when the new features would be production ready?

[#10]

Hi,
from issues.alfresco.com I see that release date of 5.1.e is January 14. Any update? It will be a GA release?