[Stork-dev] Stork 0.22.0 is now available

Fri Nov 5 18:37:39 UTC 2021

Stork 0.22.0 is a new development release of the Stork monitoring and
configuration dashboard and it can be downloaded from:

  https://www.isc.org/download#Stork

Documentation for Stork is available at https://stork.readthedocs.io.

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# Stork 0.22.0, November 5th, 2021, Release Notes

Welcome to Stork 0.22.0, another monthly development release. The
changes introduced in this version are:

* **Basic HTTP authentication for Kea**. Kea provides an ability to
restrict access to its REST API using basic HTTP authentication. Stork
agent can now be configured to use that mechanism when connecting and
monitoring Kea. For details, see Securing Connections Between Stork
Agent and Kea Control Agent section in the Stork ARM [#347].

* **Configuration Review**. The Stork server is now able to inspect Kea
configuration and provide suggestions. The review capabilities are
modest as of this release, but the mechanism is extensible and is
expected to grow substantially in the future. It will cover situations
like opportunities to simplify configuration when shared networks are
not needed, suggest performance improvements, point out inconsistencies
between HA partners, and more [#461].

* **stat_cmds and host_cmds checkers**. These two simple checkers are
demonstrators of the Configuration Review capabilities. They verify if
certain hooks are loaded in Kea and explain which Stork capabilities may
not work when the required hook is missing [#461, #601].

* **Server support for Prometheus**. Stork agents are capable of
exporting the available Kea and BIND9 statistics in Prometheus format.
This release expanded that capability to the Server, which can now
export some global statistics, such as a number of registered,
unauthorized, or unresponsive agents [#576].

* **Improved subnet statistics for Prometheus**. Previous Stork versions
reported per subnet statistics in a format that matched Kea reporting,
i.e. subnet details were reported with subnet-id. Right now, the
mechanism can report subnet statistics using their canonical names, e.g.
`192.0.2.0/24` instead of just subnet-id, e.g. `123`, if the extra
subnet information is available via the `subnet_cmds` hook [#574].

* **Bugfix: too verbose Kea update app log**. An earlier Stork release
introduced an unfortunate bug that produced an event and a log entry
every time Kea status was refreshed. This happens typically every 30
seconds in a normally functioning network, as the Stork agent polls Kea
status periodically and reports the results to the server. As a result,
the Stork server was generating a lot of repeating messages that didn't
contribute much. That problem has now been addressed [#595].

Please see this link for known issues:
https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/stork/-/wikis/Known-issues.

## Incompatible Changes

* None.

## Release Model

Stork has monthly development releases, with some exceptions.

We encourage users to test the development releases and report back
their findings on the stork-users mailing list, available at
https://lists.isc.org/mailman/listinfo/stork-users.

This text references issue numbers. For more details, visit the Stork
GitLab page at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/stork/issues.

## License

Stork is released under the Mozilla Public License, version 2.0.

    https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0

## Download

The easiest way to install the software is to use native deb or RPM
packages. They can be downloaded from:

    https://cloudsmith.io/~isc/repos/stork/

The Stork source and PGP signature for this release may be downloaded
from:

    https://downloads.isc.org/isc/stork

The signature was generated with the ISC code-signing key which is
available at:

    https://www.isc.org/pgpkey

ISC provides documentation in the Stork Administrator Reference Manual.
It is available on ReadTheDocs.io at
https://stork.readthedocs.io/en/latest/, and in source form in [the doc/
directory](https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/stork/-/tree/master/doc).

We ask users of this software to please let us know how it worked for
you and what operating system you tested on. Feel free to share your
feedback on the stork-users mailing list
(https://lists.isc.org/mailman/listinfo/stork-users). We would also like
to hear whether the documentation is adequate and accurate. Please open
tickets in the Stork GitLab project for bugs, documentation omissions
and errors, and enhancement requests. We want to hear from you even if
everything worked.

## Support

Professional support for Stork will become available once it reaches the
1.0 milestone. Existing ISC customers that consider themselves early
adopters may get involved in the development process, including roadmap,
features planning, and early testing, but the software maturity level
does not constitute a typical professional service before the 1.0
milestone.

Free best-effort support is provided by our user community via a mailing
list. Information on all public email lists is available at
https://www.isc.org/mailinglists/. If you have any comments or questions
about working with Stork, please share them to the stork-users list
(https://lists.isc.org/mailman/listinfo/stork-users). Bugs and feature
requests may be submitted via GitLab at
https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/stork/issues.

## Changes

The following summarizes changes and important upgrades since the Stork
0.20.0 release.

* 168 [func] slawek

     The Stork Agent support for the Basic Authentication introduced
     in Kea 1.9.0. User can define the credentials used to
     establish connection with Kea CA.
     (Gitlab #347)

* 167 [func] slawek

     The Stork Server has now the ability to export metrics to
     Prometheus. It reports the machine states and pool utilization.
     (Gitlab #576)

* 166 [bug] slawek

     Fixed the problem with too many log messages about
     updating a machine state. Stork doesn't report that
     a machine was updated anymore.
     (Gitlab #595)

* 165 [func] slawek

     The Stork Agent reports the metrics to Prometheus with the
     subnet prefix instead of sequential ID if the subnet_cmds
     is installed.
     (Gitlab #574)

* 164 [func] marcin

     Implemented Kea configuration review mechanism. It runs checks
     on the Kea server configurations, and displays found issues in
     the Kea daemon tabs.
     (Gitlab #461)

* 163 [func] marcin

     Implemented host_cmds_presence configuration checker. It
     verifies if the host_cmds hooks library is loaded when hosts
     backends are used.
     (Gitlab #601)

* 162 [build] andrei

     Rebuilt CI image to upgrade openssl and renew certificate
     following the LetsEncrypt root certificate expiration on
     the 30th of September 2021. The CI image now also has the psql
     client preinstalled.
     (Gitlab #596)

Thank you again to everyone who assisted us in making this release
possible.

We look forward to receiving your feedback.

-- 
Everett B. Fulton
ISC Support