1. Supported platforms

The following Linux distributions are supported:

  • Debian 6 (Squeeze) and 7 (Wheezy)

  • Fedora 17, 18

  • Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx), 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin)

2. New features in 2.3.0

2.1. New control script (LP#1204123 and LP#1266886)

OpenSRF 2.3.0 introduces a new control script, osrf_control. The previous control script, osrf_ctl.sh, is deprecated.

osrf_control provides fine-grained control for starting and stopping services all at once or individually; service stops can be graceful, fast, or immediate.

osrf_control also provides a new --diagnostic option to supply useful information about running services, including uptime, the PID of the listener, and the number of drone processes.

For a complete list of options, run osrf_control --help.

2.2. New signals for controlling OpenSRF processes (LP#1204123)

OpenSRF 2.3.0 adds support for using the following signals to manage processes:

  • SIGTERM — graceful shutdown. When this signal is sent to a listener, unregisters it from its routers, waits for its drones to finish servicing their active requests, then stops the drones and itself.

  • SIGUSR1 — router unregister. When this signal is sent to a listener, unregisters it from its routers.

  • SIGUSR2 — router re-register. When this signal is sent to a listener, registers it with its routers.

  • SIGHUP — reload core configuration and refresh drones. When sent to a listener, causes it to reload the opensrf_core.xml configuration, update the logging level, reap idle drones and putting active drones on a list to be terminated when they finish their current requests, then spawns new drones. This allows the logging level to be changed as well as freeing memory used by long-running or leaky drones.

Typically one would not send these signals directly, but instead use osrf_control.

As part of this change, services written in C now have a per-service listener process rather than a single master process for all C services.

2.3. Ability to run multiple OpenSRF instances simultaneously (LP#1266886)

When starting services using osrf_control in the case where no PID files exist, the --ignore-orphans switch can be used to make it ignore the presence of other running OpenSRF router and service processes. Otherwise, if the --ignore-orphans switch is not used, osrf_control will either refuse to start the service(s) or will require that --force-clean-process be used to kill any running OpenSRF processes first.

In other words, --ignore-orphans, in conjunction with a change whereby opensrf_router now creates its PID file directly, means that osrf_control can be used to manage the operation of multiple running OpenSRF instances on a single server, each with its own PID directory and core configuration.

2.4. Add option to opensrf.settings methods to force rereading of opensrf.xml (LP#1204123)

The following methods in opensrf.settings now accept Boolean reload parameter as the last argument. If set, the opensrf.xml file will be reread prior to responding with the requested settings.

  • opensrf.settings.host_config.get

  • opensrf.settings.default_config.get

  • opensrf.settings.xpath.get

  • opensrf.settings.xpath.get.raw

3. Bugfixes in 2.3.0

3.1. Better detect disconnections from the Jabber server (LP#1258251)

The Perl XMPP client code now better detects when it has lost its connection to the Jabber server, thereby improving its ability to attempt to reconnect.

3.2. Improved Python support (LP#1066131 and LP#1155446)

srfsh.py no longer assumes that it is running on a private domain, and can now run on non-private networks.

The dependencies required for the Python test suite to pass are now installed by default on Debian and Ubuntu.

3.3. Logging improvements (LP#1170484 and LP#1284137)

The failure to load a shared library required by a service written in C is now logged as an error rather than just a warning.

Certain events that typically occur when a router has been signaled to shut down are no longer logged as warnings.