Charon-PAR Linux Toolkit - Release notes for Kit 1.4.5

Owned by Bruno Miretti (Deactivated)
Last updated: Jan 20, 2022
8 min read

Version: 1 - Published:  

Linux Toolkit description

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The Toolkit provides the following features:

  • Manage start/stop virtual (emulated) machines, also named "guests" with services and customized shutdown commands:
    • Automatic start of the guests at Charon Linux server boot
    • Clean shutdown of the guests at Charon Linux server shutdown
    • Clean shutdown of one guest at will using customized shutdown scripts (using 'ssh', 'expect' or any customized tool)


  • Monitor the Charon guests log file
    • Alert on removal of the license dongle
    • Send alerts for all :warn: and :err: messages found (depending on the error level setting)

  • Alert on license approaching termination
    • Number of days before expiration alert is sent can be customized

  • Provide menu driven options and command lines to:
    • Start/stop guests
    • Connect to guests console
    • Display license contents, gather license content and update (send C2V and apply V2C files)
    • Send configuration and log files by email
    • Edit configuration files
    • Gather Charon server information: Hardware, Operating System, Storage, Network interfaces, Charon version, Utilities version

History

January, 20th 2021 - kit version 1.4.5

Problems fixed by this patch

  • Updated message related to _fmt.v2c files in 'License update tool (apply V2C file)' menu option
  • License expiration check: bug solved with 'no expired product found' message, counters were not updated correctly + email layout update
  • In case the emulator process has to be killed, 5 tries are performed with SIGTERM signal, if not successful a SIGKILL is sent. This is to try to avoid cases where the license is not freed after the process is killed
  • Fixed issues when trying to unbind/bind USB controller when no one is defined on the Linux server

December, 23th 2021 - kit version 1.4.4

Problems fixed by this patch

  • Issue solved when generating C2V files: licenses provided by other hosts than the local one will be skipped during the generation process

December, 21th 2021 - kit version 1.4.3

Problems fixed by this patch

  • Issue solved when generating a C2V file when a software license and a dongle were present on the server and the 'menu' was executed from a remote session.

October, 7th 2021 - kit version 1.4.2

Problems fixed by this patch

  • Rewording when displaying licenses found to make the difference between local licenses and remote licenses

October, 7th 2021 - kit version 1.4.1

Problems fixed by this patch

  • The 'HASP license details' menu option:
    • failed to read licenses when a dongle and a software license were present on the server
    • did not correctly display license details after viewing license content when a USB dongle and a software license were present

September, 7th 2021 - kit version 1.4

New features

  • After Charon-PAR installation from menu option 1, if the PATH is not defined, the /etc/profile.d/charon.sh file is created automatically and it is asked to either execute it or logout/login to define the correct PATH to /opt/charon/bin
  • When running the 'menu', checks are performed for 'atd' service: enabled and active. If this is not the case, alerts may not be sent and license could not be read from remote connection.

  • License expiration check now displays the number of dongles connected and the number of software licenses found.

  • When a virtual machine process ends abnormally, an entry in its log file is added with FATAL severity level (1). It provides information on the event (example: signal/KILL if the process got killed)

  • When editing stop, pre-start and check scripts, if vim is selected, a special vimrc file is used for ease of reading on black background screens and white background screens.

  • During setup, if LS_COLORS is defined, the 'ls' command will highlight .cfg, and .dsk files.
    Note: in case of Toolkit upgrade, please run # ./menusetup -a

  • crontab file is no more /var/spool/cron/root but /etc/cron.d/charon (2)

  • When displaying list of virtual machines, the number of warning, error and fatal messages found in the log file is displayed (if greater than 0).

  • The 'MPE system fail' message in the log file is now considered as a failure message (3).

  • License expiration check now alerts in case a cloned Software License is possibly found.

  • Alert emails now contain the kit version for ease of support (4).

  • 'Request for new license or license update' and 'License update tool' now stop if the 'aksusbd' service is not running

(1): In case of Toolkit upgrade, this requires the systemd service to be updated (ExecStopPost line to add, this will be notified when displaying the virtual machines list). In this case, open the 'menu" → 'VM Management' → 'Manage 'systemd' services' and edit the .service file.

(2): In case of Toolkit upgrade, this requires the lines related to Charon in the /var/spool/cron/root file to be deleted and the menu option '13 - Manage recurring jobs' to be executed

(3): In case of Toolkit upgrade, this requires the log monitoring processes to be restarted from the menu option "9 - Manage monitored guests logs" then "8 - Restart all log monitoring services"

(4): In case of upgrade, please update the alert script (if not already customized) from "menu" → "14 - Alerts management" → "6 - Update/reinstall alert script".

Problems fixed

  • 'ed' added as a mandatory package
  • 'mailx' added as a (highly) recommended package
  • 'vim' added as a recommended package
  • 'lsusb' required executable replaced by 'usbutils' required package
  • Fixed a problem to detect network interface status with new V3.0.1 syntax

  • 'ifconfig' commands used to get NIC information replaced by 'ip'

  • If a network configuration issue is detected when starting a virtual machine, the message that was sent was related to Linux 6. It now asks correctly to restart the NetworkManager service.

  • If 'rsh' needs to be installed for clean shutdown on RHEL 8, the installation procedure is detailed in the readme file ('menu' -> 'VM Management' → 'Create/Edit guest stop script' → 'Read how-to setup 'rsh' with HP-UX file')

  • For CentOS and RHEL 8, if 'yum' is not present, 'dnf' is used instead

  • With the latest version of Charon-PAR, glibc.i686 is not more needed. The check is then removed from the "Install/Upgrade/Remove Charon" menu option.

  • The vmlist command did not display Charon-PAR installed version

  • For CentOS, the service status reported by 'logview' and 'logtail' commands reported unknown service state. Workaround added to get the ActiveState service parameter status.

  • When checking the license expiration interactively, if a software license was present and a dongle was connected, only the software license was displayed. This did not affect automated checks executed from the crontab.

  • When using the "logtail" command, the continuous view is not stopped when a virtual machine started or stopped message is found. Also, when aborted, it does not stop other logtail commands running on the same server.

  • License expiration check: if more than one license available, if one was about to expired or had expired but not the other, the alert was not correct (no information below the one that was ok)

  • Menu send log options:

    • the charon-report utility from kits 2.0 and below asks for email address even if option -e is not used and the report is generated is /root, not in /tmp. This special case is now taken into account

    • updated for rotated log files / kit 3.0.4

  • When sending logs with the options '10 - Send configuration and log files via email', log files are displayed in reverse order in the email body

  • Several issues solved due to log file names change starting with Charon-PAR 3.0.4

January, 22th 2021 - kit version 1.3

New features

  • 'expect' script updated for clean shutdown on MPE/iX due to change in console prompt in Charon-PAR 3.0.1 kit.
  • When displaying virtual machines list, the "Start on boot" (Yes or No) has been replaced by "Startup type" (Automatic or Manual)
  • When a virtual machine is created, the startup type now is requested (default is manual)
  • When using multiple virtual machines (VM), the last selected one is no more global but is linked to the current session so that the configuration file or its shortened name has to be specified once and then all next commands will relate to this one. In case a new session is created the latest selected VM (in time) if any will become the current one. This eases usage of additional command lines like vmcfg, vmstart, vmstop, vmconsole and vmrmc.

Problems fixed

  • Added one retry for login/password in 'expect' script for HP-UX shutdown due to issues sometimes appearing on 1st try.
  • When using "vim" as the favorite editor (from the preferences), the comments in the configuration file were displayed in gray which was not always easy to read. They are now in green.
  • When updating the alert script from "menu" → "14 - Alerts management" → "6 - Update/reinstall alert script" the message telling where the previous file will be saved was wrong ('.backup' has been removed). Its location has also changed to /opt/charon/archive and no more /charon/archive.
  • It was possible in some cases to add a virtual machine with a configuration file already used for another virtual machine
  • Menu option "1 - Install/Upgrade/Remove Charon" now checks if "Failed to" error messages are found during installation and not only the error code returned by 'yum'
  • In some cases licenses could not be detected and their content read. Example: an invalidated software license and a valid license dongle

November, 18th 2020 - kit version 1.2

Important note

The kit is validated with versions 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0 only.

New features

  • MPE/iX: 'expect' shutdown script enhanced: now CTRL-B is sent after the "(Shut 6)" message is displayed to get back to the "Main menu"
  • License update tool (apply V2C file) interface has been simplified : no sub-menu, all in one page. A new option has been added too to define a description for licenses (optional). Can be used to display dongle location for example.
  • The 'logview' and 'logtail' commands now display the virtual machine service state
  • New preferences options: it is possible to adjust the blue color in menus so that it is easier to read when using black background: 'menu' → '11 - Preferences' -> '10 Blue color adjust for white/black background'
  • 'vmlist' command now accepts '-l' or '--lite' parameter to display only configuration file name, service status, model and description (this is for cases with several Charon virtual machines defined).
  • Some features updated for Charon-PAR Version 3.0.0 compatibility

  • 'putty' can be defined as default connection to the virtual machine console in the preferences. If 'putty' cannot be used (no X server), 'telnet' if installed will be used instead.

  • When sending configuration and log files, the charon-report utility is also executed and the resulting tgz file is attached to the email.

Problems fixed

  • The log severity checked was either ":warn:", ":err:" or ":ERR:" but it can also be ":WARNING:", ":ERROR:", ":FATAL:". These other severity levels are now taken into account.
    Note: in case of upgrade, all the monitoring services must be restarted. To do so, run the 'menu' -> '9 - Manage monitored guests logs' → '8 - Restart all log monitoring services' option.
  • If the log monitoring is disabled from the preferences, meaning log monitoring is performed by another software/utility, the menu option "10 - Manage monitored guests logs" allows only to view and send log files.
  • Management of failed state corrected after the introduction of ExecStopPost
  • The virtual machine state has been simplified, the REQUESTED substate is no more displayed as in some cases the information reported was not correct.
  • If the memory is not specified in the configuration file, the default value (2GB) is now displayed
  • console log files stored in /opt/charon/log are now taken into account by the automatic log files cleaning system

October, 20th 2020 - kit version 1.1

New features

  • Option added in the preferences to allow non root users to execute 'menu' with 'sudo'. Must be set first with root user. If connection with root is not allowed then run: $ sudo /opt/charon/utils/charon_menu to edit the preferences.
  • Menu update: added option in '8 - VM Management' to create/edit guest check/run script

Problems fixed

  • If the emulated server has more than one CPU:
    • the start message was sent for each CPU based on "run cpu loop" message detection. Only one message is now sent.
    • when starting an emulator, the continuous view of the log file did not stop and was looping.

September, 17th 2020 - kit version 1.0

  • First released version

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