As many of you know, the Vyatta development team has been working hard on the next major Vyatta release, code named Glendale. Glendale represents a *HUGE* step forward on a number of fronts. Because of this, Vyatta has committed to making early previews available to the Vyatta Community so that you can get comfortable with the new features and provide feedback on the functionality and stability of the system.
TODAY'S ANNOUNCEMENT: ===================== Today, I'm pleased to announce that Glendale Alpha 1 has been made available for download from the Vyatta web site: http://www.vyatta.com/download/ Release notes and documentation for Alpha 1 are available on the Vyatta Community Wiki: http://www.vyatta.com/twiki/bin/view/Community/GlendaleAlpha1 Currently, the documentation is going through rapid development and has been released as separate chapters. As new chapters are written or previously released chapters are updated, they will be uploaded to the Community Wiki. If you find issues with the documentation, please report them to the vyatta-users mailing list. THINGS TO NOTE: =============== This is ***ALPHA*** software. It is not yet feature complete or fully stable. Because of this, it is not suitable for production networks. If you use it in your production network, it will lose your packets, corrupt your data, and make your hair fall out. Be warned. Anybody even contemplating testing Alpha 1 should be sure to read the rest of this announcement and the release notes very carefully. There are a number of changes to the system. All that said, we want you to test it like crazy, so don't be shy. ALPHA 1 FEATURES: ================= The release notes have some more information, but here is a description of some of the major changes in the system: * Glendale has touched just about every subsystem in some way. In some cases, the changes are relatively minor. In others, they represent a radical departure. Because of the global changes, Glendale does not attempt to keep backward compatibility with previous configuration files. If you want to upgrade a system to Glendale, save off the configuration first and then translate the configuration by hand to the new syntax. * Glendale Alpha 1 is distributed in ISO format only. There are currently no package repositories for the system and future preview releases (Alpha 2 and Beta) will be distributed in a similar fashion. * Glendale has a completely new command line interface infrastructure, called FusionCLI. FusionCLI is based on an extended version of bash with access to Vyatta-specific commands and syntax, effectively fusing together management functionality at the CLI level and eliminating the separate Vyatta shell. FusionCLI has a role-based user account system. Depending on the user role, the user may be able to execute standard Linux commands from the FusionCLI prompt. Further, the system is scriptable with a combination of bash scripting and Vyatta-specific commands. Once you play with this for a while, you'll begin to realize the power this affords administrators. The release notes have more information about this functionality. In particular, there are changes to the online '?'-help system that you should be aware of. * Glendale has completely revamped the routing subsystem. If you were struggling with routing protocol issues previously, there is a very good chance that your issues are gone. In particular, scalability and stability are greatly improved and the feature set has been expanded tremendously. * Along with the routing subsystem, the policy subsystem is completely different. It should now handle more complex policy configurations and operate closer to the way you would expect. * The VRRP subsystem has been revamped. We now support multiple VRRP groups on a single interface, eliminating a common issue with the previous VRRP implementation. * DHCP client is now supported. This will make it easier for people connecting to broadband networks that do not provide static addressing (commonly DSL and cable networks). * Many other existing subsystems have been touched to fix bugs or provide minor enhancements. Implemented but not documented: ------------------------------- There are several new features that have been implemented, but do not yet have documentation. If you're adventurous you can use the CLI help to try them out. Look for documentation to arrive over the coming weeks. * GRE and IP-in-IP tunnels are supported. These features are located under the interfaces/tunnel hierarchy. * L2TP+IPsec and PPTP client VPNs. These features are located under the vpn hierarchy. These protocols are compatible with the standard Microsoft and Mac OS X clients. Instructions for configuring the client side of things can be found on the Microsoft and Apple web sites. Linux clients are also available for these protocols from various Internet download sites. Coming features that are not yet implemented or released: --------------------------------------------------------- * QoS: This will provide access to the Linux tc subsystem in a relatively easy-to-use fashion. * WAN Load Balancing: This feature will allow people to use two or more low-priced broadband connections, possibly from different service providers, and load balance outbound traffic between them. This can improve the connectivity of a site without having to employ complex BGP multi-homing scenarios. * PPPoE: This will help people with DSL connections. * New installer: Currently, the Alpha 1 release uses a variant of the previous Vyatta install-system script. The final Glendale release will use a new, more sophisticated installer based on the current Debian installer. TOP ENHANCEMENT REQUESTS: ========================= It should be noted that with the Glendale final release (not necessarily in Alpha 1), many of the Top Enhancement Requests on the Vyatta Community wiki will have been addressed. http://www.vyatta.com/twiki/bin/view/Community/TopEnhancements On the Top 5 Enhancement Request list: #1: DHCP client: Implemented in Alpha 1 #2: QoS #3: VPN will be significantly improved with the addition of VPN client: Implemented in Alpha 1 #5: PPPoE On the General Enhancement Requests list: #2: Bandwidth policing: Depending on how you read this one, the QoS feature set may give you what you want. Inbound policing won't be implmented, but you will be able to set bandwidth caps on particular traffic types on the outbound to prevent bulk traffic from swamping higher priority traffic on a skinny WAN interface, for instance. #17: 4-byte ASN: Implemented in Alpha 1 #34: GRE tunnels: Implemented in Alpha 1 We do review the Top Enhancement requests list and take it seriously. If you would like to suggest a new feature or vote for existing suggestions, please do so on the wiki. FUTURE GLENDALE RELEASES: ========================= As I said at the start of this note, Glendale represents significant changes and a lot of work on the part of the development team. In order to facilitate additional testing and feedback from the Vyatta Community, we'll be making other preview releases available according to the following (rough) schedule: * Alpha 1 - January 2008 * Alpha 2 - February 2008 * Beta - March 2008 * VC4 Release - April 2008 All of these releases will be announced on the vyatta-users mailing list, with the final release also announced to vyatta-announce. CONCLUSION: =========== The Vyatta Community now spans every continent and just about every country on earth. Thanks for being a part of it. We need your help and feedback to make Glendale the best Vyatta release yet. In particular, there can never be enough testing of the system, so we encourage people to try it out and report back your experiences, whether good or bad. If you find that things are performing well, feel free to cautiously deploy it in real networks, always keeping in mind the caveat that this is still pre-release, Alpha or Beta software. Cheers, -- Dave Roberts Vyatta Cruise Director _______________________________________________ Vyatta-users mailing list Vyatta-users@mailman.vyatta.com http://mailman.vyatta.com/mailman/listinfo/vyatta-users
