Version 1.6 (in preview)
New:
- Installer - The Linux distribution now has a smarter
installer. It works much the same as before, but allows
you to perform an automated, console only (useful for
headless machines) install. Just pass it the --dest
switch.
- Custom Ports - It is now possible to control the port
used by the messaging subsystem (ActiveMQ). This can also
be set in the console (under Options).
Fixed: - Intro Text - Fixed a documentation bug in the
installer introduction (the domain name for
cloudnine.net.nz was spelt incorrectly).
Version 1.5
New Features:- Delete files from destination - Option to specify
that the destination location should be deleted prior to
the backup occuring.
- Copy full folders - Option to specify whether or not
to create an absolute or relative backup. Previously, all
files at the destination were created with full, absolute
paths under the destination. Now there is an option to
make the copy process relative. A full explanation is in
the manual.
Enhancements: - Improved speed - Completion of jobs has been sped up
by detaching the email sending from the job completion
process.
- Improved reports - Warnings are now used a log more
in the reports, for situations that are not necessarily
fatal (e.g: a file not being found after the backup has
started).
- Job Editor - When adding a source or destination, the
file browser is now automatically opened for you. Only
when you choose some folder and then click OK does it add
a source/destination to the job.
- Multiple Recipients - It is now possible to have
multiple email recipients for a backup report.
- UI Upgrade - Changed some of the slider controls to
be spinners, which are clearer.
Fixes: - Fixed Unix Links - The links (on the desktop) created
by the installer on linux were pointing to the wrong
scripts. These now point to the new .sh scripts.
- FTP Cache - Fixed issue where the FTP cache was not
cleared after each run, resulting in unpredictable
behavior.
Version 1.4
- Selection of Rules on UI fixed - There was a bug in
the UI whereby selection of a rule may have caused the
selection bar to jump to the top of the list. Now fixed.
- Startup/Shutdown (Unix) - The scripts to start and
stop the various applications of Plan/B have been
replaced. These work in a greater variety of situations.
- UI fixes - The UI now informs the user why a
connection to a server may not be possible, also tooltips
have been added to most UI elements where they did not
exist before.
Version 1.3
New Features- Unix & Links - Plan/B now supports the Unix
concept of Links (soft links). If a destination system
does not support them, a file is written containing the
name of the link destination.
- Change to backup process - dir creation - The
directories being backed up are not created up front (on
the destination) any more - they are created as needed,
as the backup progresses.
- Change to backup process - scanning - Links to
directories are no longer followed in the backup process.
- Expression evaluation - Some expressions were not
evaluating correctly - for example "exclude if path
contains 'cache'" would not include the last element of a
directory name (a good example being a Mozilla Cache or
Cache.Trash directory). This is now fixed.
- Rules - Rule matching was not being applied to
directories at all. It is now.
- Improved rule selection, UI - When selecting rules in
the UI, you now see a complete list of rules that are in
effect for the job, rather than the include/exclude list
that was presented before. This allows for better viewing
of the overall effect of the rules that you select.
- Improved device manager, UI - When adding a device, a
new popup dialog is shown (instead of the previous
in-line editing) with the device parameters. It's more
obvious that you're editing a new device.
- Improved logging management, UI - The UI now loads
log files one at a time (rather than all at once) - each
log is loaded as you click on it.
- Improved log readability, UI - Logs for jobs that
have failed no longer show dates of 1970 as the 'end' of
the backup job.
- Improved logging, part 2 - Where a duration is shown,
it is now shown as (for example) 2m 10s, rather than
130s.
- UI Connection Speed - The UI can now detect if the
server is present much faster - expect about a 5-10s
decrease in start time. It is also fails much, much
faster (to fail) if the server that you are attempting to
connect to is not there.
- UI cleanup - The bar on the left hand side has been
simplified to include only those items that are
implements. The Restore and Reporting options have been
removed, and their functions included into the Backup
category.
- Override agent protocol - You can now tell the agent
which server to connect to, without having to edit the
main configuration file. You just edit the existing
messaging.properties file (in the conf directory)
Bugs fixed - Bug fix (Internal) - Fixed issue with ActionButton
resources not being freed correctly in the UI.
- Bug fix (UI) - New log entries are now added
correctly to the top of the log list (not the bottom)
- Bug fix (scanning) - A problem has been resolved
whereby a directory containing links back to itself would
result in a backup that would never terminate.
- Bug fix (Logging, UI) - Truncate button works
correctly now (it truncated the wrong end of the list
before)
- Bug fix (monitor) - Fixed a problem whereby if a job
failed it was not reported correctly, and the system
would have to wait for the job to time-out before
returning control to the user.
- Internal Messaging - The messaging system has been
updated to resolve an issue that can occur under high
load (the internal queue would fill up, and stop working)
Version 1.1 changelog (12 Aug 2005):
- Added save button to the Job editor (it's now more
intuitive).
- Added additional view to the server log viewer -
which allows you to see the content of long lines in the
log.
- Ability to refresh the server side device map (and
client side device maps as well). This function already
existed, but has been additionally added alongside the
add/delete device buttons, to make it more obvious.
- Added CIFS (e.g: \\server\share) device support.
Especially useful for Win XP users running the server as
a service.
- When you add a new job, you are immediately taken to
the General tab (instead of being left where you were).
- Uninstall warnings (as in, you must do so!) have been
addd to win/linux installers.
- Updates to make Error dialogs a little more sensible.
- Upgraded internal SWT libraries to version 3.1
Fixes: - Fix the Gentoo UNIX scripts, so that the -d is passed
correctly into the sub-script (fixes issues with not
being able to stop the server/agent after you've started
it)
- Fixed issue on linux whereby paths would not be
correctly re-selected in the file browser
- Fixed layout issue in Device interface, relating to
the loading of libraries (green/red text). It now
displays properly.
- Fixed issue whereby CIFS and FTP changes were not
replicated out to the Agents
- Fixed issue whereby client would hang if it could not
connect to a server
- Fixed issue where the overview fields (on the UI)
would not refresh properly upon job add/delete
- Fixed issue with Job editor, whereby when you add a
new job, you can still browse device locations without
first adding a source or destination - the result being
that when you click OK, the thing you selected is NOT put
into the source/destination list.
----
Wed, 26th January 2005 - Fixed problem with installer, where installation as a
server would also setup the agent as a win32 'automatic'
service. While the agent was not started, a reboot would
cause both to be started - and only one of the server or
agent processes can be run on a machine at any one time.
- When adding a new job, the job editor is shown, no
matter what other panel you have showing at the time, in
the GUI.
- The logs have been removed from memory, and moved out
to disk. This results in faster startup times, and less
memory overhead.
Mon, 4th January 2005 - A new NSIS based windows installer, that takes care
of installing the relevant services
- Services for the Server and Agent components
- The agent is now ZeroConf enabled - meaning that it
can find the server without having to be told where it is
- The agent is now resilient to network failure. If
something goes wrong, it will stop and wait until it can
connect to a working server, and then continue.
- An agent can be started even if a server is not
present on the network (required for services to work 'as
expected')
Fri, 31 December 2004 - Console now available as a .exe file, along with a
shortcut in the Start menu
- Server now packaged as a Win32 service
Wed, 29 December 2004 - Fixing a problem with client/server pub/sub, whereby
I had 'stuffed it up' (tm).
August -> December 2004 - Removing static factories, changing internal code to
make use of Spring instead.
- Upgrade to Active MQ 1.5
- Rework of the GUI notification mechanism, to include
granular specific messaging.
- An almost-complete rewrite of the rule editor, to
make it 200% more obvious what is going on
- A re-write of the job algorithm (that which controls
the job copy process) to make it work much, much better
with remote hosts
- Updated windows SWT jars
Fri, 13 August 2004 - Fixed bug where some rules (like, include all) would
remain in a job after editing, causing 'unexplained'
behavior.
- Cancel All, OK All operations now work on the GUI
(for things like remote CDR/W requests) - tested on Linux
only.
Tue, 10th August 2004 - Fixed issue with server not performing backups to CD
if no GUI was present (it would never stop requesting a
CD be put in the drive. Now it tries up to three times)
- Fixed issue with CD backups failing after the first
backup was successful.
- Log directory now created by the installer
- planb.log file now placed in a log directory
- Replaced agent <-> server communication with
FTP. Performance improved!
- Fixed issue where the backup report didn't show an
error if the device sanity checks (that occur before the
backup starts) failed.
Sun, 25th July 2004 - Added shortcuts to the Win32 installer
- The build now auto generates documentation and
changelogs for each release, based upon the contents of
this very website.
- Lots of small changes related to multi-process
execution (e.g: one agent on one machine, one server
somewhere else, and the console running on yet a third
machine)
- Fixed bug where typing into the source URL field (for
a location) would cause the cursor to go to the beginning
of the field with every keypress
Sat, 24th July 2004 - Updated Win32 CDR tools (they now work ;-)
Wed, 21th July 2004 - CD Transports and SCSI targets are now auto-detected
by all agents (including the server) upon startup.
- SCSI target list reduced to only those devices that
are Removable CDROMs
Tue, 20th July 2004 - Decreased the size of the fonts on the
includes/excludes labels for the rule editor
- Removed the add/remove rule buttons on the left hand
side of the 'When' panel, since this functionality is
handled by the rule editor now.
- Fixed a bug I introduced with the integration of the
rule editor, whereby adding and removing locations would
not refresh the location list
- Added detection of SCSI transports and devices for
all platforms
- Added a default cdrecord/mkisofs implementation for
Windows that does not require Cygwin nor ASPI drivers
(yay!)
Sun, 18th July 2004 - Added the new rule editor
Mon, 28th June 2004 - Refactored commands to be on a per-device basis
- Mountable commands are auto-discovered for new agents
upon startup
Wed, 23th June 2004 - Fixed bug where editing a job twice would cause
another job to be added to the list
Tue, 22th June 2004 - Added a splash screen to the GUI
Mon, 21th June 2004 - Fixed bug where new directories couldn't be created
at the root (e.g: c:\) on Win32 using the GUI directory
browser.
Sun, 20th June 2004 - Server can now send HTML activity reports
- Fixed a couple of issue with stats gathetherig
- Added an 'overall' error list to the statistics
- Fixed incorrect batch file inclusion for Win32
- Made the formatting of error messages much better in
the case of file copy failures
Sat, 19th June 2004 - Realtime updates to activity log
- Device editor now has scrollbars
- Fixed bug with CDROM size slider
- Added truncation to Server activity log
- Fixed bug where it wasn't possible to rename external
FTP directories
- Fixed a bug where the code was ONLY compatible with
the 1.5 JDK. opps.
Tue, 15th June 2004 - bin/ directory now contains only those scripts
relevant to the particular OS
- scripts in bin/ directory are now executable under
linux
- Implemented the Delete functionality on the directory
browser
- Fixed the created directory functionality on the
directory browser, for remote FTP hosts.
- Fixed problem whereby server would show a dialog box
requesting a disk for A:, if one existed.
Mon, 14th June 2004 - Fixing bugs from previous refactorings
- Tidied up the display of source and destination paths
in the GUI, for the overview panel and what/where panels.
(no more %20 instead of spaces)
Sun, 13th June 2004 - Fixed bug where NPE's would occur on the server when
you chose a Cron based schedule.
- Fixed bug where it was not possible to create nested
directories at a FTP destination
- Added basic activity log support
- Improved logging to include exception reports from
jobs
Sat, 12th June 2004 - Fixed issue whereby stopping a running CD job would
stll cause the partially written data to be copied to the
CD. Not any more!
- Tidied up the server log window
- Fixed bug where it was not possible to remove the
temporary update directory, once the CD had been cut
- View headings were being 'truncated' when switching
between devices, in the device editor
- If you connect to a server, then disconnect and
reconnect, you get a 'widget is disposed' exception
(fixed)
- Builds now produce build numbers.
- GUI now shows which server you're connected to, and
the build number
- Site updated to automatically show latest files,
build date ... and of course, the build number
Fri, 11th June 2004 - Fixed problem with GUI request handler dialog,
whereby it wasn't closing upon canceling a request.
- Fixed problem whereby opening a dialog for choosing a
mount point, and then clicking OK (without doing anything
else) caused a NPE.
- Fixed: Inability to rename directories (using F2)
when browsing source or destination devices, while
editing a job
- Fixed: Could not resize file/directory browse dialog
boxes in Windows
- Fixed: File and Directory browsers don't have a
generic title.
Thu, 10th June 2004 - Main window position and size preserved across
restart
- Sash components now save their weights (e.g: with of
outlook bar / main window is preserved across restarts of
client)
- Table column widths are preserved across restarts
- Directory and File dialog positions are preserved
across restarts
Wed, 9th June 2004 - Added a .exe Win32 based installer to the build
process
- Modified Win32 startup scripts (no longer show error
with '#')
- Fixed problem whereby when starting a server with a
new installation would result in an NPE, and no devices
showing in the GUI.
- Added logging of server messages, to both server, and
the GUI
- Updated site documentation