3.2

Here are the highlights from this feature enhancement release.

New features:

• Introduce a new Simple IP Services daemon to serve standard Internet services (sysstat, daytime, QOTD) that were used in the nostalgic era of computing.
• Introduce a toolbox command processor to DNS server, users may now run toolbox commands via DNS TXT queries.

Enhancements:

• During system maintenance, if program configuration asks to test outbound connectivity to TCP port 25, then skip the test on AWS, as it became the latest among public cloud vendors to prevent connection to TCP port 25. See Cloud tips for more information.
• Slow down the speech in outgoing telephone call (toolbox feature) to make it easier to listen.

Bug fix:

• The previous release inadvertently included a small piece of code licensed under GPL, which is not compatible with the license of this project MPL. The GPL code piece has been completely removed and then substituted by a new independent implementation tailor made for this project.

3.1

Merry Christmas and happy new year!

This release introduces SNMP server, along with plenty of very useful enhancements.

New features:

• Introduce SNMP server that implements SNMP v2 (with community string) that offers program stats under OID tree 1.3.6.1.4.1.52535.121.
• System maintenance can now automatically install updates for Windows server.
• New configuration properties PreUnixScript and PreWindowsScript specify a short shell script to run prior to all other system maintenance actions.

Bug fixes:

• chrony software package is often broken on Debian-based distributions, thus do not install it anymore during the system maintenance software maintenance routine.
• Prevent timeout from prematurely terminating several Windows system maintenance actions due to a slow system.
• Fix Azure public cloud detection.
• Fix an infrequent name resolution crash in DNS black-list resolver.

Enhancements:

• Work around Go 1.11 memory consumption quirks to significantly reduce runtime memory usage.
• User may now specify a working directory when installing laitos via its Windows PowerShell installer script.
• All outgoing HTTP/S requests are made more robust with automated retry mechanism.
• SNMP client programs are installed automatically during system maintenance.

3.0

This release brings plenty of stability enhancements and new features. Here are the highlights:

New features:

• laitos program may now compile and run on Windows server and desktop OS.
• Introduce Windows system integrity and application management to system maintenance daemon.
• Introduce Linux firewall and swap file management to system maintenance daemon.
• Introduce a plain text search toolbox feature, it may help with with looking up telephone books and dictionaries.

Notable changes:

• laitos is now licensed under the Mozilla Public License version 2.0.
• Facebook no longer allows API consumer to post to home timeline, hence the corresponding component is removed.
• When external programs run, only up to 1MB of combined program output is collected for responses and log entries. This prevents a misbehaving program from exhausting system memory.

2.0

This release brings plenty of enhancements and couple of new features. The version number jumps from 1.2 to 2.0.

Here are the release highlights:

New features:

• laitos program may now compile and run on MacOS.
• Introduce a "wild joke" toolbox feature (.j) that fetches a joke on-demand.
• Introduce SlimerJS-based remote browsers for much enhanced web page rendering capability. SlimerJS-based remote browsers may be used along with the older PhantomJS-based browsers.
• All rich web services, including remote browser controls, can now be operated from Internet Explorer 4 and Mosaic 3.

Notable enhancements:

• Increase default rate limit to be more suitable for running a personal web server.
• Enhance reliability of DNS server.

1.2

This release brings plenty of minor enhancements and couple of new features, the highlights of which are:

New features:

• An RSS reader is now available via toolbox command interface for reading news briefing.
• Disk usage on root file system is collected for the information web page and system maintenance report.

New features in system maintenance daemon:

• The summary report is printed to standard output if there are no Email recipients.
• The initial delay is shortened from 10 minutes to 2 minutes.
• Non-essential utilities are periodically copied to temporary directory to avoid being cleaned up by operating system routine.
• System tuning and turning off swap are optionally carried out during system maintenance, they are no longer CLI parameters of the main program (-tunesystem and -swapoff).

Notable enhancements:

• The component name output among log entries is decorated with a brief component configuration description, for example, entries generated by web server now mention the web server's listen address and port.
• Timed out shell commands are reliably terminated via process group.
• A program-wide 200MB temporary buffer stores outstanding outgoing mail. Once the buffer fills up, new mails will not be queued or delivered. This measure prevents a potential denial-of-service attack.

1.1

This is a minor release that brings several useful enhancements:

• Mail client can now deliver mails over TLS connection in addition to StartTLS.
• To improve reliability of mail delivery, mail client now retries several times in case a delivery attempt fails.
• Add three public search-and-rescue contacts from Norway, Republic of Korea, and the US.
• Introduce a new web service called "recurring commands" that periodically runs sets of toolbox commands and allows visitor to retrieve their command results.
• Introduce a new "utility directory" path that is prefixed to environment PATH variable when running all kinds of shell commands, when laitos starts up, the utility directory gets a copy of PhantomJS, BusyBox, and ToyBox programs from laitos working directory, subsequently the copy of PhantomJS powers browser-related features, and toolbox shell commands may use BusyBox and ToyBox as user wishes.

1.0

After more than two years of development and one year of production run, version 1.0 has finally arrived!