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ElectricCommander 5.4
Release Notes
Revised June 13, 2015
These Release Notes contain supplemental information about ElectricCommander®, Version 5.4.
Topics include:
Product Description
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What's New for ElectricCommander 5.4
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Installation and Upgrade Notes
3
Configuration Notes
4
Limitations
4
Known Issues
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Documentation
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Product Description
ElectricCommander 5.4 Release Notes
ElectricCommander 5.4 is a feature release (FR). Feature releases make available new features more
frequently than relying on long-term support (LTS) releases (such as ElectricCommander 5.0). Electric Cloud
aims for feature releases to be made available approximately every two months. The features and
enhancements introduced in feature releases are typically rolled into the subsequent LTS release.
The main difference between an LTS release and a feature release is that the feature release will not have
planned maintenance releases. To obtain the latest defect fixes from a particular feature release, you need to
review the release notes and upgrade to the following feature release or LTS release.
While feature releases are being released with production quality, Electric Cloud recommends that you use an
LTS release in any production environment. If you want to explore the new capabilities, then use the feature
release in a test environment. Electric Cloud does not recommend that you install the feature release in a
production environment unless you are ready and willing to upgrade frequently, understanding the implications
of such upgrade efforts on your team and user base.
For more information about ElectricCommander software release strategy, go to the
ElectricFlow/ElectricCommander Release Strategy Update.
Product Description
ElectricCommander® is an enterprise-class solution for automating the software build and release process.
ElectricCommander helps teams make software build, package, test, and deployment tasks more repeatable,
more visible, and more efficient, easing the application development lifecycle.
At its core, ElectricCommander is a web-based system, easily used in a “private cloud” for automating and
managing the build and release process—providing a scalable solution, solving some of the biggest challenges
of managing “back end” software development tasks.
What's New for ElectricCommander 5.4
Features and Functionality
You can provision pools of cloud resources and view resource templates for dynamic environments.
ElectricCommander now tracks changes to almost every object not created during application deployments
including:
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Project Details
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Procedure Details
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Edit Step
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Artifact Details
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Edit Workspace
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Resource Pool Details
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Workflow Definition Details
ElectricCommander UI enhancements
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Hold down Ctrl while clicking the left mouse button to open new tabs in your browser.
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Updated UI for improved look and feel
Installation and Upgrade Notes
Resolved Issues
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When you set the Job Details or Job Step Details page to expand or collapse the details, this setting is
now saved when you return to the page. (NMB-7161)
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In the Job Details page, you can now set the default setting to display the job summary in the expanded
or collapsed state. (NMB-7827)
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Fixed the issue where the ElectricCommander, JAgent, and repository servers stop logging. (NMB16692)
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Added a flag to credentials to determine if the credentials can be accessed using the
getFullCredential API call. (NMB-20197)
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Fixed what ectool does when session file is corrupt. ectool now logs a warning and creates a new empty
session file. (NMB-20327)
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Fixed the issue where an error occurs when you try to log in to the Commander server after switching
from the internal database to the external MySQL database. (NMB-20371)
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Fixed the issue where an error occurs during the Retrieve procedure in the EC-Artifact plugin because of
a checksum mismatch between the client and the repository server. (NMB-20380)
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Fixed an issue where the Javascript code in ElectricCommander 4.x is not processed the same way as it
is in ElectricCommander 5.x during workflow transitions. (NMB-20328 and NMB-20472)
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Fixed the clustering issue where duplicate sessions were running at the same time. (NMB-20384)
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Fixed the issue where the Access Control dialog box for system object ACLs did not work. properly.
(NMB-20502)
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Fixed the issue where reverting a change did not work. (NMB-20531)
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Fixed the issue where request timeouts are not logged in the ElectricCommander server log. (NMB20541)
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Fixed the issue where the null and undefined values for a variable are not consistent with JavaScript
code used in step commands and templates. (NMB-20563)
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Fixed the issue where the History panel was empty for all workflows and this information could not be
used for debugging. (NMB-20750)
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Fixed the issue where workflow states seem to be skipped because the "green check" icon was not
displayed. (NMB-20764)
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Fixed the Hibernate error that occurs when there is a low memory event. (NMB-20960)
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Fixed the issue where an invalid shortcut to a nonexistent object causes other shortcuts to not appear on
the web interface. (NMB-20972)
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Fixed the issue where the time to run standard reports increased after a software upgrade. (NMB-20998
and NMB-21160)
ElectricCommander documentation is available on the the Electric Cloud Documentation website.
Installation and Upgrade Notes
In the Oracle database, set the OPEN_CURSORS parameter to at least 1000 to prevent ElectricCommander
from running out of open cursors.
See the ElectricCommander Installation Guide for complete installation and upgrade information.
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Configuration Notes
IMPORTANT: Before beginning the upgrade process, make sure you have backed up your existing
Commander data.
Upgrading Your Existing Commander Environment
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Upgrades to Commander 5.4 are only supported from Commander 4.2.x or from earlier versions of
Commander 5.x. Any Commander systems and servers that are pre-Commander 4.2 must be upgraded
to a Commander 4.2.x release. See the "Upgrading ElectricCommander" chapter in the
ElectricCommander Installation Guide for more information.
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Upgrading to Commander 5.4 from Comm4ander 4.2.x requires a database upgrade.
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You cannot upgrade the Commander 4.2.x built-in database to a Commander 5.4 database. If you want
to continue using the built-in database in Commander 5.4, follow the procedure described in the
"Database Upgrades" section in the ElectricCommander Installation Guide.
Behavior Changes
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The default built-in database for Commander is now HSQLDB. In releases earlier than Commander 5.0,
the built-in database was H2.
Configuration Notes
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When you export your project data before upgrading to ElectricCommander 5.4, you must replace the
component plugin versions, including EC-Artifact, in the export file before importing the project data to
ElectricCommander 5.4.
Limitations
These are the session management limitations:
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When a user logs out, the user is logged out only on the node where the logout occurred.
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When a user is deleted from the system, the user's session is active until it expires.
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When a job ends, the user's session is active until it expires.
Known Issues
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When you are adding a resource to a remote Commander server during an agent installation, the server
does not discover the host name of the agent machine through DNS, and an error message about the
"Name or service not known" appears.
The workaround is to do one of the following so that the resource is available after the agent installation:
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Add the host name of the agent machine to the hosts file of the remote server.
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In the Resource Details panel, edit the Agent Host Name of your resource and use the IP
address of the agent machine instead of the fully qualified domain name (FQDN).
Before importing an export file, you have to change the plugin name, including the plugin version, in the
file.
Known Issues
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You create dynamic environment and deploy an application in that environment by performing these
steps:
1. Create and save an OpenStack configuration in a resource template.
2. Create an environment template using the resource template.
3. Create a dynamic environment using the environment template.
4. Deploy the application in the dynamic environment successfully.
When you edit and resave the OpenStack configuration and then create a new dynamic environment,
the application is deployed with errors because the authentication credentials are incorrect.
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Change tracking
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You can revert changes only for high level design objects such as procedures, procedure steps,
workflow definitions, and state definitions.
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When you disable change tracking and then later re-enable it, the system performance may be
reduced during this sequence of events:
1. Change tracking is disabled at the server level.
During this time, new procedures, procedure steps, components, process, schedules, and
other objects have been created.
2. Change tracking is enabled at the server level.
The change history for all objects, including those not in projects, is now tracked.
It can take a while to restart the Commander server because new records are being
created for the tracked objects. This may take as long as it took to export or import all the
projects (a large project can take 10 to 20 minutes for each export or import operation).
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If this sequence of events occurs:
1. Changes are made to the list of credentials that are attached to a procedure or a
schedule while change tracking is disabled at either the project level or the server level.
2. Change tracking is enabled.
3. The procedure or a schedule is reverted to a point after change tracking was enabled.
Then the changes that were made while change tracking was disabled may be lost.
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To access the Electric Cloud API UI, use https://<commander_server_hostname>:8443/rest/doc/v1.0/
where commander_server_hostname is the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the
ElectricCommander server. (NMB-19960)
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The following entry in the wrapper.conf file has been observed to cause performance slowdowns (a
gradual slowdown of everything over time), and should therefore be deleted (NMB-19735):
wrapper.java.additional.105=-XX:+TieredCompilation
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A trusted agent cannot be created in a ElectricCommander cluster. (NMB-18924)
Workaround:
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Documentation
1. Shut down the cluster, set a node to single-server mode, and restart the node.
2. From a trusted agent machine, create a trusted agent as follows:
ectool --server x.x.x.x login username password
/opt/electriccloud/electriccommander/bin/eccert initAgent --remote --force
ectool createResource <agent_name> --hostName <agent_FQDN_or_IP> --trusted
true --port 7800
3. Shut down the single server on the node.
4. Upload the configuration files from the node to ZooKeeper.
5. Copy the /opt/electriccloud/electriccommander/conf/security/ directory and its contents from the node
to other nodes.
scp -r /opt/electriccloud/electriccommander/conf/security/ node node_n
6. Change the node and other nodes to clustered mode.
Repeat this procedure to create more trusted agents or to revoke the certificates of existing trusted
agents.
Performance/Scalability Issues
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For hundreds of parallel job steps, you may experience Job Scheduler performance issues at job
startup. (NMB-16185)
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The amount of time it takes to add a property to a job increases as the number of properties increases.
(NMB-16120)
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The amount of time it takes to add a step to a procedure increases as the number of steps increases.
(NMB-16118)
Documentation
ElectricCommander documentation is available on the Electric Cloud Documentation website. Updated
documentation will be available on that page when any documents are updated post-release.
ElectricCommander has the following product documentation:
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ElectricCommander Installation Guide
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A complete, robust online help system–click any Help link in the upper-right corner of each web page.
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A “stand-alone” Help system is available for viewing outside the product and is available on the Electric
Cloud Documentation website.
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ElectricCommander Release Notes
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Additional ElectricCommander documentation that accompanies the ElectricCommander release, but
not necessarily updated with each Commander release.
o The Plugin Developers Guide, which is used with the Commander SDK, is updated on its own
release cycle.
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Troubleshooting and Getting Help
Troubleshooting and Getting Help
Contacting Technical Support:
Before you contact our technical support staff, have the following information available.
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Your name, title, company name, phone number, and email address
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Operating system and version number
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Product name and release version
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Problem description
Hours: 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM PST (Monday-Friday, except Holidays)
Phone: 408-419-4300, Option #2
Email: support@electric-cloud.com
Copyright © 2002 – 2015 Electric Cloud, Inc. All rights reserved.
Electric Cloud® believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information
is subject to change without notice.
THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED “AS IS.” ELECTRIC CLOUD, INC. MAKES NO
REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS
PUBLICATION, AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Use, copying, and distribution of any Electric Cloud software described in this publication requires an
applicable software license.
Trademarks
Electric Cloud, ElectricAccelerator, ElectricCommander, ElectricInsight, and Electric Make are registered
trademarks or trademarks of Electric Cloud, Incorporated.
Electric Cloud products—ElectricAccelerator, ElectricCommander, ElectricInsight, and Electric Make—are
commonly referred to by their “short names”—Accelerator, Commander, Insight, and eMake—throughout
various types of Electric Cloud product-specific documentation.
All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.
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