UbuntuServer

New Features in Ubuntu Server

The 12.04.4 (codenamed, Precise Pangolin) cycle has focused on deployment, stability and quality.

Ubuntu 12.04.4 ships the latest OpenStack release, codenamed Essex, and a new feature called MAAS. In addition the CharmStore was made available making deployment of centralised charm with Juju easier. A new technology which is available for testing (via a PPA) is AWSOME.

These technologies further position Ubuntu Server as the best OS for scale-out computing. Quality also had a strong focus with continuous integration, deployment and testing of upstream OpenStack commits and automated testing of all Amazon ec2 AMI's from Lucid to Precise.

OpenStack

  • OpenStack projects have been updated to the Essex final release.

    • /bin/false is now the default for the nova user (upgrade transition handled).

    • New binary package, nova-cert is now needed to decrypt images which removes M2Crypto as a requirement.

    • Quantum has been divided into quantum and quantum client packages.
    • Glance has new configuration file structure.
    • nova uses nova-rootwrap by default, which provides a more fine grained security layer.
    • openstackx has been removed from horizon.
    • ajaxconsole has been dropped, in favour of a VNC based solution.
    • ec2 admin api removed.
    • Quantum, Melange, and Nova network models have been merged.
    • Many OSAPI extenstions have been added.
    • euca-upload-bundle now works with keystone.

  • OpenStack components are deployable via Juju Charms.

  • Keystone has been updated to Keystone-light (redux branch). Keystone-light is a new, from scratch rewrite this cycle, replacing the existing upstream source from Oneiric / 11.10.

  • Glance now requires a manual database migration after upgrade.
  • The default install of Openstack should be used on a protected network, as many components use http (non-SSL) as a transport, and therefore subject to security concerns. This can be mitigated by post install customisations.

  • Ubuntu Cloud Archive

    • Canonical’s Ubuntu Cloud archive allows users the ability to install newer releases of OpenStack on Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS (and the dependencies) as they become available up through the next Ubuntu LTS release.

MAAS

  • Metal as a Service brings the language of the cloud to physical servers. It makes it easy to set up the hardware on which to deploy any service that needs to scale up and down dynamically.

AWSOME

  • AWSOME (“Any Web Service over Me”) provides IAAS API’s for OpenStack which are also implemented by Amazon EC2, making it easy to deploy and manage cloud services across both Amazon and OpenStack clouds.

Juju

  • Juju CharmStore now available allowing for deployment of all available charmed services without needing charms local to the environment.

  • Subordinate Services added allowing for units of different services to be deployed into the same container and to have knowledge of each other.

  • Machine Constraints added offering users the ability to pick the hardware to which their services will be deployed.

Java

  • Apache Tomcat 7.0.26 is available in Universe alongside version 6.0.35 which continues to be the supported version for Ubuntu 12.04.

    • Please note that Tomcat 7 will replace Tomcat 6 as the supported version of Apache Tomcat in Ubuntu 12.10.

  • Apache ActiveMQ 5.5.0 is available in Universe.

  • Jenkins 1.424.6 LTS is available in Universe.

  • OpenJDK 7 (closely aligned to Oracle Java 7) is available in Universe.

    • Please note that OpenJDK 7 will become the default Java implementation in Ubuntu 12.10.

  • Groovy 1.8.6 is available in Universe.

  • Scala 2.9.1 is available in Universe.

  • Clojure 1.1.0 is available in Universe.

Virtualisation

  • Xen is now included and officially supported:

    • Provides the facility to run Ubuntu as a Xen virtualisation host (dom0)

    • Libvirt integration/Xen domains manageable through libvirt or any frontend that uses libvirt.

    • Guest installations in HVM mode will use optimized paravirt drivers out of the box.

  • LXC improvements include:

    • The ability for stock 12.04 images to boot in a container
    • Apparmor protection to increase security
    • Support for lvm- and btrfs-backed containers
    • New ubuntu-cloud template for simple creation of containers based on published Ubuntu Cloud images.

  • KVM (version 1.0) and Libvirt improvements include:

    • QED (Qemu enhanced disk format) support
    • AHCI protocol support
    • Nested guest support for Intel processors (in addition to AMD support)
    • Public API to invoke suspend/resume on the host from libvirt
    • STP and VLAN filtering from libvirt
    • Bandwidth QoS control in libvirt
    • CPU bandwidth limits support

File System

  • CEPH client libraries, librbd and librados, have been added to main supporting use with KVM.

  • CIFS now has file system cache support to improve performance.
  • Software RAID now supports bad block management (MD).

ARM Support

  • OpenMPI 1.5 for ARM available in Universe. (889644)

    • openmpi 1.5 provides improved ARM support. As this is an upstream beta we have not transitioned openmpi in the archive, but instead added a separate openmpi1.5 package for those who wish to use it.

  • Calxeda ECX-1000 (Highbank) Support

Other

  • New Zentyal packages available in Universe.

    • These packages are a rename of the existing ebox packages along with a new upstream release fixing known issues in the current ebox packages in Ubuntu 11.10.

  • Resara, an open source Linux Domain controller and file server based on Samba4, has been added to Universe.

  • acpid introduced to both Server and Cloud images by default.

  • Chef 0.8.16 (948437) and corresponding Ohai packages (948438) removed from precise at the request of OpsCode.

  • Eucalyptus 2.0.1 (953405) removed from precise at the request of Eucalyptus.

  • EC2 migration to S3 complete for all regions.

  • Official Ubuntu Images Available on Windows Azure.

    • Windows Azure is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) from Microsoft that includes the ability to manage individual virtual machines.

Common Infrastructure

  • Up until Ubuntu 11.10, administrator access using the sudo tool was granted via the "admin" Unix group. In Ubuntu 12.04, administrator access will be granted via the "sudo" group. This makes Ubuntu more consistent with the upstream implementation and Debian. For compatibility purposes, the "admin" group will continue to provide sudo/administrator access in 12.04.

  • Hibernate (suspend to disk) has been disabled by default, as it was found to be unreliable, very slow and confusing to have two suspend modes. See bug 812394 for details. If you want to re-enable it, please follow this recipe.

  • pm-utils now has two new scripts to power down USB and various PCI devices in battery mode. A number of desktop packages were fixed to wake up less often. Both of these reduce power consumption and thus improve battery lifetime.

  • resolvconf is now used to manage /etc/resolv.conf on all Ubuntu systems. You can learn more here

  • Backports are now more easily accessible -- to enable users to more easily receive new versions of software, the Ubuntu Backports repository is now enabled by default. Packages from backports will not be installed by default — they must explicitly be selected in package management software. However, once installed, packages from backports will automatically be upgraded to newer versions.
  • DVD Images -- the DVD images have been cleaned up significantly reducing their size to around 1.5GB to ease consumption. The remaining software remains available via download.
  • As of 12.04.2, it is possible to install on UEFI systems with Secure Boot enabled (using signed versions of Shim, GRUB, and the Linux kernel). This is only currently set up for Ubuntu (desktop, alternate, and server) and Edubuntu images due to pressures of time.

  • Both the 3.2 and 3.5 versions of the Linux kernel included as part of the 12.04.2 release have a workaround for 1040557, which bricked some models of Samsung laptops when installing Ubuntu in UEFI mode. (The underlying problem is a firmware bug, and may still be triggerable in other ways.)

Ubuntu Kernel 3.11

By default, the 12.04.4 point release will ship with a newer 3.11 Ubuntu kernel from Ubuntu 13.10, and a matching X.org stack. This is based on the 3.11.0 Extended Upstream Stable Kernel Release. The purpose of providing a newer kernel in the 12.04.4 point release is for hardware enablement. For more information regarding the 12.04.4 LTS Hardware Enablement Stack, please refer to:

Upstart 1.5

Upstart has been updated to version 1.5. More details are available in the Upstart Technical Overview.

GNU Toolchain

Ubuntu 12.04 is distributed with a default toolchain that includes: GCC 4.6.3 (and changes from Linaro GCC 4.6-2012.02), binutils 2.22, eglibc 2.15, and Linaro gdb 7.4-2012.04.

Compared to the 11.10 release, the toolchain saw only incremental changes and bug fixes; comparing to the 10.04 LTS release, GCC updates include

  • Updated frontends for better standards support (Ada 2012, Objective-C 2.0, improved experimental support for the upcoming C++0x ISO C++ standard, Fortran 2003 and 2008 improvements, new Go frontend)
  • Improved optimizations, including better inter-procedural optimizations, and link time optimization (LTO).

Further information can be found upstream (GCC-4.6, GCC-4.5, binutils, gas, ld, gdb).

Python Toolchain

  • Ubuntu 12.04 includes Python 2.7.3 and Python 3.2.3. Python 2.6 is no longer available for install.

  • There is expanded support for Python 3 in this release, with Python 3 ports of python-dbus, python-feedparser, germinate, lazr.ui, wadllib, python-defer, python-keyring, and python-qt4 now included, among others.

Java Toolchain

The default run time for Java is OpenJDK 6b24 (IcedTea 1.11.1). OpenJDK 7u3 (IcedTea 2.1) is available in the archive as well.

Installation

Overview

Preparing your computer for Ubuntu is now much simpler, with a wider range of disk setup options. Each of these are detailed at length to provide you with a clear understanding of the actions that will take place with your selection.

Download

Ubuntu Server 12.04 images can be downloaded from a location near you:

The images can also be found at:

System Requirements

  • The minimum memory requirement for Ubuntu Server 12.04 is 128 MB of memory.
  • The i386 image has a recommended maximum of 16GB of RAM, and a maximum of 8 CPU cores are exposed.

Netboot ARM Server Images

The ARM Netboot images allow you to bootstrap Ubuntu Server on supported hardware. There are four images available, each for a different type of computer:

  • Calxeda ECX-1000 Highbank (Hard-Float) netboot server image
  • Marvell Armada-XP (Hard-Float) netboot server image
  • Texas Instruments OMAP3 (Hard-Float) netboot server image
  • Texas Instruments OMAP4 (Hard-Float) netboot server image

Detailed installations instructions for the 4 above platforms can be found here.

Upgrade

From 11.10 to 12.04

To upgrade from Ubuntu 11.10 on a server system, follow the steps listed below:

  1. Install the update-manager-core package (if it is not already installed).

  2. Run sudo do-release-upgrade to launch the upgrade tool.

  3. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Note that the server upgrade is now more robust and will utilize GNU screen and automatically re-attach in case of dropped connection problems, for example.

From 10.04 to 12.04

It is generally recommended that users of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS wait until the first point release, due in July, before upgrading.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on a server system before then, follow the steps listed below:

  1. Ensure you're up to date with latest updates for Ubuntu 10.04:

    1.  sudo apt-get update 

    2.  sudo apt-get upgrade 

  2. Install update-manager-core if it is not already installed:

    1.  sudo apt-get install update-manager-core 

  3. Edit /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades and set Prompt=lts. Note: The minumum contents of /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades should be: 

[DEFAULT]
Prompt=lts
  1. Launch the upgrade tool:

    1.  sudo do-release-upgrade -d 

    2. Follow the on-screen instructions.

At the end of the upgrade process you will be required to restart the server in order to boot into the new kernel. If you do not have access to the console of the system you are upgrading, you may need to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and change the default boot kernel to the newly installed 12.04 kernel. If this step is not performed your server may attempt to boot into the 10.04 LTS kernel and will hang.

NOTE: Upgrading Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, featuring Eucalyptus from 10.04 to this release is discouraged as 12.04 doesn't include eucalyptus, meaning there is not a valid upgrade path. It is recommended to continue with the supported 10.04 release, or convert to Ubuntu Cloud Infrastructure, featuring OpenStack.

From other release

Users of other Ubuntu releases need to upgrade first to 11.10, and then to 12.04.

For further information on upgrading to 12.04, please see the Precise upgrade instructions.

Known Issues

Boot, Installation and Post-Installation

  • Importing of existing Windows user accounts fails in some cases. (987902)

  • Wubi (the Ubuntu installer for Windows) is not available as an option on the Ubuntu Desktop/DVD any more. Instead, it is now a separate download.

  • A bug in the firmware on certain Samsung laptop models leaves these machines at risk of being rendered inoperable ("bricked") when booted in UEFI mode. Steps have been taken with the kernel in 12.04.2 to mitigate this problem, but only a future firmware update from Samsung will resolve this issue with 100% reliability. It is therefore recommended that users boot their systems in CSM ("compatibility support module") mode to avoid this issue. (1040557)

  • Performing automatic encrypted LVM installation using Kubuntu and Xubuntu 12.04.4 alternate installer images results in a failure to configure encrypted volumes. Please either use manual partitioning to create encrypted volumes with any non-default "IV algorithm" setting or use 12.04.3 media to complete the installation. (1276739)

Upgrades

  • If you have overridden the value of APT::Cache-Limit in /etc/apt/apt.conf or /etc/apt/apt.conf.d, you should remove these settings before upgrading. The release-upgrader-apt used by update-manager for upgrades from lucid to precise no longer has any hard coded limit on the cache size.

  • If you are running a KVM host with libvirt and are upgrading from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS to 12.04 LTS you may find that some existing virtual machines are no longer recognized (virsh list --all). A change to each guest's XML file may be needed, related to how console and serial devices are now configured. (931350)

Kernel

  • On ARM omap images, the networking support for the Beagle XM board is broken (838200)

  • On systems with an ATI Radeon 9200 graphics card the system will boot to a black screen. As a work around edit the kernel command line in the boot loader and add "nomodeset". (725580)

  • Fujitsu Siemens Amilo M 7400 and Maxdata 7000DX wireless RF kill handling triggers a kernel panic preventing wireless from operating correctly. This may be worked around by editing your kernel command line and adding "noexec=off". (979253)

  • Beagle XM systems which are capable of running at 1GHZ will be initialised at 800MHZ leading to slower than optimal performance. (771537)

  • Some EFI systems fail to boot in EFI mode. BIOS mode is advised in these situations. (721576)

Applications

  • OpenStack: Nova API does not listen on IPv6 (850443)

  • Squid: squid (v2) has been deprecated in favor of squid3. The existing squid package provides a transitional package that will upgrade to squid3. Some config options may not be supported and manual migration of configuration is required. Previous squid.conf is preserved at /etc/squid/squid.conf after upgrade. See the squid 3.1.19 release notes for more information about supported options and syntax:

  • Users who are using bonded network interfaces may experience a race condition on upgrade which can stop the bonded interface coming up on boot. This may cause problems for those performing remote upgrades. (974218)

Support Terms

  • 5 years, Long Term Support.

PrecisePangolin/ReleaseNotes/UbuntuServer (last edited 2014-02-03 17:57:05 by 82-69-40-219)