Geneos 6.x Release Notes

Upcoming Geneos release

Geneos follows a two-month release cycle. The next planned release for Geneos 6.1.x is November 2022.

Known issues

To view the list of known issues for all Geneos 6.x releases, see Geneos 6.x Known Issues. The known issues that are resolved will be added on this page.

Geneos compatibility and lifecycle

The notice of change in the Geneos compatibility identifies the components, plugins, or features that will no longer be supported by ITRS in any future releases.

To view all the changes to Geneos compatibility and lifecycle, refer to Geneos 6.x Compatibility Matrix.

End of support

Geneos 6.0.1

Released: 5 October 2022

This release delivers the updates for the following Geneos components:

ITRS Downloads

• Netprobe

AWS Marketplace

• AWS AMI (pre-configured for AWS monitoring)

Azure Marketplace

• Azure Virtual machine image (pre-configured for Azure monitoring)

ITRS Docker repository

• Netprobe docker image

ITRS Helm repository

• Netprobe Helm chart (pre-configured for Kubernetes monitoring)

Breaking changes

If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Geneos, please read Geneos Upgrade Notes for compatibility changes you should be aware of before upgrading.

Known issues

To view the list of known issues for all Geneos 6.x releases, see Geneos 6.x Known Issues.

Geneos 6.0.0

Released: 20 September 2022

Geneos new features and fixes are released on a regular two-monthly release cadence. Over the last two and a half years, we introduced many new features on the Geneos 5.x. We generally bump up the major version every two years, so it is time to move up to Geneos 6.x.

ITRS will continue to support Geneos 5.x at least until the end of 2024 because we recognise that not everyone will be able to upgrade to Geneos 6.x for some months. Currently, there is not yet a fixed end-of-life date for Geneos 5.x.

End of life for Geneos 4.x.x is 31 May 2023. If you are running Geneos 4.x, we advise you to upgrade to Geneos 5.x or newer. Please see Geneos 6.x Compatibility Matrix for more details.

This release delivers the updates for the following Geneos components:

ITRS Downloads

• Active Console

• AWS plugin

• Azure Monitor plugin

• Collection Agent

• File Agent

• Fix Analyser 2 Netprobe

• Gateway

• Geneos Workflow plugin

• Kubernetes plugin

• License Auditor

• Licence Daemon

• Netprobe

• OpenTelemetry plugin

• Prometheus plugin

• SSO Agent

• StatsD plugin

• Web Server

• Webslinger

AWS Marketplace

• AWS AMI (pre-configured for AWS monitoring)

Azure Marketplace

• Azure Virtual machine image (pre-configured for Azure monitoring)

ITRS Docker repository

• Gateway docker image

• Netprobe docker image

ITRS Helm repository

• Gateway Helm chart (pre-configured for Kubernetes monitoring)

• Netprobe Helm chart (pre-configured for Kubernetes monitoring)

Highlights

These are the highlights of this release:

• Ingest OpenTelemetry data for complete observability

  OpenTelemetry is an open, vendor-neutral toolset and standard for instrumenting your applications and services. With the increased use of highly distributed microservice architectures, OpenTelemetry has become a popular standard for collecting observability data. We are excited to introduce the new OpenTelemetry plugin supporting the OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) for collecting metrics, logs, and traces (partially supported). This gives you full-stack monitoring of your systems and applications alongside your other monitoring using the extensive range of plugins in Geneos.

  While metrics and logs are fully supported, we currently extract important metrics from the trace data. We intend to fully support trace data in future releases. Geneos can be configured to dynamically create the monitoring entities and data structures so your monitoring can automatically scale with your application deployment.

• Improved visibility and management of Collection Agents

  Collection Agent and its plugins, first introduced in Geneos 5.x, gather data points (metrics, logs, and events) and report them to Geneos Netprobe. Collection Agent can be deployed alongside Netprobes and managed by Netprobes or installed and managed independently from Netprobe. For most host-based monitoring, it is useful to deploy Collection Agent managed by Netprobe. For containerised environments like Kubernetes, Netprobe and Collection Agent are typically managed using Kubernetes objects.

  This release introduces improvements to the Collection Agent and its plugins (or Collectors) managed by a Netprobe.

  • Collection Agent configuration (collection-agent.yml) can now be managed centrally in Gateway via the Gateway Setup Editor alongside your other Geneos configuration. This removes the need to manage YAML files on the host where Collection Agent is running. Support for variables and validation reduces complexity and improves the user experience.

    Note: This feature requires Gateway and Netprobe version 6.x. It is also recommended you upgrade Active Console and Gateway Setup Editor to version 6.x.

  • The lifecycle of the Collection Agent can be managed by the Netprobe, giving you more visibility and control of the Collection Agent and its plugins. Self-monitoring views and easy access to logs, errors, and configuration files from within Active Console mean you can easily diagnose any issues without needing access to host machines.

• Easily migrate AES keys for more secure password management

  Gateway supports private AES keys for encrypting sensitive data in configuration. When AES keys are changed, all encrypted data must be updated to use the new key. Gateway Setup Editor now supports a migration option to easily update the configuration to use the new key.

Breaking changes

If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Geneos, please read Geneos Upgrade Notes for compatibility changes you should be aware of before upgrading.

New features and enhancements

These are the new features and enhancements of this release:

Issue key	Component	Release description
AA-5742	Gateway	Gateway no longer includes a plaintext version of the database logging password in the metadata provided to Active Console.
AA-6514	Gateway, Netprobe	Gateway can now manage the Collection Agent configuration and is able to: Check if the configuration is valid when the Collection Agent has been started. Monitor the Collection Agent process as part of the Gateway self-monitoring view.
AA-6377	Netprobe	Publishing Collection Agent 3.0.0 datapoints to the Netprobe is now supported.
AA-6378	Gateway, Netprobe	Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and 22.04 LTS are now supported in Geneos 6.0.
AA-6417	Gateway	When Gateway validates its setup, it now reports an error for each AES password that cannot be decrypted and a warning for each AES password that can only be decrypted with a key loaded via the -previous-key-file option. Where Gateway uses AES passwords directly, for example, in Obcerv and database logging credentials, it will not attempt to connect if the password cannot be decrypted.
AA-6442	Gateway	In addition to the key-file command line option, a new command line option for Gateway -previous-key-file is now supported to facilitate the change of the Gateway AES key. When this option is used, the Gateway will decrypt passwords using the key-file or the previous-key-file, whichever succeeds first. Gateway Setup Editor allows you to migrate passwords encrypted using previous-key-file and re-encrypt them using the new key-file. This makes it easier to change AES key more often to improve security.
AA-6444	Active Console, Gateway	Gateway Setup Editor now supports the migration of passwords that are encrypted using previous-key-file and their re-encryption using the new key-file. This makes it easier to change the Gateway AES key more often to improve security.
AA-6445	Gateway, Netprobe, FIX Analyser 2 Netprobe	When a sampler setup contains an AES-encrypted password that cannot be decrypted by the Gateway, a parameter is set by the Gateway for the Netprobe to replace that sampler with another one. This new sampler has a dataview containing no rows and a sampling status stating the problem. This prevents the plugin from attempting to use the invalid password, which may cause the Netprobe to be locked out.
AA-6449	Gateway	Gateway Setup Editor now displays a warning message when the Data Access field for connecting to Obcerv is not set.
AA-6478	Gateway	Collection Agent 3 plugin licensing model now uses the itrsgroup namespace when publishing datapoints. This change will not affect any existing plugin licences in use.
AA-6487	Gateway	Gateway now adds a self-monitoring entity with a Dynamic Entity Health plugin to any Netprobe configured with a Dynamic Entity mapping type. This is the default behavior, but it can be disabled in the Operating Environment section in GSE.
AA-6494	Gateway	Collection Agent 3.0.0 is now packaged with Netprobe 6.0.0.
AA-6503	Gateway	The aesKeyType row describing the keys used by Gateway has been added to the GatewayData dataview.
AA-6506	Gateway	Validation of passwords is now skipped when the -hub-validation-rules command line option is set.
AA-6535	Netprobe	The Entities view of the Dynamic Entities Health plugin has been updated to publish metrics with names and meanings similar to the metrics published by the Collection Agents view of the Gateway-probeData plugin.
AA-6544	Gateway	The Netprobe view log command (/PROBE:viewLog) can now be run from the following: a Netprobe in Active Console. from cells in the Gateway-ProbesData Netprobe dataview using the /GATEWAY:PROBESDATA:viewNetprobeLog command.
AA-6585	Gateway	Collection Agent V3 built-in Dynamic Entity mapping has been added to support the Collection Agent 3.x.
AA-6588	Docker Image	The base UBI image for Geneos docker images has been updated.
AZUREMON-387	Azure	Azure Monitor plugin has been updated to support compatibility with Collection Agent 3.x.
AZUREMON-391	Azure	The Google Gson library in the Azure Monitor plugin has been upgraded to 2.9.0 to address the security vulnerability: BDSA-2021-4363.
AZUREMON-458	Azure	The Azure Marketplace VM has been updated to support Geneos 6.0.0 binaries.
AZUREMON-459	Azure	Azure Monitor V3 builtin mapping has been added to support the Azure Monitor plugin 3.x.
C2-184	Collection Agent	Individual components can now be enabled or disabled.
C2-187	Collection Agent	The delay between daemon start-up and the healthy state has been reduced.
C2-188	Collection Agent	A warning message about an undefined variable will no longer be logged when an environment variable substitution is commented out in the Collection Agent configuration file.
C2-195	Collection Agent	An option to publish derived timer histogram metrics (min/max/count/Nth) has been added.
C2-197	Collection Agent	The TimerHistogram has been replaced with a general purpose Histogram.
C2-223	Collection Agent	The attributes workflow pipeline has been separated from the Metrics workflow pipeline to apply different delivery guarantees.
C2-226	Collection Agent	The hostname dimension has been removed from the Kubernetes metrics.
C2-299	Collection Agent	The log verbosity of the plugin loader has been reduced.
C2-345	Collection Agent	A configuration test mode has been added to the Collection Agent.
COL-7674	Netprobe	SU plugin has been deprecated.
COL-11093	Netprobe	Netprobe can now search and try and locate Java when JAVA_HOME is not set. The precedence for locating Java are the following: -java-home command line option specified when running Netprobe. JAVA_HOME environment variable. Locate Java executable using PATH environment variable . Try the default installation folder:  Windows: C:\Program Files\Java Linux: /etc/alternatives
COL-11189	FIX Analyser 2 plugin, Netprobe	The following Netprobe plugins, which are already deprecated and not supported, are now removed from Netprobe: Citrix Apps, Citrix Processes, Citrix Sessions, Citrix Summary Combo Component Versions DQM Compare, DQM Updates Effix Status Fix Cameron Status Gissing RTIC Latency SWX Triarch Latency UL Bridge
COL-11281	Netprobe	The following plugins have been deprecated: GL Greffon, GL Lost Orders, GL Order Book, GL Permissions, GL SLC, GL SLC Relay, GL SLE, GL SLE TCP, MISS-X, PATS Status, PATS Trading Breaches, PATS Users, SETS SLC, and Tradeview.
COL-11327	Gateway	The Collection Agent and plugins included in the Netprobe package have been upgraded to version 3.x.
COL-11328	Netprobe Helm Chart	The Netprobe helm charts have been updated to use Collection Agent v3 docker image.
COL-11329	Gateway	Kubernetes V3 builtin mapping has been added to support the Kubernetes plugin 3.x.
COL-11361	Gateway	Prometheus V3 builtin mapping has been added to support the Prometheus plugin 3.x.
COL-11363	Netprobe	When Dynamic Entities are configured for Self-Announcing Netprobes, the Managed Entities are now optional.
COL-11399	Netprobe	The Kubernetes specific Netprobe package (geneos-netprobe-<version>-kubernetes.tar.gz) is no longer available to download from the ITRS Downloads website. We recommend that you set up Kubernetes monitoring using the Helm Charts available through ITRS Helm repository. See Installation using Helm for more information.
COL-11401	Netprobe	MDM plugin no longer requires the Application Key file, mdm_appkey.txt.
HAAW-64, HAAW-333, HAAW-345	AWS	AWS plugin now displays the following attributes of the monitored EBS volumes: VolumeType AttachedInstances CreateTime
HAAW-329	AWS	Metric names produced by the AWS plugin have been changed to be consistent with AWS convention. This may break existing x-paths that reference the old name. Please check the Gateway configuration to make sure AWS plugins related x-paths are valid.
HAAW-344	AWS	AWS plugin now displays the LaunchTime attribute of the monitored EC2 instances.
HAAW-350	AWS	The AWS Marketplace AMI has been updated to support Geneos 6.0.0 binaries.
UTL-1194	Gateway, Netprobe, Webslinger, Licence Daemon, FIX Analyser 2 Netprobe	Gateway, Netprobe, Webslinger, and License Daemon now allow the use of -minTLSversion option to specify 1.3 as the minimum TLS protocol version.
UTL-1221	SSO Agent	SSO Agent no longer supports Windows platforms.
VI-8743	Active Console, Gateway Setup Editor, Web Server	The date and time logging format for the Active Console and Web Dashboard is now yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS.
VI-9368	Active Console, Gateway Setup Editor	The Paths dockable now shows an orange or warning highlight for paths that use non-identifying predicates. Highlighted paths now show tooltips that gives a hint that the path may be inefficient.
VI-9514	Active Console, Gateway Setup Editor, Web Server	The PostgreSQL library in the Active Console and Web Dashboard has been upgraded to 42.4.1 to address the security vulnerability: CVE-2022-31197.
VI-9517	Active Console, Gateway Setup Editor	Active Console history charts using data from ITRS Obcerv now use buckets to improve performance. Adjusting the chart's horizontal scrollbar to select a date range or resizing the chart's width will trigger a chart update and select more or less bucketed data points depending on the chart's width and selected data range.
VI-9522	Active Console, Gateway Setup Editor, Web Server	The OpenJDK library in the Active Console and Web Dashboard has been upgraded to 8u345-b01 to address the security vulnerabilities: BDSA-2022-0129 BDSA-2022-0133 BDSA-2022-0134

Known issues

To view the list of known issues for all Geneos 6.x releases, see Geneos 6.x Known Issues.

Geneos 6.x Release Notes	Released: September 2022 Last updated: September 2022
Geneos 5.x Release Notes	Released: December 2019 Last updated: September 2022
Geneos 4.x Release Notes	Released: February 2017 Last updated: December 2019