allows an alfred "superuser" to access any dispatcher via
the web browser interface.
provides a global (site) activity snapshot by querying all
running dispatchers for the state of their current jobs.
password protected via shared encrypted file.
See the configuration notes for more details.
Fallback maitre-d list
for sites requiring increased fault-tolerance in the maitre-d.
the 'maitredHost' specification in alfred.ini can now be a list
of host names; list order implies preference, highest to lowest.
administrator starts a maitre-d on each named host
dispatchers and nimbies connect to the highest ranking available
host on start-up.
if the current maitre-d disconnects (host crashes, etc), all
activity moves to the next one; the current state is reconstructed
based on messages from reconnecting dispatchers and nimbies.
if a higher ranking maitre-d is restarted, it causes dispatcher and
nimby connections to be broken with the current secondary maitre-d
and to be reestablished with itself.
a cgi (perl) script is provided with the release which can be
used to dynamically determine the current maitre-d (and redirect
http connections to it).
See the configuration notes.
init.d/rc2 auto-restart features
a set of scripts are provided with the release which can be
installed to automatically restart some of the important alfred
components when a host reboots.
the maitre-d can be started, as a specified user
the nrmserver can be started, as a specified user
dispatchers can be restarted for each user with checkpointed jobs
The launch/kill mechanism for alfred Cmd's has changed subtly
to allow more thorough sub-process shutdowns when an alfred
job is interrupted (i.e. when the job is deleted before completion
or when a NIMBY-interrupt or task retract occur).
Previously, some indirectly launched applications were not being
killed when a job was interrupted. For example, the "render" shell
script launches the "prman" binary; killing the shell process, with
kill(1), doesn't always kill the prman process.
The new launch procedure sets the sub-process session-id to its
own pid using setsid(2); then the kill signals are sent to the entire
process group, using kill(2). See the
scripting document for
more information on the launching and tracking procedures.
Miscellaneous Features
Added single-step up/down controls for the job queue
User-preferences in the alfred.ini file can now be "locked"
invocations via links to the alfred executable now work
properly. In addition, if the link is named "nimby" or "maitre_d"
then those modes are set as if "alfred -nimby" or "alfred -maitre_d"
had been invoked.
The maitre-d now reports (in its log) version differences between
itself and connecting clients (dispatchers or nimbies).
invocation as root is now disallowed, except for nimby mode.
a parsing bug in the Cmd -refersto option has been fixed.
