OpenNMS On the Horizon – Docs, Nephron, Flows, Config Management, Cortex, Twin API, gRPC, Trapd, Non-Root, Vue, Maps, Web

Since last time, we did more work on documentation, Nephron and flows, config management, Cortex, the Twin API, Trapd, running as non-root, Vue Geomaps, and web input handling.

Also, Tarus Balog − the original project steward of OpenNMS and a co-founder of The OpenNMS Group − announced his departure this morning. The network monitoring landscape would not be the same without you, and we wish you luck on your next act.

Github Project Updates

Internals, APIs, and Documentation

• Bonnie and Mark did more work on various cleanups in topology and provisioning-related documentation.
• Bonnie and Mark continued their work on doc table formatting cleanups.
• Stefan merged his fixes to flapping Nephron tests.
• Freddy continued his work on the new config management API.
• Chandra worked on diagnosing a bug in flow processing.
• Stefan continued his work on Cortex flow aggregation and labeling.
• Yang Li continued his work on config management APIs.
• Chandra worked on a gRPC implementation of the new Twin synchronization API.
• Dustin started working on implementing Trapd config support for the Twin API.
• Dustin created an in-memory implementation of the Twin API.
• I did more work on trying to wrap up run-as-non-root issues.

Web, ReST, UI, and Helm

• Jane continued her work on building a proof-of-concept geomap in Vue.
• Jeff updated the notice wizard to handle input better.

Contributors

Thanks to the following contributors for committing changes since last OOH:

• Benjamin Reed
• Bonnie Robinson
• Chandra Gorantla
• Dustin Frisch
• Freddy Chu
• Jane Hou
• Jeff Gehlbach
• Mark Mahacek
• Patrick Schweizer
• Stefan Wachter
• Yang Li

Release Roadmap

August Releases

OpenNMS is on a monthly release schedule, with releases happening on the second Wednesday of the month.

The next OpenNMS release day is August 11th, 2021.

We currently expect a Horizon 28.0.2 release, plus updates to all supported Meridian releases.

Next Horizon: 29 (Q4 2021)

The next major Horizon release will be Horizon 29.

The current roadmap for Horizon 29 includes the following goals:

• running as non-root by default
• refactor the Minion's communication to get rid of out-of-band ReST calls to the OpenNMS core
• add support for persistence of flows to Cortex
• start the groundwork for replacing the topology UI with a pure-javascript version

Next Meridian: 2022 (Q? 2022)

With Meridian 2021 recently out, we do not yet have a specific timeline for Meridian 2022.

Expect it to include -- at the very least -- the JDK11 requirement and flow aggregation improvements from Horizon 28.
Ideally it will contain work going into Horizons 29 (and probably 30) if our timeline holds. 😅

Disclaimer

Note that this is just based on current plans; dates, features, and releases can change or slip depending on how development goes.

The statements contained herein may contain certain forward-looking statements relating to The OpenNMS Group that are based on the beliefs of the Group’s management as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the Group’s management. These forward-looking statements are, by their nature, subject to significant risks and uncertainties.

...We apologize for the excessive disclaimers. Those responsible have been sacked.

Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti...

We apologise again for the fault in the disclaimers. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.

Until Next Time…

If there’s anything you’d like me to talk about in a future OOH, or you just have a comment or criticism you’d like to share, don’t hesitate to say hi.

- Ben

Resolved Issues Since Last OOH

• NMS-1231: Change the webUI so it runs as a non-root user easily and reliably
• NMS-11730: The Dev Documentation doesn't have information about the Hardware Inventory
• NMS-11970: Create opennms user on install
• NMS-11982: syslogd as non-root user
• NMS-12005: opennms.service in non-root environment
• NMS-12007: opennms init script "runas" setting
• NMS-12026: TrapD won't run as non-root user
• NMS-12978: Add missing Prometheus collectd example in our documenation
• NMS-13370: Hardware Inventory Plugin needs docs
• NMS-13457: Geo-map POC: Investigate using AG-Grid to display nodes list on the geo-map page
• NMS-13459: Unable to create report on Horizon 28.0.1
• NMS-13466: Nephron: add more tests