NAV

Hi everyone,

this is a two-fold announcement:

1. We have, as of today, published a NAV 4.9.7 package for Debian 10 (Buster) in our regular APT repository. Please see the updated instructions for use of the APT repository.

2. As previously mentioned, we are now discontinuing support for the Debian 8 (Jessie) line of NAV packages. There will be no new updates for this outdated platform from our side.

There is, however, one caveat to using the NAV package on Debian 10: If you want to serve both the NAV web UI and Graphite-web from the same server, you cannot achieve this on Debian 10 using the regular Apache + mod_wsgi method for both applications.

Debian 10 ships with a graphite-web package that runs on Python 3, while NAV 4.9 does not support Python 3 (we expect the next feature release to run on Python 3). mod_wsgi cannot be made to serve both Python versions on the same Apache server - you will have to select a Python-version specific mod_wsgi package.

For this reason, the virtual appliance has not yet been updated to Debian 10.

For our production deployments, we serve up NAV and Graphite-web using a uWSGI application server, and use Apache + mod_uwsgi as a front to provide TLS and serving of static file resources. This works fine on Debian 10, as each uWSGI application instance is an independent process.

UPDATE: The NAV virtual appliance has now been updated to run on Debian 10, using uWSGI to run Graphite-web under Python 3, separately from NAV (which still runs in mod_wsgi, at the moment). The documentation has been updated.

For the past 10 years or so, NAV has supported Jabber (via the XMPP protocol) as one of its possible notification dispatch methods. XMPP support is implemented through the xmpppy library, which seems to be unmaintained, and is not compatible with Python 3. As we no longer have customers who rely on NAV notifications via XMPP, we will no longer put resources into supporting it, and will be removing it as part of NAV’s transition to Python 3.

If you are someone who actually depends on XMPP notifications from your NAV, I would urge you to consider contributing a replacement implementation.

The only Python-based XMPP implementation currently listed on https://xmpp.org/ seems to be this one: https://lab.louiz.org/poezio/slixmpp .

The still-open pull request that removes the current implementation can be seen here: https://github.com/Uninett/nav/pull/1889 .

The seventh maintenance release of the 4.9 series of NAV is now out!

The source code is available for download at GitHub.

New packages for Debian 8/9 (Jessie/Stretch) are available in our APT repository as usual. Please be advised that the Debian 8 package will be discontinued soon.

The Debian packages for NAV 4.9 have been rebuilt using dh-virtualenv, which means that most of the Python dependencies are now embedded into the packages themselves. If you have previously added a priority apt pin for packages from apt.uninett.no, you may now remove it, as there are no longer any other packages needed from that repository to run NAV.

Please also be extra aware of config file changes. Look out for *.dpkg-dist files in /etc/nav and make sure to update your running config.

The virtual appliance has also been updated.

Fixed GitHub issues in this release:

• #1882 (Invalid VLANs are generated from Juniper switches)
• #1920 (Provide a hook for adding extra information in the What-If tab in the IP Device Info page)
• #1946 (Vlans are categorized as linknets on Cisco Nexus with HSRP)
• #1953 (Adding new public filter in Alert Profiles fails)
• #1958 (NAV creates Graphite metrics with illegal characters in name)
• #1960 (Add option to control user administrator privileges from LDAP)

Release notes

We always advise you to have a look at NAV’s accompanying release notes when upgrading.

Happy NAVing everyone!

The sixth maintenance release of the 4.9 series of NAV is now out!

The source code is available for download at GitHub.

New packages for Debian 8/9 (Jessie/Stretch) are available in our APT repository as usual.

The Debian packages for NAV 4.9 have been rebuilt using dh-virtualenv, which means that most of the Python dependencies are now embedded into the packages themselves. If you have previously added a priority apt pin for packages from apt.uninett.no, you may now remove it, as there are no longer any other packages needed from that repository to run NAV.

Please also be extra aware of config file changes. Look out for *.dpkg-dist files in /etc/nav and make sure to update your running config.

The virtual appliance has also been updated.

Fixed GitHub issues in this release:

• #1782 (ipdevpoll snmpcheck algorithm no longer works as expected)
  • #1952 ((snmpcheck) Store up/down state in NetboxInfo, so we can properly sen…)
• #1931 (Support for HPE Metered PDUs)
  • #1933 (Add support for HPE metered PDUs)
• #1935 (The VLAN dropdowns in PortAdmin needs to show the description in addition to the id, if any)
  • #1955 (Show net ident for vlans in the portadmin vlan dropdown box)
• #1944 (Sensor links in Environment Rack navlet does not work)
• #1948 (Verify LDAP entitlements)

Release notes

We always advise you to have a look at NAV’s accompanying release notes when upgrading.

Happy NAVing everyone!

The fifth maintenance release of the 4.9 series of NAV is now out!

The source code is available for download at GitHub.

New packages for Debian 8/9 (Jessie/Stretch) are available in our APT repository as usual.

The Debian packages for NAV 4.9 have been rebuilt using dh-virtualenv, which means that most of the Python dependencies are now embedded into the packages themselves. If you have previously added a priority apt pin for packages from apt.uninett.no, you may now remove it, as there are no longer any other packages needed from that repository to run NAV.

Please also be extra aware of config file changes. Look out for *.dpkg-dist files in /etc/nav and make sure to update your running config.

The virtual appliance has also been updated.

Fixed GitHub issues in this release:

• #1890 (Temperature gauges do not render if multiple threshold rules apply to it)
  • #1921 (Handle arbitrary number of thresholds for a given sensor)
• #1902 (Sensor widgets should hyperlink to sensor’s page view, not IP Device’s page view)
• #1903 (Topology missing for LLDP-enabled Alcatel switches)
• #1906 (“Cisco chassis/module serial numbers decoded” report crashes when filtering)
• #1907 (servicemon DnsChecker fails when DNS server doesn’t have a matching record)
• #1916 (UninettMailDispatcher does not work under NAV 4.9)
• #1917 (snmptrapd needs to log more details about received traps)
• #1923 (ENTITY-MIB implementation can no longer resolve physical device classes properly)
  • #1924 (Support cross-MIB type definitions in MibRetrievers)

Release notes

We always advise you to have a look at NAV’s accompanying release notes when upgrading.

Happy NAVing everyone!

The fourth maintenance release of the 4.9 series of NAV is now out!

The source code is available for download at GitHub.

New packages for Debian 8/9 (Jessie/Stretch) are available in our APT repository as usual.

The Debian packages for NAV 4.9 have been rebuilt using dh-virtualenv, which means that most of the Python dependencies are now embedded into the packages themselves. If you have previously added a priority apt pin for packages from apt.uninett.no, you may now remove it, as there are no longer any other packages needed from that repository to run NAV.

Please also be extra aware of config file changes. Look out for *.dpkg-dist files in /etc/nav and make sure to update your running config.

The virtual appliance has also been updated.

NB: This release introduces a new dependency to py2-ipaddress==3.4.1

Fixed GitHub issues in this release:

• #1639 (Not all NAV programs respect TIME_ZONE from nav.conf)
• #1762 (navdump drops function-data)
• #1788 (Deleting an alert profile subscription that has queued alerts will cause alertengine to process all those alerts as if they were new ones on the queue. )
• #1885 (LDAP authentication against Microsoft AD using suffix bind is broken in NAV 4.9)
• #1894 (Terminals that don’t support colors cause nav start/stop commands to crash)
• #1895 (Verify nav.conf values as part of nav start)
• #1896 (UnicodeEncodeError when LDAP user with non-ASCII characters in DN logs in)

Release notes

We always advise you to have a look at NAV’s accompanying release notes when upgrading.

Happy NAVing everyone!

The third maintenance release of the 4.9 series of NAV is now out!

The source code is available for download at GitHub. New packages for Debian 8/9 (Jessie/Stretch) are published in our APT repository, as usual.

The Debian packages for NAV 4.9 have been rebuilt using dh-virtualenv, which means that most of the Python dependencies are now embedded into the packages themselves. If you have previously added a priority apt pin for packages from apt.uninett.no, you may now remove it, as there are no longer any other packages needed from that repository to run NAV.

Please also be extra aware of config file changes. Look out for *.dpkg-dist files in /etc/nav and make sure to update your running config.

The virtual appliance has also been updated.

Fixed GitHub issues in this release:

• #757 (devicehistory search by date ignores date)
• #1792 (Precision of several Eaton/MGE UPS sensors are wrong)
• #1812 (Malformed subid on (old) thresholdState events can cause status page and alert API endpoints to crash)
• #1818 (Update ENTITY-MIB definition to RFC 6933)
• #1855 (IPAM subnet suggest function is broken)
• #1856 (Geomap doesn’t work in NAV 4.9)
• #1857 (E-mailing of business report subscriptions doesn’t work)
• #1862 (Please add case-insensitive matching on interface names in ipdevinfo queries for ‘ifname’)
• #1865 (Servicemon resource leak causes all services to be reported as down)
• #1871 (Alert detail headers are not present in e-mail notifications from AlertEngine)

Release notes

We always advise you to have a look at NAV’s accompanying release notes when upgrading.
Happy NAVing everyone!

During a two-week whirlwind, three releases have been made in the new 4.9 series of NAV.

As the primary objective of the 4.9 release series was to move to some newer (non-outdated) versions of NAV’s dependencies, especially Django (with which we still have a way to go), lots of little regressions snuck up on us in the 4.9.0 and 4.9.1 releases. Thankfully, our ever watchful users diligently reported their problems back to us.

Copyright changes

NAV 4.9 introduced a previously announced license change. NAV is now licensed under the GNU General Public License v3. This change was primarily needed in order to be compatible with severale Apache 2.0-licensed libraries that we want to utilize in future NAV versions.

Changes

Let’s look at some of the functional changes introduced by these three releases:

Version 4.9.2

(released 14 Feb 2019)

User-visible features and improvements:

• #1837 (Save config to non volatile memory in portadmin for dell switches)
• #1853 (The navuser command should have an option to verify a user’s passord)

Fixed GitHub issues in this release:

• #1784 (Breadcrumb missing from /useradmin/tokens/)
• #1834 (AlertEngine fails to send email if EMAIL_PORT is present in nav.conf)
• #1839 (The interfaces API endpoint crashes when using the last_used filter)
• #1841 (Useradmin Token listing crashes on NAV 4.9.1 if any tokens are created with no endpoint list)
• #1842 (Netmap layer 3 graph API endpoint crashes on NAV 4.9.1)
• #1844 (PortAdmin crashes with TypeError if an ifaliasformat is configured)
• #1846 (IPAM fails under NAV 4.9.1 if any Organization object has non-ASCII characters in description)
• #1847 (“Rooms with active alerts” widget fails under NAV 4.9.1)
• #1848 (Stateless alerts are shown in status widget even when checkbox is left unchecked)
• #1851 (Fix searching for other things than ip addresses in portadmin)
• #1852 (Empty NAVbar search results in ValueError crash)

Version 4.9.1

(released 07 Feb 2019)

Fixed GitHub issues in this release:

• #1820 (ipdevpoll will not schedule jobs under NAV 4.9.0)
• #1822 (Command line argument support for nav daemon startup config)
• #1823 (Old switch port layout screen is blank in NAV 4.9.0)
• #1824 (navdump crashes when dumping service table)
• #1825 (Alertprofiles crashes when attempting to delete matchfield)
• #1826 (Device history crashes when attempting to browse the history of an IP Device)
• #1827 (Any l2trace search will crash with a Django FieldError)
• #1828 (PDU dashboard widget crashes under NAV 4.9.0)
• #1829 (Any toolbox descriptor file containing superfluous equal signs will be silently ignored by the web interface)
• #1830 (MAC address prefix filters are horribly slow in arp and cam API endpoints)
• #1831 (Threshold monitor crashes if rule returns Graphite error)

Version 4.9.0

(released 31 Jan 2019)

User-visible features and improvements:

• #1423 (Add API endpoint for accounts and account groups)
• #1509 (Add active alerts tab for port details page)
• #1646 (Add event/alert details page)
• #1615 (Room view - want device/interface count)
• #1624 (Add support for Dell DNOS-SWITCHING-MIB)
• #1659 (Add an interface browser tool)
• #1662 (Business reports, device availability - filter for maintenance)
• #1667 (More interface information for linkState alerts in status tool/widget)
• #1705 (Enable use of api endpoint without specifying version)
• #1706 (Audit log when users operates as other user)
• #1739 (PortAdmin - users should not be able to set trunk on port)
• #1758 (Writable vlan and prefix endpoints)
• #1761 (API netbox endpoint: filter on type__name)
• #1791 (Implement IT-WATCHDOGS-V4-MIB and GEIST-V4-MIB)
• #1807 (Implement support for Powertek PDU inlet status)
• #1817 (Add hook to customize tabs in ipdevinfo and info/room)

Fixed GitHub issues in this release:

• #1683 (Avoid “magic” Django bootstrapping in nav.models)
• #1703 (Upgrade Django Rest Framework)
• #1709 (Rename verb for changing interface admin status)
• #1728 (Upgrade python-ldap)
• #1744 (Replace automake toolchain with setuptools)
• #1752 (No warnings for Django 1.8)
• #1786 (Make middlewares work correctly on Django 1.10+)
• #1796 (A crashing search provider will crash the entire search ui)
• #1798 (Environment sensor rack API crashes on missing sensors)
• #1799 (Portadmin errors out if making changes after using browser back button)
• #1800 (Alert profile listing “Remove selected” button needn’t be visible when there are no profiles to select.)
• #1801 (Network Explorer MAC search always crashes)
• #1802 (Saving a threshold rule without a target crashes with a KeyError)
• #1803 (ipdevpoll should be able to perform reverse DNS lookups using /etc/hosts file)
• #1804 (Unrecognized neighbors report crashes with ‘bogus escape (end of line)')
• #1814 (Change the NAV license from GPLv2 to GPLv3)
• #1819 (/prefix/usage API endpoint crashes instead of returning 404 on non-existent prefixes)

Release notes

We always advise you to have a look at NAV’s accompanying release notes when upgrading.

Happy NAVing everyone!

The fifth maintenance release of the 4.8 series of NAV is now out!

The source code is available for download at GitHub. New packages for Debian 8/9 (Jessie/Stretch) are published in our APT repository, as usual.

The virtual appliance will be updated shortly.

Changes

Fixed GitHub issues in this release:

• #1688 (Report crashes when using %, * or non-ASCII characters in filter values)
• #1693 (Changing password from “User and API Administration” leads to KeyError)
• #1702 (Adding log entries with non-ascii characters crashes page)
• #1711 (Regression: Report crashes when attempting to sort a column filtered on a non-ASCII value)
• #1719 (‘navdump -a’ puts status messages into the output files)
• #1721 (Widget spinner visible when opening tool-menu)
• #1729 (Room search “CSV download” CR in “last active” field)
• #1734 (l2trace crashes when searching for invalid IP addresses)
• #1735 (HTTP errors from Graphite shouldn’t crash NAV’s Graphite render proxy)

Copyright changes

Third party copyright owners of NAV code, like The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and the University of Tromsø, have signed over their copyright for their code contributions to Uninett. NAV 4.8 is still licensed under GPLv2-only, but will be relicensed under GPLv3 in the upcoming 4.9 series. This should have no impact on end users; as a company with public ownership, Uninett will always strive to keep NAV under a free and open source license.

Happy NAVing everyone!

The fourth maintenance release of the 4.8 series of NAV is now out!

The source code is available for download at GitHub. New packages for Debian 8/9 (Jessie/Stretch) are published in our APT repository, as usual.

The virtual appliance will be updated shortly.

Changes

Fixed GitHub issues:

• #1638 (‘array index out of range’ when viewing a trunk port in PortAdmin)
• #1643 (Location with active alerts - edit title)
• #1650 (Submitting a threshold rule without a target crashes with a KeyError)
• #1655 (Auditlog only displaying the first 100 entries in the log)
  • #1654 (Fix broken auditlog browsing and auditlog more things)
• #1656 (Sensor widget crashes when sensor is missing)
• #1660 (UninettMailDispatcher does not support non-ASCII characters and requires SMTP server on localhost)
• #1661 (Business reports, link availability - want description)
• #1664 (Remove bracket syntax for url parameters to Graphite)
• #1665 (Interface details tries to get sensor data on empty sensorlist)
• #1669 (Shouldn’t use CAM to select topology for aggregated ports where LLDP is available on the physical ports)
  • #1685 (Do not consider CAM data from aggregator ports when there is LLDP/CDP topology available from its aggregated ports)
• #1670 (Treshold editor doesn’t work for metrics with hash characters in name)
• #1673 (Repeated traceback e-mails for Internal Server Error: /netmap/traffic/layer2/)
• #1676 (Audit log changes to API tokens)
• #1677 (ipdevinfo should link to an IP Device’s audit log)
• #1678 (EventMixIn.get_subject() should never return a string)
• #1680 (SeedDB patch editor only lists switch ports, not physical ports)

Happy NAVing everyone!