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Release Notes

5.3.0

New Features:

  • Node.js has been updated to 12.19.0.

  • Internet Explorer 11 is no longer supported.

  • In addition to the already supported operating systems, PLOSSYS 5.3.0 is supported on Windows 2019, SLES 15 SP2 and RHEL 8.2.

  • PDF Tools 3.5.1.3 is used with PLOSSYS 5.3.0.

  • For dispatching the jobs, the seal-controller service has been introduced which will replace the seal-dispatcher service in the next version. By default, the seal-dispatcher service is still used but you can already activate the seal-controller service by setting JOB_DISPATCHING to next. For update hints, refer to Update on Windows or Update on Linux.

  • The CONVERT_ON_PRINTER_START service key is available which specifies if waiting jobs are scheduled for conversion when the printer is being started.

  • The status of a device can be monitored via IPP if the device has an IPP interface. Unless specified, the monitoring IPP URL is determined from the printer's connection URL. For more information, refer to Configure the Device Monitoring.

  • The useCopier printer key is available which specifies if the seal-copier service is used for resolving the job copies by sending the document data multiple times to the printer. Normally, the job copies are resolved by the printer itself.

  • The jobMaxPostponedCount printer key is available which specifies how often a job for this printer will be postponed by the service in case the next service is not available for example. After exceeding the specified maximum of postponements, the job will be considered erroneous. This printer key overwrites the JOB_MAX_POSTPONED_COUNT service key for the specific printer.

  • In PLOSSYS Administrator, the following new features have been implemented:

    • PLOSSYS Administrator has been updated to Angular 11.

    • With the new PAGINATION_STEPS and PAGINATION_DEFAULT_STEP service keys, the selection menu for the number of items displayed in the lists can be specified.

    • With the new PRINTERS_METADATA and JOBS_METADATA service keys, columns can be added to the printers and jobs views. For more information, refer to Configure Additional Columns.

    • The status of the device can be displayed in an extra column and can be updated manually via menu item. The details of the device status are displayed in an extra dialog.

    • In the user interface, all items of the current page can be selected via a checkbox.

    • After the log-on, the last view is displayed instead of the dashboard.

    • If an operation takes a longer time, for example, when processing many items, a process bar is displayed.

    • A confirmation dialog is opened when adding more than 50 items to a list watch tab.

    • The Location, Comment and Department columns can be selected for being displayed but are deselected by default.

    • The PRINTER.DETAILS.config. prefix is cut with parameters having no translation assigned.

    • When redirecting a printer, the printer is stopped before.

    • For showing the log messages of jobs and printers, direct links to Kibana are provided which open new browser windows.

    • The icon font used in the user interface (Font Awesome) has been updated to the newest version.

    • The user profile is displayed in an extra dialog.

Bug-Fixes:

  • The printer name is case-insensitive now.

  • Syntax error handling of PLOSSYS CLI has been improved.

  • The bug with the SAP BC-XOM reply when deleting a job has been fixed.

  • In PLOSSYS Administrator, the following bugs have been fixed:

    • The delete functionality has been activated for jobs waiting for preprocessing.

    • The numbers of jobs in the different statuses are evaluated correctly in the charts displayed in the dashboard.

    • The order of the parameters is still the same after reloading the page.

    • The empty window after deleting a watch tab for printers or jobs is no longer displayed.

    • Some bugs concerning reloading have been fixed.

5.2.1

New Features:

  • The preprocessing, processing and postprocessing steps have been revised. Preprocessing consists of the analysis of the input file and the conversion into the metaformat (PDF) which can be processed by PLOSSYS 5. The processing consists of the formatting (scaling, rotation), the rendering (stamping) and the postprocessing (conversion into the format which can be processed by the output device).

  • The waiting status has been replaced by the preprocessing, waitpreprocessing and waitprocessing statuses.

  • For a better performance, the results of the processing steps are kept in the database and are used if a job has to be repeated with the same settings.

  • The seal-pdf2ps, seal-pdfstamp, seal-ps2pdf, seal-router and seal-sapgof services have been replaced by new ones or have become obsolete. They have to be uninstalled manually after the update.

  • For the preprocessing, processing and postprocessing steps, standard flows are provided which can be customized via customer-specific flows and user exits. The customer-specific flows will not be overwritten when updating PLOSSYS 5.

  • Via PLOSSYS CLI, flows can be listed, imported, removed and exported to a file. When being imported, the flows are checked for syntactical correctness.

  • Native queues are available. All jobs send to a native queue are spooled by PLOSSYS 5 without any conversion or other manipulation. A queue becomes a native queue by setting the nativeQueue queue parameter to true.

  • Native jobs are supported. A job becomes a native job by setting the document-format IPP parameter to application/vnd.plossys.native or by setting PLS_PLOTTYPE to NATIVE in the SEAL attributes with IPP or as PostScript property.

  • PostScript input files are only converted into PDF and back to PostScript if the files are generated by Adobe Acrobat and the output is a PCL 6 printer.

  • For a printer failover, more than one URL can be specified in connection with the printer configuration. The URLs has to be separated by blank. If the connection to a URL cannot be established, the next URL is tried.

  • The new versions Ghostscript 9.52 (Build Number 6), PDF Tools 3.5.1.2 and sapgofu2pdf 9.0.6 are contained in delivery.

  • Jobs in the preprocessing status can be canceled, deleted, paused and resumed.

  • When setting the query parameter errorHandling to smart in the LPR connection string, a job will be considered as successful as soon as all data have been sent. A missing ACK from the printer will not result in an error in this case.

  • PostScript files containing a PJL header at the beginning are recognized.

  • In PLOSSYS Administrator, the following new features have been implemented:

    • The framework Angular has been updated to the version 9. In doing so, the dashboard has been revised completely.

    • The user can reset the user interface to the defaults which means, for example, that the default columns are displayed and the column widths are set to the defaults.

    • The user can select which columns are to be displayed, for example, the column displaying the target printer with redirected printers.

    • The texts displayed in the user interface can be customized and new languages can be added.

    • With any printer, a note can be input, for example, when a printer is out of order due to maintenance. The note is displayed in a separate column. A tooltip shows the complete text when hovering over the column. It shows also the user who entered the note and the time when the note was entered.

    • A checkbox is provided for switching on an automatic reload of the printer and job views. The interval can be specified in the user profile individually. Default are 5 seconds.

    • In the job view, a link to the specified printer is provided. When clicking the link, a watch tab is created in the printer view containing the printer.

    • In the printer view, a link to the assigned jobs is provided. When clicking the link, a watch tab is created in the job view containing the jobs.

    • The user-specific settings (for example, the column selection and column widths) are additionally stored on the server so that the user has always the same settings, for example, when using another Web browser.

    • Like in all other columns, wildcards can also be used when filtering the printers.

    • Watch tabs can be created conveniently via context menu in the printer and the job views. Printers and jobs can be add to a watch tab or removed from a watch tab. Watch tabs can also be renamed.

    • The conversion results are provided together with the other job files when downloading the job in PLOSSYS Administrator.

    • Filters in the printer and in the job view can be saved as tabs.

Bug-Fixes:

  • jobid and uuid are logged correctly by all services and in all log levels.

  • The bug with the erroneous job count has been fixed.

  • If an error occurs within the conversion, an error message is output and the job is marked as erroneous.

  • In PLOSSYS Administrator, the following bugs have been fixed:

    • The language-specific translations have been added for some new job attributes.

    • The number of jobs waiting for a stopped printer is displayed correctly.

    • The details dialog stays open with the automatic reloading.

5.1.0

New Features:

  • With the version 5.1.0 of PLOSSYS 5, the directory structure of PLOSSYS 5 has been changed. Due to this, some steps have to be done manually when updating to this version. For more information, refer to Update on Windows or Update on Linux.

  • ELK has been updated to the version 7.6.0. ELK has been renamed to Elastic Stack and Logstash is no longer required. Also, Elasticsearch Curator is no longer required for purging Logstash indices. The installation of Elastic Stack for PLOSSYS 5 has two parts now, one for the management server containing Elaticsearch, Kibana and Logrotate and one for the {{ SHORT_NAME }} server containing Filebeat. For this, two different installation packages are provided.

  • MongoDB has been updated due to security vulnerabilities.

  • Node has been updated to version 12 due to version 8 is no longer supported.

  • The default authentication has been changed from Basic Auth/NTLM to OIDC.

  • The default authentication type and the allowed OIDC clients with default roles has been added to the default configuration file (plossys.yml).

  • PLOSSYS 5 recognizes PCL-5, PCL-6 and OTF (UTF-16 and ASCII) jobs.

  • PLOSSYS 5 recognizes ZPL jobs and routes them through without conversion by default.

  • After receiving the SIGINT or SIGTERM signal, the server tries a graceful shutdown by closing the TCP server for incoming new connections and waiting until all currently open connections are closed.

  • Consul is initialized only once and the configuration is passed to all modules.

  • The configuration of PLOSSYS 5 can be read from local files instead of Consul.

  • If the SERVICE_DISCOVERY environment variable is set to cloud, the seal-sapgof service reads the configuration from the local file instead of from Consul.

  • For the seal-sapgof service and the seal-pdfstamp service, the CONFIG_DIR environment variable is available for specifying a directory containing the configuration files, for example, when running PLOSSYS 5 without Consul in the cloud.

  • The seal-ipp-proxy service is available.

  • The seal-attributes tags contained in IPP jobs are now merged into the job object used by printer templates. If values are specified either in IPP and in the job, IPP takes priority.

  • The IPP operation Get-Notifications is available. With the notify-wait attribute, the connection stays open until the job is in a final state in order to get more notifications.

  • The IPP operation CUPS-Get-Printers is available for returning all printers.

  • Test jobs can be created via IPP. Therefore, printer names containing special characters (UTF-8) are possible.

  • With PLOSSYS CLI, the config update command is available, which is similar to config import but imports only those keys which do not exist yet.

  • PLOSSYS CLI can get HTPASSWD data from Consul, generate a template for this data and import it to Consul.

  • PLOSSYS CLI can get ALLOWED_OIDC_CLIENTS data from Consul, generate a template for this data and import it to Consul.

  • The PRINT_ERROR_SHEET environment variable is available which specified if an error sheet is output in case of error. Before, the error sheet was output in case of error, now the error sheet is not output by default but can be activated by setting PRINT_ERROR_SHEET to Y.

  • All tables with PLOSSYS Administrator have been redesigned.

  • Texts which do not fit into the column no longer overwrite the text in the next column but are displayed partly. The complete text is displayed in a tooltip when hoovering over it.

  • The service configuration file for the PLOSSYS Administrator service has been changed to /usr/lib/systemd/system.

  • In PLOSSYS Administrator, the roles received from the identity provider and the effective roles are shown.

  • IPP Checkin, IPP Proxy and IPP Checkout stream data directly into MongoDB instead of loading it into the memory.

  • For the seal-dispatcher service, the JOB_MAX_POSTPONED_COUNT environment variable is available, which specifies how often a job will be postponed in case the next service is not available for example. After reaching the specified maximum of postponements, the job will be considered erroneous.

  • Ghostscript version 9.27.0 is used by PLOSSYS 5.

  • PDF Tools version 3.5.1.1 is used by PLOSSYS 5.

  • sapgofu2pdf version 9.0.6 is used by PLOSSYS 5.

  • Message Server is supported with the job reply to SAP BC-XOM.

  • SAP NW RFC SDK 7.50 is supported due to version 7.20 no longer is supported.

Bug-Fixes:

  • The {{ SHORT_NAME }} status has been corrected for IPP status aborted.

  • Some bugs in PLOSSYS Administrator have been fixed, for example, the select button for printer and date in Internet Explorer.

  • The path of the Ghostscript binary has been corrected.

  • The bug with the fatal error message when starting ELK has been fixed.

  • The bug with JOB_LIFETIME_WAITING_PICKUP has been fixed.

  • ipp-checkin sets the compression-supported attribute correctly to none when an IPP client requested the attributes with get-printer-attributes.

  • The bug with printer names consisting of digits only has been fixed.

  • The UUID is logged by all services correctly.

  • The bug with handling special characters in the printer name has been fixed.

5.0.5

New Features:

  • Allow authentication via OIDC (JWT, Json Web Token) with PLOSSYS CLI.

  • OIDC password flow is supported for authentication as alternative to Basic Auth.

  • For PLOSSYS CLI, new commands are available for setting and getting values of configuration keys in Consul and creating templates for specific keys such as ALLOWED_OIDC_CLIENTS.

  • With PLOSSYS CLI, the value of the HTPASSWD key can be read from and writes to a file that is given with the HTPASSWD_FILE key for the Basic Auth authentication.

  • The pickup status has been introduced and is set correctly for new printers. With a pickup printer, the status cannot be changed. The jobs in pickup printer queues are not processed.

  • With JOB_LIFETIME_CANCELED, a time interval can be specified after which the canceled jobs will be removed.

  • With JOB_LIFETIME_WAITING_PICKUP, a time interval can be specified after which the jobs waiting in a pickup printer queue will be removed.

  • With the SHOW_ALL_JOBS_FOR_PRINTER key, all jobs of a printer can be displayed.

  • Basic Auth is available as user authentication.

  • The following IPP operations have been implemented: Hold-Job, Restart-Job, Validate-Job, Cancel-Job for a specific job-id, Get-Job-Attributes, Release-Job

  • Release-Job and moveJob have been enhanced in order to find the target printer with Secure&Pickup Printing.

  • Canceled jobs are hidden in the Get-Jobs response. This prevents the Windows printer queue from listing canceled jobs with Deleting status and thus confusing the user.

  • Attributes have been added to the Get-Printer-Attributes response for supporting the iOS printer profiles.

  • Secure&Pickup Printing is supported. Pickup queues are configured via the pickup=true queue parameter.

  • The version of Ghostscript is logged in the verbose mode.

  • Reading print data from database as buffer instead of a utf-8-encoded string allows sending binary data via IPP.

  • Jobs can be canceled. The cancelation is logged.

  • Via the MONGO_EVENTS_COLLECTION_SIZE key, you can specify the size of the capped collection for storing the events.

Bug-Fixes:

  • Every POST and PUT route is checked for valid permission. If the permission check fails, 403 is returned.

  • If authenticating with Basic Auth is used and no htpasswd file has been specified with the HTPASSWD_FILE key, authentication will never be granted. Before it was granted to everyone without checking the user and the password.

  • The canceled jobs are taken into account with the timeline statistics.

  • The current.seal-attributes.finalEventSent flag is set in the job properties correctly when the final status has been sent to SAP.

  • The bug with canceling jobs has been fixed.

  • seal-ipp-checkin no longer starts with an unsupported SERVICE_URL, ://localhost:631 or tls://localhost:631 for example. Now, an HTTPS server is started if the SERVICE_URL starts with https://... or ipps://... and an HTTP server if it starts with http:// or ipp://. If the Service URL is unknown, an error is output instead of starting the server.

  • The bug with activating TLS has been fixed.

  • The job-statusIPP attribute is set correctly if the job is in the canceled or aborted state.

  • The bug that jobs checked-in via IPP were mistaken as SAP notifications and repeatedly notified about has been fixed.

  • The copies IPP attribute correctly starts at 1 instead of 0.

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