m23 rock 13.2 has been released with full support for Debian 7 Wheezy. Here the announcement:
m23 rock 13.2 is all about Debian 7 "Wheezy". The 7th incarnation of Debian is now used as a basis for the m23 server and the network boot images and is also available for installation on m23 clients. For these, the desktop environments GNOME 3, KDE 4.8.4, LXDE, TDE 3.5.13 and XFce 4.8.0.3 can be used and installed automatically using m23.m23 rock 13.2 now with full support for Wheezy
But this is by far not everything which is new: The new m23 version also contains support for the integration of Linux Mint 15 and a function to Ex-/Import package selections and extended options for handling external DHCP servers which are not controlled by m23.
Up to now, it was only possible to save package selections in the database of the m23 server. Now we introduced the option to save them in simple text files which can later be imported. This is useful, for example, to transfer package selections between multiple m23 servers or to construct a package list with the tools of the respective distribution and to import it afterwards.
For the vexed subject "external DHCP server" there is a new solution strategy, inspired by the iX article "Linux-Clients mit m23 zentral verwalten (Central administration of Linux clients with m23)". From m23 13.2 on, the settings of all m23 clients which are supposed to boot via network can be exported in the notation of an ISC DHCP server, so that the administrator (or an automated script) can add these settings to the configuration of a DHCP server which is not controlled by m23.
Two new functions allow to deactivate the verification of SSL certificates for the client-server-communication. One of them deactivates the verification specifically for a single client and the other globally for all clients. Even if I do not think that the deactivation is a good idea, it can be necessary in some special cases, where without it, no jobs and feedbacks can be sent between client and server.
We also introduced the merging of installation jobs for normal packages. All jobs with identical priorities are combined into one installation job. This helps speed up the completion of many single jobs and makes sure that every package is marked for installation only once.
For developers, there is the new chapter "Using new Debian/Ubuntu releases with m23" in the "Development guide", where the adaptation of m23 for installation and administration of new, not officially by m23 supported, Debian and Ubuntu versions is described. This could be interesting especially for those of you who employ Ubuntu beyond the LTS versions which are supported by m23. Please let me know if you have been successful with an adaptation
The halfSister API was extended by new commands, which allow for the integration of halfSister distributions for use in future developments. Now there is only the implementation of the respective functions in the distribution-specific m23HSAdmin scripts left to do. Any volunteers? ;-)
The new version is available as update via the m23 interface, via APT, as ISO to burn the m23 server installation CD as preinstalled virtual machine and as Raspberry Pi image file (the last three can be found in the download section).
