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The Cycle Changelog.

Get a closer look at what we've been building: new features, performance enhancements, and platform upgrades.
  • 2020.12.14.1

    Faster Delegation And Ridiculously Long TXT Records

    • improvement
      DNS TXT Records

      Refactored DNS Service to properly handle long TXT records and added support for CNAME->TXT resolution.

    • improvement
      Orchestrator Delegation Logic

      Improvements to the platform orchestration logic has yeilded improvements in delegation time of 70%.

  • 2020.11.23.1

    Introducing the hosts.custom File

    • added
      Added Support For Custom Hosts File - /etc/hosts.custom

      The platform now looks for a file at /etc/hosts.custom and merges it into the existing /etc/hosts file.

  • 2020.11.16.1

    Staying Sharp And Lean with UI Fixes And Compressed DNS Answers

    • improvement
      Compressed DNS Answers (Discovery Only)

      Cycle’s Environment Discovery service will now utilize compression on DNS resolution. This compression will be applied to public DNS at a later time.

    • fixed
      IP Pools - IPv6

      Previously, unused IPv6 pools on Vultr were not properly cleaned up on server delete. Although there are no negative side effects, this issue is now fixed.

  • 2020.10.15.1

    Whats In A Name

    • added
      Additional Equinix Metal Servers

      Cycle now supports the s3.xlarge and m3.large Equinix Metal servers.

    • changed
      Batch Container Calls

      The API now supports ability to create/delete instances across multiple servers in a single call.

    • fixed
      Container Reconfiguration Race Condition

      Instances spread across multiple servers weren’t always in sync due to a caching race condition within compute-proxy layers.

    • changed
      Packet to Equinix Metal Transition

      Converted necessary API calls, identifiers, and logos to transition to Equinix Metal, per Packet’s acquisition.

    • improvement
      Compute Instance Caching

      Compute now caches instance meta information in RAM, greatly decreasing storage I/O.

    • added
      Storage Pools

      Any servers that have more than 2TB of storage on dedicated drives will automatically be provisioned with a “base pool” and a “storage pool”. Storage for instances can be customized per container volume into these pools.

    • improvement
      CycleOS Kernel 5.6

      CycleOS has been upgraded to using the 5.6 Linux kernel which contains a number of security patches, new features, and performance optimizations.

    • changed
      Owner -> Creator

      Renamed the ‘Owner’ field to ‘Creator’ on all components.

    • fixed
      Improper Closing of File Descriptors

      Internal API clients weren’t properly closing request handlers leaving thousands of file descriptors open eventually hitting the ‘max open files’ limit.

  • 2020.08.25.1

    Speed and Optimization Improvements

    This release focuses on optimizing and upgrading existing systems to enhance reliability, security, and portal speed.

    • improvement
      Stateful VPN

      The VPN is now stateful and will remember previously generated certificates.

    • fixed
      Internal API Throttle

      Internal API counts were being improperly kept, this has been resolved and is now functioning correctly.

    • improvement
      Container Shim State

      Container shims now carry their own state, improving reliability through platform updates.

    • improvement
      Compute Concurrency

      Previously, the compute service would only perform 4 actions concurrently. It can now perform as many concurrent actions as there are cores on the host machine.

    • fixed
      Migrations Race Condition

      Initiating a migration previously had the chance of causing a race condition, this issue has been resolved.

    • improvement
      Stateless Volumes Data Persistence

      Stateless volumes now appropriately reset volume data between restarts.

    • improvement
      RunC Update

      RunC has been updated to the latest version and all security patches have been applied.

    • improvement
      Instance Console Connection

      The connection to instance console has been improved to wait 5 seconds before connecting. This will reduce the overall number of sockets being used.

    • improvement
      Server Tags Sorting

      Server tags will now appear in alphabetical order when accessing them through dropdown menus such as the one on the container deploy wizard.

    • added
      Added Usage Meters

      There are new usage meters available showing image storage and hub usage.

    • added
      Member Invites

      Invitations to new hub members now show and can be managed on the hub members page.

    • improvement
      API Notifications Control

      Notifications generated programmatically from the API can now be silenced in account settings.

    • improvement
      Telemetry Configuration

      Container telemetry configuration can now be set through container configuration in the deployment section.

    • improvement
      API Optimization

      The portal has been optimized to use less API requests.

  • 2020.07.11.1

    Where Are My Friends?

    • improvement
      Instance Telemetry Sampling

      Containers can now be configured to sample telemetry data at a one second interval. Previous minimum was 10 seconds.

    • fixed
      Hub Invites

      Fixed a bug that would stop users from adding new members to a hub.

  • 2020.07.06.1

    Configure Resource Limits

    • fixed
      Stateful Migrations

      Stateful migrations were occasionally failing due to a race condition.

    • added
      Added RLimit Options for Containers

      Added the ability to configure RLimits on containers. [Available via Stacks / API, Portal next release]

    • fixed
      IP Pool Release

      Fixed a bug that prevented IP pools from being released after they were no longer in use.

  • 2020.07.01.1

    General Fixes and Improvements

    • fixed
      OCI Configs With Dots In Labels

      Platform now properly handles and escapes dots in OCI labels during image uploads.

  • 2020.06.24.1

    Secure by Default

    • added
      Ability to Toggle Node Services

      Users can now enable/disable node services as needed. This will help encourage Cycle's philosophy of "Secure By Default".

    • fixed
      Server Tags

      Fixed a bug that prevented new tags from being assigned to servers via the API.

  • 2020.06.03.1

    Environment Access Controls, Per Instance CPU/RAM Telemetry, and More!

    This release focuses on improving the user experience and administrative controls. In addition to controlling a users environment access, activity feeds will allow you to see what actions and events are happening within your hub. We've also modified the container and instance view into a fullscreen modal to improve navigation.

    • improvement
      Platform Agent Synchronization

      The agent service, which runs on all Cycle servers, has been rebuilt to be more fault-tolerant during updates while also implementing the ability to perform future updates without restarting containers.

    • improvement
      Refactored Network Handling

      The SDN and VXLAN functionality in Cycle’s compute service has been rebuilt to better manage routing tables allowing greater scaling of container instances.

    • improvement
      Instance Migrations

      The instance migration process has been rebuilt into a streamable-migration. This has a number of benefits including: faster migrations, more fault-tolerant migrations, and extra disk space is no longer required for migrations.

    • fixed
      Console Service

      Fixed a buffer overflow issue within the console service where console output could deadlock causing a node to experience a CPU spike and hang.

    • added
      Deprecate Containers

      Containers can now be marked as ‘deprecated’. Deprecation is useful for keeping a container around but not wanting it to start.

    • added
      Environment Access Controls

      Admins can now limit other hub members to specific environments. Additionally, environment access can be set as ‘view only’ or ‘manage / view’.

    • added
      'Manual' Deployment Strategy

      The ‘Manual’ deployment strategy prevents Cycle from determining where container instances should exist and instead gives full delegation control to the user. This deployment strategy is particularly useful for API integrations with Cycle.

    • added
      Container Modal

      To streamline easy switching between containers and other management workflows, the portal now uses a full-screen modal for managing containers. This modal enables you to quickly interact with containers without requiring a full page navigation and multiple clicks.

    • added
      Latency Sensitive Discovery

      When two containers with multiple instances need to communicate, Cycle will now automatically prioritize destination instances based off their expected latency.

    • added
      Activity Log

      All actions on Cycle now have a corresponding activity event. These events help show what all is happening on your hub and whether that event was initiated by a fellow hub member or the platform itself.

    • added
      Instance Telemetry

      CPU/RAM usage per instance can now be tracked and visualized from the container modal. Additionally, a webhook can be utilized to expand telemetry monitoring into other systems. A future release will have the ability to generate extended telemetry reports.

  • 2020.05.30.1

    Improved Stack Creation Flow

    • changed
      Stack + Image Build Flow

      The process of building a stack and/or image from the API has changed. Before, one would submit a task to generate a stack/image and collect the ID on success. Going forward, integrators must generate a stack/image object first then submit a task to that object to generate the stack build or import an image.

  • 2020.03.18.1

    General Fixes and Improvements

    • fixed
      Instance Scaling with SDN Networks

      Previously, a container that was scaled up, then scaled down, then scaled up again would experience network drops on newer instances.

    • improvement
      Stateful Instance Startup Options

      When configuring stateful instances, you can now specify first start, auto start, and default start commands and environment variables.

    • improvement
      Image Uploading Timeouts

      Should an image fail to upload to our image storage backend after building, Cycle will now automatically attempt a re-upload a maximum of 3 times.

  • 2020.03.16.1

    General Fixes and Improvements

    • fixed
      Portal Table Load Times

      When loading tables on the portal, there will be a speed increase on the first and subsequent loads of the table data.

    • fixed
      Compute Nodes Discovery

      There was an issue that prevented existing compute nodes from learning about other new compute nodes. This has been fixed.

    • improvement
      New Instance Console

      Improvements were made to the instance console providing a more consistent connection to the instance as well as better formatting.

  • 2020.03.15.1

    CAA Records Are Here!

    • improvement
      General UI Improvements

      All bulk delete buttons are now hold to click. Additionally, the infrastructure dashboard will now show clusters in alphabetical order and will remember your most recently selected cluster.

    • added
      Prune Stack Builds

      Using the prune stack builds button will delete all unused stack builds from a stack that are more than 30 minutes old.

    • added
      Support for CAA DNS Records

      The platform now supports the use of Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) records, which specify certificate authorities that are allowed to issue certificates for a domain.

    • fixed
      First Start Commands

      Fixed a bug that prevented 'first start commands' from running for stateful containers.

    • improvement
      Rebuilt Core Notification System

      Converted Cycle's entire notification system to a publish/subscribe model as opposed to an observer model. This should allow us to handle future scaling with ease.

  • 2020.02.25.1

    Backblaze Image Storage

    • improvement
      New Image Storage Backend

      Starting with v2020.02.25.5, Cycle's default image storage provider is now Backblaze B2. All previously uploaded images have been migrated automatically. This should resolve the slow build and start times that were frequently experienced with Wasabi.

  • 2020.02.24.1

    Trials and Auth Rework

    You can now try Cycle risk free for 90 days! In addition to this, we've decided to remove the two-factor authentication requirement when creating your account. If you wish to add 2FA, head to account settings.

    • added
      Login Options - Remember Me

      Logging in now has the “Remember Me” option, which will keep you logged in on the device for 30 days. Not selecting this option will log you out when you close your browser.

    • changed
      Two Factor Auth Update

      Two-factor auth can now be enabled or disabled from your account in the account security section.

    • improvement
      Account Create Update

      The signup flow has been reworked to no longer require two-factor authorization in order to create an account.

    • added
      Base Volume Meter

      Added a base volume usage meter to the server dashboard. The base volume is where logs, images, and the compute service are stored.

    • improvement
      Infrastructure Dashboard Improvements

      Sorting by cluster on the infrastructure dashboard now only shows the servers that are a part of that cluster.

    • security
      Authorization Rework

      The entire authorization system across the platform was reworked to be safer, more efficient, and scalable.

    • added
      Historical Data Filtering

      Most charts across the portal now allow selecting time ranges, and some have other filtering options. More will be added in the future.

    • improvement
      90 Day Trial

      Users new to the platform will now be able to create a hub under a "trial" plan that will allow them to test out Cycle risk free, with no credit card required.

    • removed
      Removed SAN Support

      Due to the unnecessary complexity and lack of consistency between providers, we have decided to remove SAN support for volumes. We will be replacing it with a much more streamlined and easy to use object storage implementation in the following weeks.

    • improvement
      Agent <-> Platform Synchronization

      Rebuilt the sync process on Cycle's agent to ensure that all service updates are fully atomic. This process guarantees that all customer nodes will always be the correct version.

    • improvement
      Improvements to Instance Migration

      Added a checksum to migrated instance volumes to ensure there was no corruption. If the checksum for the data doesn't match the original once migration is complete, the process is restarted automatically.

  • 2020.01.07.1

    Instance Migrations

    This release adds the ability to migrate instances across servers.

    • improvement
      Infrastructure Resource Dashboard

      The infrastructure dashboard now includes a much better look at total resource utilization per node, including the amount of shares used and available.

    • added
      Instance Migration

      Container instances can now be migrated between servers by visiting the instance dashboard and expanding advanced options.

    • changed
      Ability to Overcommit Servers

      A checkbox has been added to server settings which allows you to enable the overcommitting of resources. This setting doubles the amount of shares the server is permitted to allocate.

    • improvement
      Loadbalancer Improvements

      The loadbalancer service now supports: Sticky Sessions - for persistent connections. Health Checks - ensure routing to a healthy instance. Automatic Http/Https Redirection - if a cert is detected.

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