Site news — Forge@Lancaster

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2017-03-05 SVN SSH commit hack

A hack has been applied to fix the SSH hook environment bug preventing SSH clients from committing to SVN repositories. Administrators are advised that the hack duplicates some of the configuration, so care must be taken to ensure these are kept synchronized, and the hack should be removed as soon as SVN 1.9.5 is installed by package upgrades.
2017-02-20 Machine accounts enabled

You can now create machine accounts for unattended SSH access.
2017-02-17 Automatic LaTeX processing

LaTeX in SVN folders can now be converted automatically into PDFs. Experimental. See Building LaTeX documents.
2017-01-29 Site accessible without SSL

This site now has dual open and secure sections. This means that users do not need to accept a self-signed certificate for pages that can be accessed anonymously. This includes Subversion folders that explicitly grant access to anonymous clients. The official URL for Forge@Lancaster is now http://scc-forge.lancaster.ac.uk/, but all secure addresses will still work, redirecting to the open site if only anonymous access is possible.
2017-01-29 Minimal Git support

Basic support for Git repositories have been added, i.e., creation, pushing and pulling, authorization, anonymous access. Missing features include forking, requesting merges, hook scripts. Controls are tucked away in the Maintenance guide.
2016-11-09 SVN commits over SSH won't work

Due to a small bug in svnserve, the hook environment is not set up properly, so all attempts to commit over SSH (which uses svnserve) will fail. The bug has been fixed, but it will take some time to propagate to package management.
2016-11-01 New access control

Group membership and access control is now configurable through a new interface, allowing you to to look up users and groups by name. Group names and identities have been detached. Most hook scripts can be applied to subdirectories, not just the root. Authentication remains the same, except that you can now log in with email address. New courtesy accounts will not have usernames, and must identify with email address. We also now have real grass.
2016-10-26 New DNS name for Forge@Lancaster
Forge@Lancaster is now accessible under scc-forge.lancaster.ac.uk as well as scc-forge.lancs.ac.uk and forge.comp.lancs.ac.uk, to remain consistent with other School and University resources. The old names are deprecated, and should not be used for new work. However, they will still continue to operate for some time.

You should be able to migrate your Subversion working copies over to the new name with one of the following commands:
```
svn switch --relocate \
    'https://scc-forge.lancs.ac.uk/' \
    'https://scc-forge.lancaster.ac.uk/'

svn switch --relocate \
    'svn+ssh://svn@scc-forge.lancs.ac.uk/' \
    'svn+ssh://svn@scc-forge.lancaster.ac.uk/'

svn switch --relocate \
    'https://forge.comp.lancs.ac.uk/' \
    'https://scc-forge.lancaster.ac.uk/'

svn switch --relocate \
    'svn+ssh://svn@forge.comp.lancs.ac.uk/' \
    'svn+ssh://svn@scc-forge.lancaster.ac.uk/'
```
…or with the equivalent action in your graphical tool. In the first instance, you might be asked to verify an SSL cerificate or public key.
2016-10-26 Downtime warning

Some downtime for an upgrade is planned for 2016-10-29/30. An email will go to the SCC mailing list to notify when the service is back up.
2016-10-09 Upgrade complete

The server was upgraded successfully, starting at 11:11, and returning at 12:13.
2016-10-06 Downtime warning

Some downtime for an upgrade is planned for 2016-10-08/09. An email will go to the SCC mailing list to notify when the service is back up.
2015-03-27 New name for Forge@Lancaster

Forge@Lancaster is now accessible under scc-forge.lancs.ac.uk as well as forge.comp.lancs.ac.uk, to remain consistent with other school resources. The old name is now deprecated, and should not be used for new work. However, it will still continue to operate for some time.
2015-02-21 Upgrade complete

The server was upgraded successfully, starting at 13:45, and returning at 16:25.
2015-02-17 Downtime warning

Some downtime for an upgrade is planned for 2015-02-21/22. An email will go to the SCC mailing list to notify when the service is back up.
2014-03-10 Certificate updated

The old certificate had expired, so a new one has been created and deployed. HTTPS clients will warn you that it is a self-signed certificate, and might ask you to accept it.
2014-01-07 Upgrade complete

The server was upgraded successfully, and returned at 14:42.
2014-01-06 Downtime warning

Some downtime for an upgrade is planned for 2014-01-07 in the afternoon. An email will go to the SCC mailing list to notify when the service is back up.
2012-10-29 Unexpected downtime

The server was taken down today due to essential software being removed by automatic updates! Sorry about that!
2012-07-23 Fixed sending of commit emails

Due to a change in the access policy of the mail server, commit emails to regular users were not being delivered. This is now fixed.
2012-05-02 Email output fixed

This server was still using the old mail server for sending emails, which might have caused problems when committing to repositories configured to send emails on commit. It has now been switched to the new one.
2012-03-11 Hook script added to prevent insertion of generated content

New repositories now come with a default hook script to block additions of generated files. Repository administrators can switch it off later, if they are certain it is not necessary. Users should consult the commit advice before requesting removal of this script.
2011-12-02 Migration complete

The site was migrated successfully, and returned at 14:05.
2011-11-28 Migration warning

Migration to a new server is planned for 2011-12-02. The service will be down for a couple of hours while repositories are transferred. An email will go to the SCC mailing list just before shutdown, and another to notify when the service is back up.
2011-06-14 Certificate updated

The old certificate had expired, so a new one has been created and deployed. HTTPS clients will warn you that it is a self-signed certificate, and might ask you to accept it.
2010-10-13 Fixed full-diff commit notification

There was a problem with Commit notifications, whereby the generated emails were blank. This has now been fixed.
2010-06-17 Chrome supported

Generation of XSLT pages is now more rigorous, so even Google Chrome should be able to view them.
2010-03-21 SSH2 keys accepted

For SSH access to repositories, you can now use either OpenSSH or SSH2 formats.
2010-01-05 Server functions restored

The server was restarted and properly configured to authenticate LANCS identities.
2009-12-30 Server disabled by powercut

The server VM failed to restart after a powercut rebooted the VM host.
2009-06-09 Commit notifications re-enabled

The mail server was fixed, so notifications have been turned back on.
2009-06-08 Commit notifications disabled

forge@comp is no longer able to send email, and the errors were causing the commits to seem to fail.
2009-03-21 SSH access enabled

You can now access Subversion repositories via SSH.
2009-02-04 Site exposed in CAKES talk

Andrew Brampton presented A practical introduction to version control systems.
2008-09-17 Site opens

This site is now open for business!