Posts for: #news

Prusa 3D: Printing with Prusament Resin Flex80

Flexible resins are a group of materials with low shore hardness and various uses. However, they can be challenging to print, often made from dangerous chemicals, and require washing in toxic solvents. To address these issues, Prusa3D has developed their own flexible resin called Flex80. This resin is odorless, non-toxic, and suitable for hobby and professional use. It offers fast print speed, great detail, the ability to print large objects, and easy washing with IPA.

When compared to flexible filaments, flexible resins have different properties. They can have lower shore hardness, allowing for softer and smoother models. However, flexible resins may take longer to return to their original shape compared to filaments. They are also less resilient and may crack if bent too much.

Flex80 resin is a versatile material that is easy to print and offers high performance at a low price. It has flexible and energy-damping properties, low viscosity, and is washable in IPA. The resin is virtually odorless and has high safety standards for skin irritation. It has high resolution for printing fine structures and is reliable for printing larger objects with support. The resin is easy to post-process with the Original Prusa CW1S and offers overall high performance.

After 60 minutes of curing, Flex80 resin has a tensile modulus of 17 MPa, tensile strength of 9 MPa, tensile elongation of 60%, and shore hardness of 70-80A. It can be processed by all types of SLA 3D printers but is specifically developed for printers using the 405 nm wavelength.

Flex80 resin has low toxicity and is suitable for various applications. It can be used to print models and figures with high detail and durability. The resin is also great for printing clear translucent models with minimal discoloration. It can be used in the field of microfluidics, for prototyping tires, medical models, grips, watertight seals, and rugged housing for electronic devices.

Source: Prusa3D.

XCP-ng Boosts Security with October 2023 Update

New security and maintenance updates are available for the only currently supported release of XCP-ng, version 8.2 LTS. This update includes fixes for several vulnerabilities in Xen and the Linux kernel in the controller domain. Additionally, maintenance updates that were ready and waiting for the next push are also included.

The fixed vulnerabilities in this security update are as follows:

  • XSA-440: CVE-2023-34323 - “xenstored: A transaction conflict can crash C Xenstored”. This vulnerability could potentially lead to a denial of service (DoS) attack. However, it only affects users who deliberately switched to C Xenstored from the default ocaml version used by XCP-ng.
  • XSA-441: CVE-2023-34324 - “Possible deadlock in Linux kernel event handling”. While this denial of service vulnerability is not exploitable in XCP-ng’s default configuration, a patched dom0 kernel is provided as an additional layer of defense.
  • XSA-442: CVE-2023-34326 - “x86/AMD: missing IOMMU TLB flushing”. On certain AMD systems, an attacker could exploit a vulnerability in the handling of PCI passthrough to escalate privileges, cause a denial of service, or gain access to leaked information.
  • XSA-443: CVE-2023-34325 - “Multiple vulnerabilities in libfsimage disk handling”. This privilege escalation vulnerability affects PV guests through flaws in the handling of libfsimage, particularly with XFS. While PV guests are deprecated and not security-supported on XCP-ng 8.2, a fix is provided for users who still have PV guests. It is strongly recommended to convert these VMs to HVM. The Xen Security Team plans to issue another update later this month to remove all uses of libfsimage wherever possible.
  • XSA-444: CVE-2023-34327 and CVE-2023-34327 - “x86/AMD: Debug Mask handling”. This vulnerability affects AMD CPUs, specifically the Steamroller microarchitecture and later. It allows guests to crash other guests and can also result in a crash of the host if a buggy or malicious PV guest kernel is present.

In addition to the security updates, this release includes other improvements:

  • The Storage Manager (sm) now has better handling of custom multipath configurations. Previously, modifying the /etc/multipath.conf file could lead to issues when the file was updated to add support for new hardware. The correct way to add custom multipath configuration is now through a file in the /etc/multipath/conf.d/ directory. XCP-ng 8.2 now includes a warning on top of the /etc/multipath.conf file, creates the /etc/multipath/conf.d/ directory by default, and provides a ready-to-modify /etc/multipath/conf.d/custom.conf file.
  • Guest templates have been synced with Citrix Hypervisor’s recent hotfixes. The only new template added is for Ubuntu 22.04.
  • A backport of Citrix Hypervisor’s hotfix (XS82ECU1048) for irqbalance has been included. This hotfix enables interrupt balancing for Fibre Channel (FC) PCI devices, improving performance on fast FC HBA SRs, especially when multipathing is used.

For more information and to download the October 2023 Security Update for XCP-ng 8.2, please visit the XCP-ng blog.

Grafana Releases Version 10.1.5

Grafana, the open-source platform for monitoring and observability, has announced the release of version 10.1.5. This release brings several bug fixes to improve the overall experience for users. The bug fixes address issues related to Cloudwatch, alerting, canvas, browsing dashboards, tempo service map, logs panel, plugin uninstallation, licensing, folder hierarchy, share links, and more.

Users can download the latest version of Grafana from the official download page and can find more information about the new features and enhancements in the release notes.

XCP-ng: Latest Rust Guest Tools Enhancements

XCP-ng has made significant progress in the development of their VM guest tools, which are being rewritten in Rust. These tools have moved from their alpha phase to the beta phase and are now considered robust, though not yet stable.

Here are the achievements that have been made:

  1. A complete README: XCP-ng has created a comprehensive README file that outlines the goals, design, and instructions for building and running the tools. The README can be found here.

  2. Drop-in compatibility: The new tools are designed to be fully compatible with the existing XCP-ng toolstack. This means that installing the new tools will not interfere with any external elements. Xen Orchestra, for example, will accurately display all relevant information such as IP addresses, distro version, and RAM usage.

  3. Alternative schema: The tools allow for flexibility in reporting data by offering different data formats. The default model, called ‘std’, is retro-compatible, while the adaptable model, called ‘rfc’, provides superior results. More details can be found in the usage documentation.

  4. Netlink as first class citizen: Netlink, a socket family that facilitates communication between the guest kernel and user space processes, plays a crucial role in the toolkit. It allows for efficient notification of network changes in the VM, resulting in quicker and more efficient updates. For guests without Netlink support, a fallback system has been implemented to ensure networking information can still be reported.

  5. Not restricted to Linux: The guest agent is compatible with other UNIX-family systems, such as BSDs. However, making it as efficient as on Linux guests poses a challenge, as Netlink support was previously limited to Linux. Efforts are being made to address this issue and make the guest agent work seamlessly on BSDs.

  6. Rust xenstore library: XCP-ng has contributed to the existing Rust xenstore project by enhancing API coverage. Financial support is also provided to the current maintainer to ensure the library’s upkeep.

  7. Modern builds, Security & dependency checking: Reproducible builds and security are key considerations in the redesign of the tools. CI infrastructure has been set up to maintain checks and balances, and Dependabot is being utilized to detect known vulnerabilities in dependencies. Work is ongoing to improve security measures.

  8. Code base improvements: The use of Rust in this project has allowed for code that embodies more “Rust-like” characteristics. The experience gained from this project has contributed to the growth of the code base.

Overall, XCP-ng’s progress in rewriting the VM guest tools in Rust is promising. The tools are becoming more robust, compatible, and efficient, offering improved functionality for users.

Web Server Caddy Version 2.7.5 Released

Caddy has released version v2.7.5 of its web server.

This release includes several bug fixes and improvements, including a fix for the HTTP/2 Rapid Reset issue that affected most HTTP/2 implementations. The update also includes an upgrade to quic-go from v0.37.5 to v0.39.0, which brings many performance improvements. The QUIC_GO_DISABLE_GSO and QUIC_GO_DISABLE_ECN environment variables can now be used to disable GSO and ECN if they cause problems. The file server’s fileserver.BrowseTemplate is now exported, allowing it to be customized by programs embedding Caddy. Environment variables loaded with --envfile no longer override existing variables. The encode handler now compresses application/wasm* content types by default. The reverse_proxy handler now has the ability to emit detailed logs for debugging streaming and buffering by setting the verbose_logs subdirective and logging to debug level. The version can now be checked with caddy -v, similar to other CLI utilities.

Caddy is currently on feature freeze until after version 2.8 to improve testing. The full changelog for version v2.7.5 can be found here.

PhotoPrism Releases Version October 11, 2023

PhotoPrism has recently released its latest version, October 11, 2023. This AI-powered photos app for the decentralized web offers advanced features to tag and find pictures automatically without any hassle. The best part is that it can be run on various platforms, including home servers, private servers, and in the cloud.

This service release comes with several notable updates and improvements based on the feedback and requests from the PhotoPrism community. Additionally, it includes fixes for recently discovered issues. The PhotoPrism team would like to express their gratitude to everyone involved in making this release possible.

Here are the highlights of what’s new in this version:

  • PWA: The automatic screen orientation issue in Google Chrome on Android has been fixed.
  • Upload: When using the mobile nav menu, the current album is now preselected, making the uploading process more convenient.
  • Videos: The creation of thumbnails can now only be disabled in experimental mode.
  • Settings: The ability to permanently delete files is now enabled by default in the settings.
  • RAW/HEIC: The original media information is now shown in the cards view details for RAW and HEIC files.
  • Live Photos: Embedded video files can be streamed and transcoded for Live Photos.
  • Metadata: Camera make and model name normalization has been improved for better organization and search.
  • Docker: An updated ARMv7 image is now available on Docker Hub for those using ARM-based devices.
  • Security: The Go language used in PhotoPrism has been updated to the latest stable release, v1.21.3, ensuring enhanced security.

With its latest release, PhotoPrism continues to deliver an exceptional experience for users who are passionate about managing and organizing their photo collections.