CommunitySolidServer/RELEASE_NOTES.md

Community Solid Server release notes

v5.0.0

New features

• Support for Node v12 was dropped.
• Components.js was upgraded to v5. If you have created an external component you should also upgrade to prevent warnings and conflicts.
• A new FileSystemResourceLocker has been added. It allows for true threadsafe locking without external dependencies.
• The CSS can now run multithreaded with multiple workers, this is done with the --workers or -w flag.
• When starting the server through code, it is now possible to provide CLI value bindings as well in AppRunner.
• The user can choose to "Log in with a different account" on the consent page
• Metadata of resources can now be edited by PATCHing its description resource. See the documentation for more information.

Data migration

The following actions are required if you are upgrading from a v4 server and want to retain your data.

...

Configuration changes

You might need to make changes to your v4 configuration if you use a custom config.

The @context needs to be updated to https://linkedsoftwaredependencies.org/bundles/npm/@solid/community-server/^5.0.0/components/context.jsonld.

The following changes pertain to the imports in the default configs:

• The prefix of all imports was changed from files-scs to css.
• All default configurations with a file-based backend now use a file-based locker instead of a memory-based one, making them threadsafe.
• 2 new options have been added for the /http/server-factory/ imports: https-websockets.json and https-no-websockets.json, which allow starting the server with HTTPS by adding 2 new CLI parameters httpsKey and httpsCert.

The following changes are relevant for v4 custom configs that replaced certain features.

• /app/variables/* was changed to support the new YargsCliExtractor format and SettingsResolver rename.
• /util/resource-locker/memory.json had the locker @type changed from SingleThreadedResourceLocker to MemoryResourceLocker.
• The content-length parser has been moved from the default configuration to the quota configurations.
  • /ldp/metadata-parser/default.json
  • /storage/backend/*-quota-file.json
  • /storage/backend/quota/quota-file.json
• The structure of the init configs has changed significantly to support worker threads.
  • /app/init/*
• RegexPathRouting has changed from a map datastructure to an array datastructure, allowing for fallthrough regex parsing. The change is reflected in the following default configs:
  • /storage/backend/regex.json
  • /sparql-file-storage.json
• The IdentityProviderFactory inputs have been extended.
  • /identity/handler/provider-factory/identity.json
• LDP components have slightly changed so the preference parser is in a separate config file.
  • /ldp/handler/*
• Restructured the init configs.
  • /app/init/base/init.json
  • /app/main/default.json
• Added lock cleanup on server start (and updated existing finalization).
  • /util/resource-locker/file.json
  • /util/resource-locker/redis.json
• Updated finalizers.
  • /app/identity/handler/account-store/default.json
  • /identity/ownership/token.json
  • /ldp/authorization/readers/access-checkers/agent-group.json
  • /ldp/handler/*
• IntermediateModesExtractor has been added to the ModesExtractors
  • /ldp/modes/default.json
• The PermissionReader structure has changed to be more consistent.
  • /ldp/authorization/*
• The PutOperationHandler constructor now has an extra argument: metadataStrategy, resulting in a change in /ldp/handler/components/operation-handler.json
• .acl and .meta are now generated for every non-auxiliary by AuxiliaryLinkMetadataWriter through an update in /util/auxiliary/strategies/acl.json and the creation of /ldp/metadata-writer/writers/link-rel-metadata.json
  • As a result the key-value for acl resources was removed from /ldp/metadata-writer/writers/link-rel.json
• The DataAccessorBasedStore constructor now has two new arguments: metadataStrategy. As a result following configuration files are changed:
  • /sparql-file-storage.json
  • /storage/backend/*
• /storage/middleware/stores/patching.json has changed significantly to allow description resources to be patched.
• The metadata auxiliary strategy was added to the default list of auxiliary strategies.
  • /util/auxiliary/*
• Parsing link headers is updated in /ldp/metadata-parser/parsers/link.json as it now uses a LinkRelObject as a value

Interface changes

These changes are relevant if you wrote custom modules for the server that depend on existing interfaces.

• YargsCliExtractor was changed to now take as input an array of parameter objects.
• RedirectAllHttpHandler was removed and fully replaced by RedirectingHttpHandler.
• SingleThreadedResourceLocker has been renamed to MemoryResourceLocker.
• Both TemplateEngine implementations now take a baseUrl parameter as input.
• The IdentityProviderFactory and ConvertingErrorHandler now additionally take a PreferenceParser as input.
• Error handlers now take the incoming HttpRequest as input instead of just the preferences.
• Extended the initialization/finalization system:
  • Introduced Initializable interface and InitializableHandler wrapper class.
  • Introduced Finalizer abstract class and FinalizableHandler wrapper class.
  • Changed type for finalizer attribute in App from Finalizable to Finalizer and updated the calling code in App.stop().
  • Removed the now obsolete ParallelFinalizer util class.
• Added a lock cleanup on initialize for lock implementations RedisLocker and FileSystemResourceLocker.
• ResourceStore functions that change a resource now return metadata for every changed resource.
• All permission related interfaces have changed to support permissions over multiple identifiers.
• IdentifierStrategy has a new contains method.
• SettingsResolver was renamed to ShorthandResolver, together with all related classes and parameters.
• DataAccessor interface is changed. There is now a new method called writeMetadata.

A new interface SingleThreaded has been added. This empty interface can be implemented to mark a component as not-threadsafe. When the CSS starts in multithreaded mode, it will error and halt if any SingleThreaded components are instantiated.

v4.0.1

Freezes the oidc-provider dependency to prevent a potential issue with the solid authn client as described in https://github.com/inrupt/solid-client-authn-js/issues/2103.

v4.0.0

New features

• The server can be started with a new parameter to automatically generate accounts and pods, for more info see here.
• It is now possible to automate authentication requests using Client Credentials, for more info see here.
• A new RedirectingHttpHandler class has been added which can be used to redirect certain URLs.
• A new default configuration config/https-file-cli.json that can set the HTTPS parameters through the CLI has been added. This is also an example of how to add CLI parameters through a custom configuration.
• A new RedisLocker has been added to replace the old RedisResourceLocker class. It allows for true threadsafe read/write locking.

Configuration changes

You might need to make changes to your v3 configuration if you use a custom config.

The @context needs to be updated to https://linkedsoftwaredependencies.org/bundles/npm/@solid/community-server/^4.0.0/components/context.jsonld.

The following changes pertain to the imports in the default configs:

• ...

The following changes are relevant for v3 custom configs that replaced certain features.

• The key/value storage configs in config/storage/key-value/* have been changed to reduce config duplication. All storages there that were only relevant for 1 class have been moved to the config of that class.
• Due to a parameter rename in CombinedSettingsResolver, config/app/variables/resolver/resolver.json has been updated.
• The OIDC provider setup was changed to add client_credentials support.
  • /identity/handler/adapter-factory/webid.json
  • /identity/handler/provider-factory/identity.json

Interface changes

These changes are relevant if you wrote custom modules for the server that depend on existing interfaces.

• The output of parseContentType in HeaderUtil was changed to include parameters.
• PermissionReaders take an additional modes parameter as input.
• The ResourceStore function resourceExists has been renamed to hasResource and has been moved to a separate ResourceSet interface.
• Several ModesExtractors PermissionBasedAuthorizer now take a ResourceSet as constructor parameter.
• RepresentationMetadata no longer accepts strings for predicates in any of its functions.
• CombinedSettingsResolver parameter computers has been renamed to resolvers.
• IdentityProviderFactory requires an additional credentialStorage parameter.
• The RedisResourceLocker class has been removed and the RedisLockerclass was added instead. RedisLocker implements both the ResourceLocker and ReadWriteLocker interface.

v3.0.0

New features

• The Identity Provider now uses the webid scope as required for Solid-OIDC.
• The VoidLocker can be used to disable locking for development/testing purposes. This can be enabled by changing the /config/util/resource-locker/ import to debug-void.json
• Added support for setting a quota on the server. See the config/quota-file.json config for an example.
• An official docker image is now built on each version tag and published at https://hub.docker.com/r/solidproject/community-server.
• Added support for N3 Patch.
• It is now possible to customize arguments to the community-solid-server command, which enables passing custom variables to configurations and setting new default values.
• The AppRunner functions have changed to require Components.js variables. This is important for anyone who starts the server from code.
• When logging in, a consent screen will now provide information about the client.

Data migration

The following actions are required if you are upgrading from a v2 server and want to retain your data.

Due to changes in the keys used by the IDP, you will need to delete the stored keys and sessions. If you are using a file backend, delete the .internal/idp/ folder in your data folder and restart the server. This will not delete the user accounts, but users will have to log in again.

Configuration changes

You might need to make changes to your v2 configuration if you use a custom config.

The @context needs to be updated to https://linkedsoftwaredependencies.org/bundles/npm/@solid/community-server/^3.0.0/components/context.jsonld.

The following changes pertain to the imports in the default configs:

• A new configuration option needs to be imported:
  • /app/variables/default.json contains everything related to parsing CLI arguments and assigning values to variables.

The following changes are relevant for v2 custom configs that replaced certain features.

• Conversion has been simplified so most converters are part of the conversion chain:
  • /util/representation-conversion/default.json
• The IDP settings have changed to support the latest Solid-OIDC draft.
  • /identity/handler/provider-factory/identity.json
• Requests targeting the OIDC library now use a separate handler.
  • /http/handler/default.json
  • /identity/handler/default.json
• The architecture of IDP interaction handlers has completely changed to improve modularity
  • /identity/handler/interaction/*
  • /identity/registration/*

Interface changes

These changes are relevant if you wrote custom modules for the server that depend on existing interfaces.

• TypedRepresentationConverter function signatures changed and base functionality moved to BaseTypedRepresentationConverter.
• Many changes to several components related to the IDP. This includes the HTML templates.

v2.0.0

New features

• Pod owners always have Control access to resources stored in their Pod.
• The server now offers a one-time setup upon first boot. This can be accessed by going to /setup. Configurations with a persistent backend enforce setup before the server can be used, preventing unintended modifications in the backend. These have corresponding *-no-setup.json files where setup is disabled, so the pre-v2.0 behavior is still available.
• ETag, Last-Modified, If-None-Match, and related conditional headers are supported.
• PATCHing containers is now supported.
• PUT/POST requests with empty bodies are supported.
• WebACL authorization supports groups.
• IDP components (registration, login, etc.) fully support JSON input and output.
• There is a new configuration sparql-file-storage.json to have a SPARQL backend with file storage. sparql-file-storage.json.
• A server can be set up to restrict access to IDP components using WebACL. A consequence of this is that IDP components are only accessible using a trailing slash. E.g., /idp/register/ works, /idp/register will error.

Configuration changes

You might need to make changes to your v1 configuration if you use a custom config.

The following changes pertain to the imports in the default configs:

• There are 2 new configuration options that for which a valid option needs to be imported:
  • /app/setup determines how and if setup should be enabled.
  • /identity/access determines if IDP access (e.g., registration) should be restricted
• The /app/init/default.json configuration no longer initializes the root container. This behaviour has been moved to the other options for /app/init.
• /ldp/permissions changed to /ldp/modes and only has a default option now.

The following changes are relevant for v1 custom configs that replaced certain features. The path indicates which JSON-LD files were impacted by the change.

• IdentityProviderHttpHandler and InteractionRoute arguments have changed substantially.
  • /identity/handler/default.json
  • /identity/handler/interaction/*
  • /identity/registration/*.
• All internal storage is now stored in the /.internal/ container.
  • /storage/key-value/resource-store.json.
• Patching related classes have changed.
  • /storage/middleware/stores/patching.json.
• BasicRequestParser now needs a conditionsParser argument.
  • /ldp/handler/components/request-parser.json.
• LinkTypeParser has been renamed to LinkRelParser and now takes mappings as input.
  • /ldp/metadata-parser/*
• ComposedAuxiliaryStrategy isRootRequired has been renamed to requiredInRoot.
  • /util/auxiliary/strategies/acl.json.
• Many changes to authentication and authorization structure.
  • Config /ldp/authentication/* and /ldp/authorization/*.
• All HttpHandlers have been changed.
  • /app/setup/handlers/setup.json
  • /http/handler/default.json
  • /identity/handler/default.json
  • /ldp/handler/default.json.

v1.1.0

New features

• The ConstantConverter can now filter on media type using the enabledMediaRanges and disabledMediaRanges options. That way, the server can be configured to bypass a default UI when accessing images or PDF documents. (https://github.com/solid/community-server/discussions/895, https://github.com/solid/community-server/pull/925)

v1.0.0

First release of the Community Solid Server.