Sun Desktop Manager 1.0 Release Notes

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Chapter 1 Release Notes

These release notes contain information about the Sun^TM Desktop Manager 1.0. The notes contain important information available at the time of release 1.0, including information about known issues and workarounds, technical notes, and pointers to additional resources. Be sure you read this document before you begin using the Sun Desktop Manager (also known in this document as the Desktop Manager).

System Requirements

For information about system requirements, see the Sun Desktop Manager 1.0 Installation Guide, which can be found at http://docs.sun.com.

Installation Notes

The files included with this Desktop Manager release are organized as follows:

Server: all the files required to install the central management application:
- Console: all files required to install the Java™ Web Console (version 2.2.5) and the setup script to perform that installation.
- Manager: all files required to install the management application and the setup script to perform that installation.
Client: all the files required to install the desktop side components for desktop configuration and the setup script to perform that installation, as well as a number of select patches providing recommended fixes to known issues.

Firefox1.5: all files required to install the Firefox desktop adapter and management application templates. Note that these components are provided for preview only, and are not yet supported.

Installing the Firefox adapter: Once you have extracted the content of the Desktop Manager zip archive, execute the following as root:

# cd SunDesktopMgr-1.0/<platform>/Firefox1.5/adapter
# cp libpreviewmozapoc.so <FirefoxDir>/components

where <FirefoxDir> is your Firefox installation directory e.g. /usr/sfw/lib/firefox or /opt/sfw/lib/firefox.

Once the adapter is installed it will be registered automatically for users that have not previously run Firefox. Users who have previously run Firefox must remove their Firefox component registry to force registration of the adapter. The Firefox component registry is located at $HOME/.mozilla/firefox/<profileDir>/compreg.dat. Removing this file and restarting Firefox will force the adapter to be registered.

Installing the Firefox templates: Once you have extracted the content of the Desktop Manager zip archive and installed the management application, execute the following as root:

# cd SunDesktopMgr-1.0/<platform>/Firefox1.5/templates
# cp -R Firefox1.5_pkg /usr/share/webconsole/apoc/packages
# /usr/sbin/smreg add -a /usr/share/webconsole/apoc
# /usr/sbin/smcwebserver restart

Available Patches

A number of recommended desktop side patches are included with this release. These are available in the client/Patches subdirectory of the distribution and include:

119546-06 for Solaris^TM SPARC® or 119547-06 for Solaris x86 120099-05 for Solaris SPARC or 120100-05 for Solaris x86

These patches include the most up to date versions of the Configuration Agent and shared libraries.
119906-04 for Solaris SPARC or 119907-04 for Solaris x86

This patch fixes a known problem with the Gnome VFS, which prevents changes to the Applications menu structure from being taken into account within an existing user session.
120458-01 for Solaris SPARC or 120459-01 for Solaris x86

This patch includes performance improvements to the Java^TM Desktop System login.

All patches are provided as .zip files. To install a given patch, unzip the associated .zip file and follow the instructions in the patch README file contained within.

Known Issues

This list covers some of the known problems with the Sun Desktop Manager. Read the list before reporting any new bugs.

Problem ID

Description and Workaround.

6341273

The new location for storage/retrieval of the configuration details for repositories is /etc/opt/SUNWapmcg. In the Beta release, the details were stored in a backends.cfg file in the /var/opt/webconsole/work/com_sun_web_console/localhost/apoc directory.

For every repository created in the Desktop Manager using the Add Configuration Repository Wizard, a separate .properties file is now stored in /etc/opt/SUNWapmcg. For example, backend1.properties, backend2.properties, and so on.

This change only affects users who have already configured repositories for the Desktop Manager Beta release. The result is that previously configured back ends are no longer detected, and will need to be re-created using the wizard.

If you would rather re-create your repository details manually, you can create the .properties files in /etc/opt/SUNWapmcg yourself. Ensure that the “noaccess” user has read permission.

An example of a new properties file:

Backend=backend1
PROVIDER_URL=ldap://ldap.sun.com:389/o=ITCompany
ShowAssignedProfiles=true

6177074

SUNWgnome-vfs contains a known issue, and a patch is required for the menu plugin to function. The patch is available from the client/Patches directory that is created when you download and uncompress the Desktop Manager. The patch IDs for the gnome-vfs packages are 119906-04 - Solaris SPARC, and 119907-04 - Solaris x86.

6389444

When the application launching is restricted, the Preferences submenu items add launchers to the panel instead of actually starting the expected application. A patch for this problem will be released through SunSolve as soon as possible.

6391562

In certain circumstances, the Desktop Manager adapter for Mozilla Preferences is not properly registered, resulting in the central settings defined for that application to be ignored on the desktop. A patch for this problem will be released through SunSolve as soon as possible.

6398837

If the Configuration Agent is configured to connect to a secure LDAP port, but the certificates required for the SSL handshake to perform correctly are missing from the JRE database, the Agent will hang at startup and be put in maintenance mode. If this happens, please ensure the certificates for SSL are properly set up on the server and client and restart the Agent with /usr/lib/apoc/apocd restart.

6396764

The search window can show a maximum of only 100 records by default. However, this number is configurable. To configure the required number of records in the search window, add SizeLimit=XXX to the back end properties file in the /etc/opt/SUNWapmcg/ directory, where XXX is the number of records needed.

6400738

Only one extra menu with centrally defined launchers can be added using the Desktop Manager. If multiple profiles which set different names for that menu are assigned to a user, the resulting menu name on the desktop will be determined as per the rules for merging profiles detailed in the Sun Desktop Manager 1.0 Administration Guide.

6401373

In the Profile Editor window, there is an error in the Cancel button functionality of one of the dialogs. If you create a new profile, then click another tab in the Profile Editor without specifically saving the changes, a dialog appears. This dialog states "Unsaved changes exist on this tab. Save the changes and proceed?" Instead of aborting, the Cancel button saves a new profile in the repository with the default values provided for name and comment, whether the user has made changes to these values or not.

6414360

This issue impacts the functionality of the apoc daemon. If you switch from non-anonymous access back to anonymous access in apoc-config on the 'Authentication Mechanism (2 of 6)' panel, the apoc daemon will not authenticate correctly.

Workaround: in /etc/apoc/policymgr.properties, remove the following lines:

SECURITY_CREDENTIALS=
SECURITY_CREDENTIALS_ENCODING=
SECURITY_PRINCIPAL=
Password_ENCODING=

Useful Hints

Non-English locales: For non-English locales, the server on which the Desktop Manager console is installed should have a locale setting that supports UTF-8 encoding. To enable UTF-8 encoding, add the following line to the /etc/TIMEZONE file:
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
Using a global host profile with a file-based back end:

To obtain host-specific data for a host running the Configuration Agent from the configuration repository, that host is uniquely identified by the host identifier. That identifier can denote the host in two different ways:

- by the host name that represents the host by its name, e.g. calzone. This is the default setting.

- by the IP address that represents the host by its IP address, e.g. 10.16.67.132. This address is preferably retrieved from the hosts file. If there is no hosts file available, the IP is determined by the interfaces of the host. If there is more than one interface, the first non-local interface is selected.

If you are using a file-based back end, be sure that the selection of host identifier matches the contents of the entities.txt files (IPs or hostnames).
Installing the correct Java™ Web Console version:

Java Web Console 2.2.2 is the default version found in the Solaris^TM 10 operating system, however the Desktop Manager requires version 2.2.5 or higher. A copy of version 2.2.5 is provided in the Desktop Manager archive in the server/console directory. It can be installed by running ./setup in that directory.

Documentation

Sun Desktop Manager documentation for release 1.0 is available on http://docs.sun.com. The docs.sun.com^SM Web site enables you to access Sun technical documentation online. You can browse the docs.sun.com archive or search for a specific book title or subject.

The following table lists the tasks and concepts described in each manual:

For Information About	See the Following
Late-breaking information about the software and documentation.	Release Notes
Installing the Desktop Manager and its various components, supported platforms, and environments.	Installation Guide
General usage of the Desktop Manager, including use case scenarios with examples.	Administration Guide
Guidelines for developers who want to create and deploy templates for the Desktop Manager.	Developer Guide
General usage instructions that can be used while working with the Desktop Manager.	Online Help
Suggestions for using the Desktop Manager in real world desktop management scenarios.	Desktop Management in a Sun Ray Environment

Reporting Problems and Providing Feedback

If you would like to provide general feedback, or if you find a bug in the software, send an email to sdtm-feedback-ext@sun.com.

If you are reporting a bug, provide the following information, where applicable:

Description of the problem, including the situation where the problem occurs and its impact on your operation.
Machine type, operating system version, browser type and version, product Web page language (locale), and product version, including any patches and other software that might be affecting the problem.
Detailed steps on the methods you have used to reproduce the problem.
Any error logs or core dumps.

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