MidPoint 3.6.1 "Comenius" Update 1
Last modified 22 Feb 2024 13:11 +01:00

Release 3.6.1 is a twenty-first midPoint release code-named Darwin. The 3.6.1 release brings numerous new features especially in the field of identity governance, password management and identity connectors.

Release date11 October 2017
Release type Maintenance release
End of support04 July 2019
comenius.png

John Amos Comenius (1592 - 1670) was Czech philosopher, pedagogue and theologian. He is considered to be the father of modern education. Comenius first introduced pictorial textbooks written in native language. He applied effective teaching based on the natural gradual growth from simple to comprehensive concepts. He supported lifelong learning and logical thinking. Comenius lived and worked in numerous countries where he widely spread his ideas. He is undoubtedly one of the most significant educational reformers in history.

Not entirely unlike the educational reforms of Comenius, midPoint 3.6 brings substantial and revolutionary changes in understanding the identity management field. Primary focus of midPoint 3.6 is identity governance. This makes midPoint 3.6 a very unique product that can handle broad range of deployments: from very small and simple to the large and complex. Similarly to the gradual method introduced by Comenius, midPoint 3.6 allows to start small with simple identity management deployment and gradually evolve the solution to support complex identity governance scenarios. With midPoint 3.6 this process is smooth and evolutionary which provides business continuity and excellent investment protection. This is further supported by the open nature of midPoint which allows complete understanding and wide spread of midPoint deployments all around the world.

Credits

Majority of the work on the Comenius release was done by the Evolveum team. However, this release would not be possible without the help of our partners, customers, contributors, friends and families. We would like to express a great gratitude to all the people that contributed to the midPoint project.

We would also like to thank:

  • All the translators from midPoint community and especially Petr Gašparík for taking the lead and coordinating all the translation efforts.

  • All MidPoint subscribers. MidPoint subscriptions are the crucial essence that makes midPoint development possible. MidPoint project would not exist without the funding provided by midPoint subscriptions.

Features

midPoint 3.6 provides following features:

Changes With Respect to Version 3.6

  • Auxiliary object class improvements

  • GUI skin switching support (contributed by Andrew Cope)

  • Minor shopping cart improvements

  • Reliability improvements for parallel processing

  • Improved use of constants

  • Improved error handling (provisioning scripts, GUI)

  • LDAP and Active Directory connector improvements

  • CSV connector improvements (file locking)

  • Authorization improvements

Java 7 environment is no longer supported.
XPath2 scripting is no longer supported.
Old CSVFile Connector is deprecated and it is no longer bundled with midPoint.

Changes With Respect to Version 3.5

  • Identity governance and RBAC

    • Major improvement in the use of Policy Rules

    • Role exclusion: pruning of conflicting roles which can be used to implement Radio Button Roles

    • Ad-hoc delegation of approvals (Delegate button)

    • Approvals can use custom form to supplement missing user data

    • Filter-based SoD specification

    • SoD approvals

    • SoD certification

    • Escalation

    • Ad-hoc recertification

    • Personas

    • Idempotent roles

    • Major performance improvements for cases with many assignments

  • Password improvements

    • Password hashing

    • Mail-based initialization of new accounts (for use with password hashing)

    • Check expression in Password Policy

    • Support for password minimal age in Password Policy

    • Improved handling of readable and unreadable resource password values

  • Mapping and expression improvements

    • Specification of mapping domain and range

    • RunAs configuration for expressions

    • Object template mapping chaining

  • Authorization improvements

    • roleRelation authorizations (experimental)

    • delegator authorization

    • improved evaluation of search queries

  • GUI improvements

    • Custom forms

    • Multiple browser windows supported

    • Easy customization of basic look and feel (color, icon, system name)

    • Shopping cart improvements

      • Ability to request roles for a different user

      • Ability to request roles for several users

      • Ability to specify free-form comment on the request

      • Ability to allow or prohibit assignment of the same role several times (assignment constraints)

      • Warning about conflicting role assignments

    • Quasi-full-text search

    • Control over the user dashboard widgets

    • Configurable columns in object lists

    • Quick CSV data export

  • Connector and provisioning improvements

  • Partial execution of IDM model computation that allow ability for lighter recompute tasks

  • Constants

  • Task error reporting improvements

  • Major REST interface improvements

    • Improved error reporting

    • REST Authentication improvements (proxy authenticaiton, security questions authentication)

    • New operations to generate and validate values (passwords)

  • Bulk action improvements

  • Reporting improvements

  • Auditing improvements

  • Notification improvements

    • Improved notifiers

    • Notifications before user expiration

  • Syslog Logging

  • New translations - provided by the community

Java 7 environment is no longer supported.
XPath2 scripting is no longer supported.
Old CSVFile Connector is deprecated and it is no longer bundled with midPoint.

Quality

Release 3.6.1 (Comenius) is intended for full production use in enterprise environments. All features are stable and well tested - except the features that are explicitly marked as experimental or partially implemented. Those features are supported only with special subscription and/or professional services contract.

Limitations

  • MidPoint 3.6.1 comes with a bundled LDAP-based eDirectory connector. This connector is stable, however it is not included in the normal midPoint support. Support for this connector has to be purchased separately.

Platforms

MidPoint is known to work well in the following deployment environment. The following list is list of tested platforms, i.e. platforms that midPoint team or reliable partners personally tested this release. The version numbers in parentheses are the actual version numbers used for the tests. However it is very likely that midPoint will also work in similar environments. Also note that this list is not closed. MidPoint can be supported in almost any reasonably recent platform (please contact Evolveum for more details).

Java

  • OpenJDK 8 (1.8.0_91, 1.8.0_111)

  • Sun/Oracle Java SE Runtime Environment 8 (1.8.0_45, 1.8.0_65, 1.8.0_74)

Java 8 only

MidPoint 3.6.1 is supported only on Java 8 platforms. MidPoint supported both Java 7 and Java 8 for several years. The support for Java 7 was deprecated in midPoint 3.4.1 and it was removed in midPoint 3.5. It is finally the time to abandon obsolete technology and to move on.

Web Containers

  • Apache Tomcat 8 (8.0.14, 8.0.20, 8.0.28, 8.0.30, 8.0.33, 8.5.4)

  • Apache Tomcat 7 (7.0.29, 7.0.30, 7.0.32, 7.0.47, 7.0.50, 7.0.69)

  • Sun/Oracle Glassfish 3 (3.1)

  • BEA/Oracle WebLogic (12c)

Databases

  • H2 (embedded, only recommended for demo deployments)

  • PostgreSQL (8.4.14, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, 9.4.5, 9.5, 9.5.1)

  • MariaDB (10.0.28)

  • MySQL (5.6.26, 5.7)
    Supported MySQL version is 5.6.10 and above (with MySQL JDBC ConnectorJ 5.1.23 and above).
    MySQL in previous versions didn’t support dates/timestamps with more accurate than second fraction precision.

  • Oracle 11g (11.2.0.2.0)

  • Microsoft SQL Server (2008, 2008 R2, 2012, 2014)

Unsupported Platforms

Following list contains platforms that midPoint is known not to work due to various issues. As these platforms are obsolete and/or marginal we have no plans to support midPoint for these platforms.

  • Java 6

  • Java 7

  • Sun/Oracle GlassFish 2

  • Apache Tomcat 6

Supported Browsers

  • Firefox (any recent version)

  • Safari (any recent version)

  • Chrome (any recent version)

  • Opera (any recent version)

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 9 or later)

Recent version of browser as mentioned above means any stable stock version of the browser released in the last two years. We formally support only stock, non-customized versions of the browsers without any extensions or other add-ons. According to the experience most extensions should work fine with midPoint. However, it is not possible to test midPoint with all of them and support all of them. Therefore, if you chose to use extensions or customize the browser in any non-standard way you are doing that on your own risk. We reserve the right not to support customized web browsers.

Microsoft Internet Explorer compatibility mode is not supported.

Important Bundled Components

Component Version Description

ConnId

1.4.2.35

ConnId Connector Framework

LDAP connector bundle

1.4.5

LDAP, Active Directory and eDirectory connector

CSV connector

2.0

Connector for CSV files

DatabaseTable connector

1.4.2.0

Connector for simple database tables

Download and Install

Release Form Download Install Instructions

Binary

https://evolveum.com/downloads/midpoint/3.6.1/midpoint-3.6.1-dist.zip

Installing MidPoint 3.6.1

Source

Evolveum/midpoint repository at github, tag v3.6.1

Building MidPoint From Source Code

Java API JavaDoc

https://www.evolveum.com/downloads/midpoint/3.6.1/midpoint-api-3.6.1-javadoc/

JAR

SchemaDoc

https://www.evolveum.com/downloads/midpoint/3.6.1/midpoint-3.6.1-schemadoc/

ZIP

Upgrade

MidPoint is software that is designed for easy upgradeability. We do our best to maintain strong backward compatibility of midPoint data model, configuration and system behavior. However, midPoint is also very flexible and comprehensive software system with a very rich data model. It is not humanly possible to test all the potential upgrade paths and scenarios. Also some changes in midPoint behavior are inevitable to maintain midPoint development pace. Therefore we can assure reliable midPoint upgrades only for midPoint subscribers. This section provides overall overview of the changes and upgrade procedures. Although we try to our best it is not possible to foresee all possible uses of midPoint. Therefore the information provided in this section are for information purposes only without any guarantees of completeness. In case of any doubts about upgrade or behavior changes please use services associated with midPoint subscription or purchase professional services.

Upgrade from midPoint 3.0, 3.1, 3.1.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.3.1, 3.4 and 3.4.1

Upgrade path from MidPoint 3.0 goes through midPoint 3.1, 3.1.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4.1 and 3.5.1. Upgrade to midPoint 3.1 first (refer to the midPoint 3.1 release notes). Then upgrade from midPoint 3.1 to 3.1.1, from 3.1.1 to 3.2 then to 3.3, then to 3.4.1, 3.5.1 and finally to 3.6.1.

Upgrade from midPoint 3.5 and 3.5.1

MidPoint 3.6.1 data model is essentially backwards compatible with both midPoint 3.5 and midPoint 3.5.1. However as the data model was extended in 3.6.1 the database schema needs to be upgraded using the usual mechanism.

MidPoint 3.6.1 is a release that fixes some issues of previous versions. Therefore there are some changes that are not strictly backward compatible.

  • Java 7 environment is no longer supported. Please upgrade to Java 8 before upgrading midPoint.

  • XPath2 scripting is no longer supported. Please migrate your XPath2 scripts to Groovy, JavaScript or Python.

  • Version numbers of some bundled connectors have changed. Therefore connector references from the resource definitions that are using the bundled connectors need to be updated.

  • New 'schema capability was introduced. This resource capability indicated the ability of a connector to provide a schema (this capability was implied in midPoint 3.5.x and earlier). Existing (pre-3.6) resource configurations do not have this capability in the resource configuration. And even if the new connector adaptation code presents this capability, the resource configuration will not be updated automatically. It needs to be manually refreshed. The solution is to delete resource native capabilities and refresh the resource (test connection). Then the resource should work as expected.

Changes in initial objects since 3.5 and 3.5.1

MidPoint has a built-in set of initial objects that it will automatically create in the database if they are not present. This includes vital objects for the system to be configured (e.g. role superuser and user administrator). These objects may change in some midPoint releases. But to be conservative and to avoid configuration overwrite midPoint does not overwrite existing objects when they are already in the database. This may result in upgrade problems if the existing object contains configuration that is no longer supported in a new version. Therefore the following list contains a summary of changes to the initial objects in this midPoint release. The complete new set of initial objects is in the config/initial-objects directory in both the source and binary distributions. Although any problems caused by the change in initial objects is unlikely to occur, the implementors are advised to review the following list and assess the impact on case-by-case basis:

  • 015-security-policy.xml: switched password policy configuration from the deprecated way to a security policy method. File renamed from 120-security-policy.xml.

  • 020-system-configuration.xml: switched password policy configuration from the deprecated way to a security policy method. Default logging setting update.

  • 040-role-enduser.xml: task-related authorizations, persona read authorization, workflow-related authorizations.

  • 041-role-approver.xml: workflow-related authorizations.

  • 043-role-delegator.xml: delegator read authorization update.

  • 090-report-audit.xml: updated and fixed report.

  • 100-report-reconciliation.xml: updated and fixed report.

  • 140-report-certification-campaigns.xml: updated and fixed report.

  • 150-report-certification-cases.xml: updated and fixed report.

  • 160-report-certification-decisions.xml: fixed report.

  • 200-lookup-languages.xml: new supported languages

  • 210-lookup-locales.xml: new supported locales

Bundled connector changes since 3.5 and 3.5.1

  • The legacy CSVFile Connector was replaced by new CSV Connector. The new CSV connector is a rewrite from scratch. The old CSVFile connector was written even before midPoint project started and it was not designed for real deployment use. We have maintained and improved the connector during the years. But it was not maintainable any more. Also the ConnId framework evolved over the time and we needed a connector that will use these features. Therefore we have decided to rewrite the connector completely. MidPoint 3.6 no longer bundles the old connector. New CSV connector is bundled instead. Old CSV connector can still be used and it is still supported for deployments that purchased midPoint subscription before midPoint 3.6 was released. As the old connector is not bundled with midPoint any more you have to download the connector JAR and deploy it explicitly. Full migration guide can be found here:

  • The LDAP connector and AD Connector were upgraded to the latest available version.

Behavior changes since 3.5 and 3.5.1

  • Approval requests for which are no approvers defined (at a particular approval schema level) are now rejected by default. Original behavior was so that they were approved. Now the behavior is configurable using outcomeIfNoApprovers property of an approval schema level.

  • Work item notifications have changed. The workItemEvent category is abstract now; it was replaced with workItemLifecycleEvent, workItemAllocationEvent, workItemCompletionEvent, workItemDelegationEvent, workItemCustomEvent.

  • The focus object lifecycle state influences assignment lifecycle. If the object is inactive due to the lifecycle state then also the assignment will be considered inactive.

  • Deprecated password policy references in system configuration and orgs cannot be used together with security policy definitions. Please use password policy settings in the security policy.

  • Midpoint 3.5.1 and earlier assumed default value of 1 for minOccurs in the password policy. However, if no password policy was specified then the midOccurs defaulted to 0. This was unintuitive and inconsistent. The root cause of the problem was that the default value of midOccurs was never specified. Therefore the default value was consistently set to 0 in midPoint 3.6 and later.
    WARNING: this means that the password policy in midPoint 3.6 will allow entry of empty password unless minOccurs=1 is explicitly specified in the password policy.

  • Password history is stored in hashed form by default. The default storage form was encryption before midPoint 3.6. Old password history entries will remain in the form in which they were originally stored. New password history entries will be stored according to new setting.

  • Strong password mapping in previews midPoint versions worked in almost the same way as normal mapping. Strong password mapping in new midPoint version behaves in the same way as other strong mappings. However there is a crucial difference. The password is usually non-readable attribute. Therefore strong password mapping will overwrite password value every time the mapping is used. It is not recommended to use strong password mappings unless for very specific use-cases.

  • Some midPoint user interface URLs were changed in midPoint 3.6. Please review your bookmarks, mail templates and other configuration that may depend on specific user interface URLs.

  • MidPoint 3.5.x and earlier had not evaluated authorizations during search properly. The query was not taken into consideration when evaluating the authorization which may lead to information leak. That was fixed in midPoint 3.6 (MID-3916). This means that wrong or incomplete authorizations might work in until midPoint 3.6, but these will no longer work.

  • There is a change in processing relations in the assignments:

    • non-member (default) and non-delegation (deputy) relations are skipped on login time. Any authorizations in these assignments will be ignored.

    • approver and owner relations are skipped during recompute and all object operations. Any inducements in these relations will not be applied.

This is temporary hard-coded behavior of the relations in midPoint. It was needed to enable usability and scalability of the system. The permanent solution is to enable configuration of individual relations and their behavior (MID-3581)

  • Policy Rules with multiple constrains are evaluated in such a way that logical AND operation is assumed between the constraints. Prior to midPoint 3.6 the exclusion policy constraints were mistakenly evaluated with logical OR. In midPoint 3.6 the evaluation of multiple exclusion constraints is not supported yet and attempt to evaluate such constraints will result in an error. The solution is to use several individual policy rules.

  • Previous midPoint versions applied changes in attribute and association mappings even in weaker assignment enforcement modes (none, positive). This was wrong and it was fixed in midPoint 3.6, but deployments that relied on the wrong behavior may be affected.

Public interface changes since 3.5 and 3.5.1

  • ModelService.recompute() method has a new version that accepts model execute options as parameters. There is a change in the default setting (reconciliation flag is now false by default). The old version is left as deprecated and has compatible behavior.

  • Prism structures for getObject and searchObject operation options (SelectorQualifiedGetOptionsType and related types) were moved from api-types-3 to common-3 namespace. Also, the ObjectSelectorType was renamed to OptionObjectSelectorType because of naming conflict in common-3 namespace. This should affect only deployments that use these options in SOAP client calls, preparing requests either manually or via JAXB.

Important internal changes since 3.5 and 3.5.1

These changes should not influence anyone using the midPoint. These changes should also not influence the XML-based customizations or scripting expressions that rely just on the provided library classes. These changes will influence midPoint forks and deployments that are heavily customized using the Java components.

  • Provisioning component structure has been redesigned.

  • Many internal components were refactored, restrucutured and cleaned up. This may have severe impact midPoint customizations that go beyond public interfaces, but it should not affect public interfaces. Therefore moderate customizations should be unaffected.

Known Issues and Limitations

There is a support to set up storage of credentials in either encrypted or hashed form. There is also unsupported and undocumented option to turn off credential storage. This option partially works, but there may be side effects and interactions. This option is not fully supported yet. Do not use it or use it only on your own risk. It is not included in any midPoint support agreement.

Native attribute with the name of 'id' cannot be currently used in midPoint (MID-3872). If the attribute name in the resource cannot be changed then the workaround is to force the use of legacy schema. In that case midPoint will use the legacy ConnId attribute names (icfs:name and icfs:uid).

JavaDoc is temporarily not available due to the issue in Java platform. This issue is fixed in (unreleased) Java 9 platform, but backport of this fix to Java 8 is (quite surprisingly) not planned.

As all real-world software midPoint 3.6 has some known issues. As far as we know at the time of the release there was no known critical or security issue.

There is currently no plan to fix the known issues of midPoint 3.6 en masse. These issues will be fixed in future maintenance versions of midPoint only if the fix is requested by midPoint subscriber. No other issues will be fixed - except for severe security issues that may be found in the future.

The known issues of midPoint 3.6 may or may not be fixed in midPoint 3.7. This depends on the available time, issue severity and many variables that are currently difficult to predict. The only reliable way how to make sure that an issue is fixed is to purchase midPoint subscription. Or you can fix the bug yourself. MidPoint is always open to contributions.

This may seem a little bit harsh at a first sight. But there are very good reasons for this policy. And in fact it is no worse than what you get with most commercial software. We are just saying that with plain language instead of scrambling it into a legal mumbo-jumbo.

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