This information is for a release that is no longer supported by the Globus Toolkit.

Globus Toolkit 2.4 Release Notes

Compatibility

This release should be backwards compatible with the Globus Toolkit 2.2 release in the following ways:

  • 2.4 clients should be backwards compatible with 2.2 servers.
  • Clients from 2.2 with updates should be compatible with 2.4 servers.
  • APIs should for the most part be backwards compatible at the source level.

New/Improved Features

This release contains notable changes to the following components:

GridFTP

The GridFTP server included in the Globus Toolkit 2.4 release is now compatible with the soon to be released GT3 GridFTP clients and GridFTP related services (e.g., RFT).  This will allow users of both GT 2.x and GT 3.x to use GT 2.4 GridFTP servers.

GSI

Support for a new proxy certificate format has been added. The new format is currently being standardized in the GGF Grid Security Infrastructure WG and the IETF PKIX WG and provides new features, such as the ability to attach policy statements to proxy certificates, not found in the old format. 

GT 2.4 represents the first step in our transition to the new format. GSI in GT 2.4 is able to both produce and understand proxies of the new format, but will default to generating the proxy format found in previous releases of the toolkit. GT 3.0 will complete the transition by defaulting to the new format.

In practice this means that the version of grid-proxy-init in the Globus Toolkit 2.4 will continue to default to producing the older proxy format, but that it can be used to produce the newer format if so desired (grid-proxy-init -new).  If you decide to try the new proxy format be aware that the new proxy format is NOT understood by Globus Toolkit 2.0 or 2.2 servers (e.g., trying to connect to a 2.2 GridFTP server using a proxy of the new format will result in an error).  The Globus Toolkit 2.4 GridFTP server will be able to understand both the new and old style proxy formats to allow access by GT3 data services.

Bug fixes

Obtaining and Installing the Software

Please refer to our Installation Instructions for detailed information on how to obtain and install this software.

Documentation

The following general information about this software is available.

MDS Documentation

The Monitoring and Discovery Service (MDS) is the information services component of the Globus Toolkit. The Globus Toolkit 2.4 includes MDS 2.4, which includes all of the features of MDS 2.2, plus fixes and enhancements for scalability, reliability, and stability.

General information about MDS is available via the Globus Project MDS page.

GRAM Documentation

The Globus Resource Allocation Manager (GRAM) is the resource management component of the Globus Toolkit. The Globus Toolkit 2.4 includes GRAM 1.6.

General information about GRAM is available via the Globus Project GRAM page.

Security Documentation

The Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI) is the security component of the Globus Toolkit. General information about GSI is available via the Globus Project Security page.

Support

The traditional public Globus Toolkit support infrastructure has been adjusted to support this new software, so please use these mechanisms to request help or support with this release..

Testing

For the 2.4 release we tested the software build and installation and basic functionality on the following platforms.

  • Linux Kernel 2.x, Intel x86
  • Linux Kernel 2.4, Intel IA-64 (Itanium)
  • Solaris 9, UltraSPARC

In addition to our internal testing, the Globus Toolkit 2.4 was also tested by teams at HP (Tru64, HP-UX 11 - PARISC) and at IBM (AIX 5.1 and Linux). We are grateful to these organizations for their help with this release.

Known Issues

For known issues with building and using the Globus Toolkit 2.4 release please take a look at the Platform Notes page.

Licensing

The Globus Toolkit is distributed and licensed for use under the terms of the Globus Toolkit Public License.