UCS logo and current release-version

We have released the sixth point release: UCS 4.4-6 contains bug fixes, security updates and improvements as well as new features. For example, our developers have enhanced the Self Service, the App Center and the UCS Portal. In this article I would like to offer a look behind the scenes and present the most important new features.

UCS Self Service: New Features for the App

View of the account creation interface of the UCS app (version 4.4-6)

Creating an account has become even easier than before with the new UCS version

A great advantage of Univention Corporate Server is that users can use their credentials to log into completely different computers and also have access to all services in the UCS domain. With the initial 4.4 release, we introduced the new app Self Service, which allows users to make changes to their personal data – they don’t need admin rights for that. This includes changing and resetting the password as well as editing the contact information. The new UCS version 4.4-6 lets administrators customize the texts which users see in the corresponding dialog boxes.

We have also standardized the handling of the email address verification when registering or inviting new users. For example, email addresses are now considered verified not only when a user has gone through the verification process, but also when accounts have been created by an admin via “invitation” or when a password has been reset successfully via email. Admins can also “hook in” via UDM hooks and trigger follow-up actions – for example, connecting the activation of an account to the verification of the email address.

Univention App Center: Custom Hook Scripts

UCS system administrators can now store their own scripts for apps, which are called after installing, updating or removing an app (custom hook scripts). The feature automates recurring steps which admins used to have to perform manually each time they removed, reinstalled or updated an app. This is handy for customizing apps to your own UCS environment. This way, you can automatically install fonts for your office applications or copy your own SSL certificates into an app, etc.

The custom scripts can be stored in /var/lib/univention-appcenter/apps/{appid}/local/hooks/ in the respective sub-directory for installation, upgrade or removal. The Univention App Center takes care of the rest and executes the scripts accordingly.

UCS Portal: Warnings for unsupported Browser

Since UCS 4.2, Univention Corporate Server has had a portal page, like a homepage for your own work space. Administrators can design the portal and decide which categories and services are presented here, thus providing quick access to installed apps, but also external websites and other services. We have enhanced the UCS portal for the new release. It can now alert users if they visit the portal with an outdated and no longer supported web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer 11).

This feature is activated by default. In order to disable the warnings, administrators can modify the UCR variable portal/show-outdated-warning.


univention_ucs_icon_univention_corporate_server_rgb

UCS 4.4-6 download now

Univention Corporate Server 4.4-6 is available as an ISO image for installation or as a preinstalled, virtual machine image.

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Other improvements: Stability and Security Updates

The complete list of all changes and bug fixes can be found on our recently revised errata page. Let’s have a look at some highlights which improve the stability of UCS:

  • Memory Leak in UMC fixed: A memory leak in Univention Management Console resulted in the Self Service’s and UMC’s back-end not being able to process the necessary number of parallel requests in larger environments.
  • The LDAP server no longer crashes because of the policy overlay module.
  • The UDM REST API now supports umlauts in the URL of API calls.
  • If the password entered to authentication with the Single Sign-on service SAML is expired, the new password is now requested directly when logging in instead of forwarding users to another dialogue.
  • The new UDM attribute appendACL can now be used to apply NT ALCs to the folder of a share. As a result, more complex access rules can be defined directly when creating shares than previously possible with POSIX ACLs.

We have also put some work into the usual security updates which means we have updated some packages:

  • Linux kernel 4.9.228-1
  • Dovecot 2.2.27-3+deb9u6
  • Python 2.7.13-2
  • Bind9 9.10.3.dfsg.P4-12.3

Release Notes UCS 4.4-6

As always: If you have any requests or suggestions for improvement, please get in touch – leave a comment in our blog or in our forum . We’re looking forward to your feedback.

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Ingo Steuwer

Using Linux since 1999, Ingo Steuwer started working at Univention in 2004. As Head of Product Management he focusses on the further development of UCS.

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