The latest patch-level release of Univention Corporate Server bundles all new features and improvements from the past three months onto new installation media. UCS 5.2-6 brings highlights from Univention Nubus such as a new metrics endpoint for improved observability and technical details for directory objects in the Management UI and additions to the mail stack with alternative mail addresses for groups.
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Nubus Metrics
The REST API of the Univention Directory Manager (UDM) now includes a new endpoint that provides metrics about the Nubus deployment. The API has been designed to work best with Prometheus, the most commonly used implementation for collecting and storing metrics and providing them to dashboard solutions such as Grafana.
In the initial release, the metrics endpoint of the UDM REST API provides the following metrics:
- Number of registered users
- Number of licensed users
- Nubus domain name and domain identifiers
- Detailed information about the Nubus release, including software version, patch level, and platform information (whether it runs on Kubernetes or UCS)
Operators can easily identify when user growth reaches critical levels, exceeds the license limits, or when the installed software version is outdated. Thanks to the domain information, it is also easy to distinguish between multiple Nubus deployments in larger environments.
Detailed information can be found in the metrics chapter of the Nubus Manual.
Technical Details for UDM Objects in the Management UI
When analyzing configuration issues or end-user incidents, it is often necessary to access technical information used in the backends, such as the Univention Object Identifier. To simplify the process of matching real names with technical identifiers for users, groups, and any other information stored in the directory service, the Management UI now includes a new section with these identifiers.
This is helpful in several scenarios: if a warning or error containing a technical identifier is logged in a backend service, administrators can now search for that identifier directly in the Management UI and easily access the full information about the affected object. If a user reports an issue to the end-user helpdesk, administrators can easily retrieve the technical identifiers and use them to search log messages.
In addition to searchable technical identifiers, further information such as the LDAP DN, timestamps and actors for object creation and last modification, and OpenLDAP internal information such as the entryUUID are available. This information is accessible for every object stored in the directory service, both in the Management UI and via the UDM REST API. As this information is not needed for day-to-day administration, the UI elements are located in the “Advanced settings” section within a new “Technical Information” area.
Alternative Mail Addresses for Groups
Groups managed in Univention Nubus can now have not only a Primary Mail Address but also Alternative Mail Addresses. These can be used to set up mail aliases for groups, following the same concept as Alternative Mail Addresses for users.
The Univention Mail Stack reflects this additional attribute and delivers mails sent to an Alternative Mail Address of a group to all members of that group. This provides administrators with greater flexibility in managing group communication and simplifies the setup of additional contact addresses for teams and departments.
Download and Further Information
UCS 5.2-6 is, as always, available in the download section. Further information about the included changes can be found in the release notes and help article.
