Monday, August 31, 2015

ERPNext joins the Bitnami Library!

ERPNext is now part of the Bitnami App Catalog!




ERPNext is an open source integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application. 

It gives you all the features you need from an ERP out-of-the-box, while also being easily customizable. It is written in Python and uses MySQL for its database, both of which are included in the Bitnami Stack. ERPNext also offers the the following features:
  • A familiar-looking desktop for any smartphone user that gives quick access to all features.
  • Track iopportunities, prepare quotations, and record orders and shipments. 
  • Communicate with individual customers via email or send newsletters.
  • Automatically raise material requests, send purchase orders to suppliers, and record purchase receipts.
  • Plan your production and material requirements using the production planning tool.
  • Bill customers and record supplier invoices.
  • Define and allocate tasks for projects and record billable hours with time logging.
  • Track attendence, allocate time off to employees, and manage time off requests. 
Rushabh Mehta, the chief architect of ERPNext, has kindly answered some questions about the project and the integration with Bitnami.

1. What is the goal of the ERPNext application?

The goal of ERPNext is to provide small and medium sized businesses with a platform that is easy to use and comprehensive. ERPNext aspires to be the “Wordpress” of open source ERPs in the sense that the platform should be easy to setup and use, stable, and also well designed.

2. What are some of the features of ERPNext?

ERPNext is a very comprehensive application and helps companies in services, manufacturing, retail and distribution manage their financial accounting, inventory, HR and payroll, manufacturing, CRM, selling and purchasing, projects and much more.

It is designed from the ground up for the internet and is very intuitive to use. All ERPNext “documents” have features like sharing, attachments, permissions, comments, and email integration that we use all the time.

3. Which projects or organizations are using ERPNext currently?  What kind of projects do they use it for?

ERPNext is used by more than 500 companies across the world. Most of them are small and medium sized businesses from various domains. The variety of these business is always astonishing. ERPNext users include companies like a Y-Combinator backed ink and dye maker (http://www.inkodye.com/) based in the United States, a mom-and-pop store in the Netherlands selling dog food (Dogs Love It), a machine tool manufacturer based in India (Rohit Industries), a consumer electronics company based in the Philippines (Union Global), a multi-chain retail company based in Dubai (Office One), Egypt’s top glass manufacturer (City Glass), a printing company in Australia (McLean Images), and a large mobile phone distributor in Nigeria (Xavier). There are a whole bunch of users we would love to showcase. There are many more great users you will bump into at our user forum at https://discuss.erpnext.com

4. What do you expect will be the main benefits of having Bitnami packages available for ERPNext? 

I think having ERPNext at BitNami would mean that users can setup ERPNext even more quickly. ERPNext already has a decent installation tool called the bench, but users will now even not have to go through it. Also the Open Source ERP space is evolving very fast and having more alternatives will be great for the user community.


ERPNext is now ready to install in a few clicks with the Bitnami ERPNext Installers (available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X), Virtual Machine images(VMs), cloud images for Amazon EC2,Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

You can try ERPNext launching a free cloud demo server. If you are interested you just have to click on the following button to create a 1 hour free server:




Want your favorite app to be part of the Bitnami Library? Vote for it in our monthly contest!

More applications now available in the Bitnami library

As we continue to improve Bitnami, our users have told us that they would like to see the same ease of installation for all server applications, regardless of the licensing model used. Given this feedback, we have decided to no longer limit our library to just open source applications. Today we announced a Software Partner Program that allows us to bring you great applications from commercial software vendors.

During the past few months, you may have noticed an additional category called, “Free Trials”. Each application in this category has been selected by us, with the same high quality you’d expect from Bitnami. You’ll be able to deploy these applications with the same one-click awesomeness as any of our other apps.

This addition is one we think will be a positive one for every Bitnami user, and we can’t wait for you to try these new apps.

We are so excited about this announcement that we have arranged a prize draw for an Apple Watch! When installing or launching any of the applications below during the month of September, you will automatically be entered in the prize draw. The winner of the Apple Watch will be notified after October 1st. Full terms and conditions of this prize draw are here.

This new extension to the Bitnami marketplace is more than just a partnership between Bitnami and commercial software vendors, but it is also a promise to you that we will continue to provide all types of awesome applications to try and use with the same high quality experience that you expect from us. And if you are a software vendor wanting Bitnami to help ensure your users can have an extraordinary experience getting started with the app, learn more about how your app can be a part of the Bitnami library

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Find us at VMWorld 2015 - SF, CA


We’re speaking at VMWorld 2015! Join us for the vCloud Air Hackathon (VMworld’s first hackathon) and lunchtime talk. The hackathon is open to all VMworld attendees.

Bitnami will be co-presenting a session on “Dev Ops Awesomeness with Bitnami” with Nitin Saxena, Director of Solutions Marketing from the VMware vCloud Air team. We’ll be demonstrating how easy it is to get started using vCloud Air using the Bitnami Launchpad, as well as how to build scalable container-based applications using the Bitnami Container images for Docker, Kubernetes and vCloud Air.

Our talk will be on Wednesday 2nd September at 12:30pm in the Dev Ops @ VMware area. Can’t make it? We’re at Moscone all week and would love to connect and give you a limited edition Bitnami t-shirt!

Need a pass for VMworld 2015? Use registration code VMWDEVDAY for a complimentary one day pass for Wednesday 2nd September. 

Registration is here. See you there!

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

MONyog Now Available on Bitnami


We’re pleased to welcome MONyog into the Bitnami Library! If you’re a MySQL database administrator looking for an enterprise-grade data monitoring tool that not only offers support for unlimited servers but also top-of-the-line security, test out our newest Application Server app.





MONyog also offers an array of features that ensure you’re getting the most out of your MySQL and MariaDB deployments. From real-time query monitoring analysis to advanced server metrics that alert you to resource shortages, MONyog helps you to tighten security, optimize performance and reduce downtime.

Key features included:
  • Real-time query monitoring and log analysis
  • Replication and deadlock monitoring
  • Proactive alerts via email and SNMP
  • Historical/trend analysis of performance data
  • Agentless installation
  • Supports MySQL servers running on any platform
  • Multi-user support with per-server access rules and LDAP integration
  • HTTP API for integration with third-party applications
Interested in MONyog? Deploy a one-hour free demo of the Bitnami MONyog Stack! We make it easy to run MONyog in the cloud, virtually, or locally in minutes. Try it out now!



MONyog MySQL Monitor is a product of database management software company Webyog. To learn more about MONyog, please visit the MONyog website and knowledge base.


'Take 5' with Code Dx Founder Ken Prole


Ken Prole, CTO at Code Dx, sat down with our team to discuss the passion and inspiration behind his popular software assurance and analytics tool. The goal behind Code Dx was to deliver a product that would solve real problems for real people. Ken and his team identified the problems that many developers confront with application quality and security testing such as difficult installation, expensive tools, and having to use multiple tools which makes it hard to compare results.

Learn more about Code Dx and Ken’s journey that led to a successful company in our latest ‘Take 5’ with the Founder:

What advice would you offer to any soon-to-be startup founders out there?

You need to understand your user’s pain points and needs very well. This means getting out of the office and talking with people. Listen carefully to how things are being done today and what challenges your solution can solve for them – this creates your value proposition. Then implement that solution, incrementally, starting with the MVP (Minimal Viable Product), always working closely with users for feedback. Don’t be afraid to pivot and change direction as you get more feedback. Your early customers are critical for turning your idea into a product that actually solves someone’s needs. Also look for mentors. Reach out to people who have had success growing a startup. They’ll likely be more open than you think to help and might even join your Board of Advisors, which is another important tip for success.

What was your original source of inspiration when you started Code Dx?

We saw a bunch of tools appearing to help developers detect quality and security issues, but there was nothing to bring all those results together and various studies by NIST and NSA were showing that a collection of tools gives you much better coverage. DHS Science & Technology Directorate shared the same vision and were instrumental in funding our initial research and development through their Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

What problem will your product solve? + How does it matter in the market?

Code Dx is a software vulnerability management tool. It helps developers, software testers and security analysts find software vulnerabilities, prioritize them and assign them for remediation before the attackers can exploit them. For developers, we embed Code Dx right into your IDE so you can find the vulnerabilities early in the SDLC. As a result you write better quality code so your software doesn’t crash or perform poorly, as well as more secure code, so that vulnerabilities are detected before the bad guys find them. There are plenty of software scanning tools out there already, but we developed Code Dx to respond to specific challenges those tools present. The challenges we heard most often from people getting started in application quality and security testing were that (1) tools are too expensive and licensing restricts its usage by line-of-code or number of projects; (2) tools are difficult to install, configure, and interpret the results; (3) no single tool finds everything and when using multiple tools it is very difficult to compare results. We solved these problems with Code Dx and feel it is helping the overall quality and security tool market since now people can more easily consume the results of multiple tools.

What is your one-line pitch?

Code Dx finds, prioritizes, and visualizes software vulnerabilities – fast and affordably.

Describe the experience of your first customers?

Finally getting a product into the hands of real users solving real problems is what it’s all about. Seeing how our first customers used Code Dx was enlightening to us. We saw how our vision actually helped users do things they couldn’t before. It helped validate that Code Dx was a product that fulfilled someone’s needs. We also learned what frustrated users with our early versions, and used that feedback to make Code Dx even better. That’s what we continue to do today. So try out Code Dx and let us know what you think!

Now for the lightning round!

Coffee or tea?
Coffee in morning, tea in afternoon.

PC or MAC?
PC and Android for me. I feel like more and more colleagues are switching to MAC, but I haven’t been able to make the switch yet.

Early bird or night owl?
Kids have made me an early bird, but I can still do the night owl thing when needed.

Bagels or muffins?
Bagels, especially on Bagel Friday.

Classic or modern?
Modern

Detailed or abstract?
Abstract.

Washing dishes or doing laundry?
Washing dishes. Laundry is such a process.

Saver or spender?
Saver.

Hardwood or carpet?
Hardwood
Pancakes or waffles?
Waffles

Asking questions or answering questions?
Asking questions as the answer.

Javascript or C?
Anything but going back to C programming.

Friday, August 21, 2015

Try out the first RC of PHP 7 right now on Bitnami!

The first release candidate of PHP has been released and we just included it in our library. You can now download the new installers for Unix and Windows systems.

This version includes a lot of bug fixeschangesvarious stability improvements for database, array, assert, streams and other functionality. that you can try right now with our installers in a few clicks.

PHP 7.0.0 comes with new version of the Zend Engine with features such as:
  • Improved performance: PHP 7 is up to twice as fast as PHP 5.6
  • Consistent 64-bit support
  • Many fatal errors are now Exceptions
  • Removal of old and unsupported SAPIs and extensions
  • The null coalescing operator (??)
  • Combined comparison Operator (<=>)
  • Return Type Declarations
  • Scalar Type Declarations
  • Anonymous Classes
We'd love to hear how you like PHP 7 and what improvements or problems you've seen so far. Sound off in the comments below or connect to us on Twitter with your feedback.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Security release: Drupal 6 and 7

The Drupal project released a new version that fixes several security issues; upgrading your existing Drupal 7 and 6 sites is strongly recommended.


The new version fixes:
  • Cross-site Scripting - Ajax system - Drupal 7: A vulnerability was found that allows a malicious user to perform a cross-site scripting attack by invoking Drupal.ajax() on a whitelisted HTML element.
  • Cross-site Scripting - Autocomplete system - Drupal 6 and 7: A cross-site scripting vulnerability was found in the autocomplete functionality of forms. The requested URL is not sufficiently sanitized.
  • And other changes that you can check in the official security advisory
In response to the new version we have released Bitnami Drupal7 and 6 installersvirtual machines and Amazon EC2,GoogleAzureVMware and DigitalOcean cloud images that fix these issues. There are no new features or non-security related bug fixes in these releases.


You should patch your Drupal version as soon as possible. You can follow the step-by-step instructions via this blog post. Stated simply, you will need to ssh to your machine, ssh to the Drupal installation directory and execute drush.

$ cd /opt/bitnami/apps/drupal/htdocs
$ drush up


If everything goes well, you should see something similar to the following:

Project drupal was updated successfully. Installed version is now 7.39.
Backups were saved into the directory /home/bitnami/drush-backups/bitnami_drupal7/20150820155354/drupal.                  [ok]
No database updates required                               [success]
'all' cache was cleared.                                   [success]

Finished performing updates.                                    [ok]


Have questions about Bitnami Drupal? Post to our community forum, and we would be happy to help you. 





Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Our August Bitnami Power User: Nick McElligott

We’re excited to announce our August ‘Bitnami Power User', Nick McElligott! Nick went from having little to no backend server knowledge to CTO in a matter of months. He uses Bitnami as a resource to explore different installation environments and experiment with server setups.

Nick is an evangelist for Bitnami, not only because we make server software easy to use, but also because we make a wide variety of applications available on many different platforms and back it up with solid documentation and customer support.

Our support team is all about great user experience, so we love when people ask for help or advice! If you ever have a question about one of our stacks, visit the Bitnami community page and we’ll help you out ASAP.

Read on to learn more about Nick’s experience:

What is your occupation? 

Right now I'm an IT Consultant. I am a consulting CTO for a few small companies (all under the same ownership) and consult for my previous full time job in a full stack dev role.

What are your hobbies? 

  • beer 
  • basketball (especially NBA Spurs, and NCAA KU - rock chalk!)
  • blacksmithing (shout out to watersidemetalart.org) 
  • juggling and unicycling 
  • bar hopping
  • traveling 
  • Indian food 
  • programming (javascript is my favourite atm)

How would a novice programmer best use Bitnami as a resource? 

Most of the resources and tutorials on the internet are focused on front end (HTML/CSS/JS) and back end (PHP/Python/Ruby/C#/Java/DB etc) development. There are very little great tutorials on backend server stuff like how to get going with Linux install/setup/usage/concepts, the command line usage, Apache installation/setups/best use, MySQL install/setup and general server management, backups, monitoring, and architecture etc. All that stuff is usually learned on the job with experience. It’s hard to teach from a video and hard to learn without actually doing it and going through it all - something that most people would find prohibitive and not worth the payoff. 

When I got my first job at Spark Digital, I hadn’t touched any servers. I was thrown in the deep-end and was the only programmer in the whole building. Initially the existing sites were setup on shared hosting environments where we had little control over the environment. Within 6 months we had decided that we wanted to move over to a VPS provider and discovered Amazon. Since I didn't have any experience, we looked to Bitnami.


How did Bitnami fulfill your needs and where did you first hear about us? 

Bitnami has a billion different server images for all kinds of different products and services. However I would expect that most users don't use a fraction of all the different images available. Most people are in an industry and do a specific type of thing. Much of the value I got from Bitnami was that you could trust that the images were setup in a best way possible, documentation is amazing, and your support team goes above and beyond the call of duty.

Your Support Team really pushed me over the edge to fully love Bitnami. I can't tell you the amount of times they have saved me. It’s honestly insane. I'd love to see how many emails have been sent back and forth between us. The team was awesome, knowledgeable, intelligent, understanding and so much more. Please tell your support team that they are amazing, and if it weren't for all their hard work, I'd simply be a front end dev, not a full stacker.

What projects are you currently working on? 

Personally- I've been looking into RFID stuff using a RaspPi and using a LAMP backend. I may even take a look at switching over to a MEAN stack. RFID is such an empty market, and there are so many opportunities there, its exciting. Other RaspPi stuff and home automation is another area where I have interest. 

Professionally- I've just started playing with Visual Studio and C#, its a lot of fun. Working with a full fledged IDE has been interesting, but playing with a C based lang has been great.


Do you have any favorite stacks/apps in the Bitnami Library? 

Nothing in particular. I'm more familiar with a LAMP stack though.


We love to hear hear from our users, and would love to hear about your personal experience with Bitnami, as well. Feel free to reach out to us, and you might just be the next Bitnami Power User!



Friday, August 14, 2015

YouTrack 6.5 Tracks Bugs Better

Are you building bug and issue tracking into your software development project? If not, you could be setting yourself up for headaches later on if the issues pile up and you have no process in place to document, reproduce, triage, and manage them. Fortunately, the Bitnami YouTrack stack can be deployed in just a few clicks to keep those bugs at bay! YouTrack is a comprehensive, browser-based bug and issue management system that just added some interesting new features with the release of its version 6.5.

Whether you work alone or manage a large development team, YouTrack can simplify your life thanks to its flexible integrations with other development and QA applications and its ability to scale up or down based on your needs.

A couple of weeks ago we wrote about how to increase collaboration between your QA and development teams and reduce revisions by integrating YouTrack with TestLink. Now with the version 6.5 update, released today in Bitnami, YouTrack adds seamless integration with your favorite development and revision control tools like GitLab and Bitbucket, a redesigned administration UI, one-click import of issues from Jira, and other helpful upgrades.

Key features and enhancements:

  • JetBrains’ teamware integration
  • Project Wizard
  • Enhanced TeamCity integration
  • Dashboard improvements: query assistance, saved searches and tag filters
  • Updated workflow
  • Improved iMailbox integration
  • Bug-fix versions included in the license
  • Mention @username notifications


New to Bitnami? You will be pleased to know that the Bitnami YouTrack stack comes with a free license for up to 10 users and can be deployed in the cloud, as a Virtual Machine, or natively with just a few clicks. You can see how easy it is by launching a one-hour YouTrack demo in the cloud, absolutely free!


If you are an existing YouTrack user and would like to find out how to upgrade to 6.5, see our wiki page here for easy-to-follow instructions.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Announcing the Bitnami Launchpad for DigitalOcean


We’re pleased to announce the Bitnami Launchpad for DigitalOcean, which furthers our mission of making deploying applications to the cloud seamless. This new option provides developers with over 100 fully configured applications and development stacks that are ready-to-run on the DigitalOceancloud platform in minutes.

The Bitnami Launchpad is free for DigitalOcean users. You will be charged solely for the infrastructure resources you consume, with no additional cost for the Bitnami solutions built on top of that infrastructure. Bonus: New users can claim up to 2 months of free service credit to use when signing up. Use promo code BITNAMI.

Get started now: 

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Security Release: Magento 1.9.2.1


The Magento project has just released a new community version that includes the latest security patches: SUPEE-5344, SUPEE-5994, SUPEE-6237, SUPEE-6285, SUPEE-6482. It is recommended that you apply those patches or upgrade to the latest version of the application. For more information about the security issues fixed with those patches check out this helpful user guide

We have released Bitnami Magento 1.9.2.1 installersvirtual machines and Amazon EC2Google, Azure and VMware vCloud Air cloud images that fix these issues.

If you already have a running version of Bitnami Magento, you can upgrade the application following the steps detailed on our wiki page.

To learn more about this new version, you can read about them on the Magento release notes. Have questions about Bitnami Magento? Post to our community forum, and we would be happy to help you. 

Security Release: WordPress 4.2.4

The WordPress project has just released a new version due to a security release. WordPress versions 4.2.3 and earlier are affected by six issues, including three cross-site scripting vulnerabilities and a potential SQL injection that could be used to compromise a site. 

It also includes a fix for a potential timing side-channel attack and prevents an attacker from locking a post from being edited.

In addition to the security fixes, WordPress 4.2.4 contains fixes for 4 bugs from 4.2.3. You can find more information at the Release Notes.

The WordPress team strongly encourages their users to update their site to this version. For more details please check the official announcementIf you already have a running version of Bitnami WordPress, the application will be automatically updated. You can confirm that the update has been done by checking the version from your admin panel.

We have released Bitnami WordPress 4.2.4 (and Multisite version) installersvirtual machines and Amazon EC2GoogleVMware vCloud Air and Azure cloud images that fix these issues.

Have questions about Bitnami WordPress or the security issue? Post to our community forum, and we would be happy to help you.