28 October 2010
We are working towards the launch of Crowd 2.1, with a number of new features and improvements. These release notes are for Crowd 2.1 Beta 2, which is now available for review. We will publish the final release notes when we release the production-ready version of Crowd 2.1.
We would love your feedback on this beta release. See our download instructions and early adopter's guide below.
Crowd 2.1 Beta 1 was an internal release. Beta 2 is the first publicly-available beta of Crowd 2.1.
![]() | Do not use a beta release on production servers
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What's New in Crowd 2.1 Beta 2
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REST APICrowd 2.1 introduces a new set of REST APIs for use by applications connecting to Crowd. This is especially great news for people developing a custom application connector. The new REST APIs are now available for beta testing. They offer the following features for client applications:
See our overview of the new APIs and guide to the REST resources. |
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Database-Backed Caching for All LDAP DirectoriesEarlier versions of Crowd provided in-memory caching for LDAP user and group data. Now, with Crowd 2.1, the LDAP cache is stored in the Crowd database.
See the Crowd 2.1 Beta Guide to LDAP Caching. |
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LDAP Connection PoolingCrowd now supports connection pooling for your LDAP servers. The LDAP service provider maintains a pool of connections and assigns them as needed. When a connection is closed, LDAP returns the connection to the pool for future use. See the Crowd 2.1 Beta Guide to LDAP Connection Pooling. |
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Secure Password ResetsWhen someone has forgotten their password, Crowd no longer sends them a new password. Instead, it sends them a unique, random URL, prompting them to choose their own new password. |
Early Adopter's Guide to Reviewing Crowd 2.1 Beta 2
Downloading Crowd 2.1 Beta 2
The beta release is available on the Crowd Early Access Program download site.
Upgrading to Crowd 2.1 Beta 2
Please refer to the Crowd 2.1 Beta 2 Upgrade and Integration Notes.
Targets for your Testing
We invite your feedback on this beta release, in particular on the following aspects:
- The new REST APIs. See our overview of the new APIs and guide to the REST resources.
- Database-backed LDAP caching. See the Crowd 2.1 Beta Guide to LDAP Caching.
We are keen to hear about any performance improvements or other impacts that you notice. Try tuning the polling interval and let us know what happens. We have optimised the database caching for directories containing approximately 10 000 (ten thousand) users. If your directory is significantly larger the new caching may not be as beneficial, but we are interested in hearing about the performance of larger directories too. When sending feedback, please include the following information:- Your LDAP directory type (Active Directory, ApacheDS, Novell eDirectory, etc).
- The number of users, groups and average memberships per user in your directory.
- The time it takes to synchronise.
- Any other information you consider relevant, such as network topology, whether you are using SSL, and so on.
Sending your FeedBack and Questions
If you have general comments and feedback, please add them as comments to this release notes page. If you encounter a bug or would like to request an improvement, please log an issue in our issue tracker with an affected version of '2.1.0-beta2'.