Cloudron 3.3 released
We are happy to announce the release of Cloudron 3.3!
For those unaware, Cloudron is a platform that makes it easy to run web apps on your server and keep them up-to-date and secure. Think SaaS for self-hosted apps.
Cloudron 3.3 adds support for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Cloudflare HTTP proxying, Dynamic DNS support & more.
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Cloudron can now be installed on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver). What's phenomenal about this Ubuntu release is that Canonical has made the commitment to support it for 10 years into the future! This Ubuntu release also has the livepatchfeature that can apply critical kernel patches without rebooting.
Implementing a seamless upgrade from 16.04 to 18.04 for the Cloudron platform code and over 50 apps in the Cloudron App Store is a massive undertaking. To make this transition smooth, we divided the task into various stages.
First, we re-packaged all our apps to use the Ubuntu 18.04. Over the last two months, we have pushed updates for all the application packages to use Ubuntu 18.04 based containers.
Next, we migrated the databases:
- Postgres was updated from 9.6 to 10.
- MySQL was upgraded from 5.6 to 5.7
- MongoDB was upgraded from 3.2 to 3.6
Finally, we started testing all the apps with the latest databases. As of this writing, ownCloud and Wallabag do not support the latest Postgres. For this reason, Cloudrons running these two apps won't receive the 3.3 update (yet).
The magic of Cloudron is that you don't need to worry about all the complexities about this upgrade It's all automated and taken care of by Cloudron.
On a final note, there is no rush for Cloudrons on Ubuntu 16.04 to upgrade to 18.04. This is because all the app and database containers are already using 18.04 internally on a 16.04 installation. We will be shortly putting up instructions on how to upgrade Cloudron 3.3 on Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04.
UPDATE: Upgrade instructions for existing Cloudrons is available here
Cloudflare HTTP Proxy support
Cloudflare HTTP proxying is a feature where Cloudflare rewrites a website's DNS to point to it's own servers. Cloudflare servers intelligently cache and proxy requests to the origin server. This way, the origin server IP is not leaked via DNS and can be protected against direct DDoS attacks.
Cloudron now supports running sites that use Cloudflare HTTP Proxying. To enable proxying, first install an app on the desired subdomain. Then, change the cryptography settings for your website to Full (Strict) in Cloudflare's dashboard. This way Cloudflare communicates with the app installed on Cloudron with a verified secure channel.
Finally, turn on the HTTP proxying in Cloudflare's UI.
We can verify that the site is indeed protected by Cloudflare by visiting the site and checking the certificate. It will show a green lock with certificates from Cloudflare:
Exoscale SOS backup regions
Exoscale recently announced the availability of it's object storage in 3 regions - CH, DE, AT. Cloudron has supported backing up to Exoscale SOS since a while now. In this release, the region can be configured in the Backup UI.
Certificate renewal
Cloudron renews Let's Encrypt certificates automatically. In some cases, one might want to trigger the renewal instantly. For example, when the Certificate provider for a domain is changed from non-wildcard to wildcard or vice-versa. This can be done using the Renew Certs button in the Domains UI.
New events
Domain add/edit/remove, certificate renewal and mailbox add/edit/removed are now logged into the activity log for audit purposes.
Dynamic DNS
If the Cloudron server uses a dynamic (but public) IP, as is the case with home installations, then the DNS needs to be periodically updated with the new IP. Using the Dynamic DNS feature, Cloudron will periodically detect your public IP and keep the DNS updated accordingly.
Install or update Cloudron
New to Cloudron? Get started for free by running with 3 simple commands on your server.
To update an existing installation, simply click on the 'Update now' button on your dashboard.