netCDF-Java and the THREDDS Data Server
Version 4.6.14
The NetCDF-Java/Common Data Model (CDM) library and THREDDS Data Server (TDS) version 4.6.14 release was announced July 29th, 2019. These are stable releases and contain a variety updates to 3rd party libraries which include security updates, and as such, the development team recommends these upgrades to anyone using the CDM or TDS. Please see the special note below about this and future 4.6.x versions of netCDF-Java.
The THREDDS Data Server (TDS) is 100% Java, open source, and runs as a Tomcat web server application. TDS data serving capabilities are built on top of Unidata's netCDF-Java / CDM library. The CDM data model combines the NetCDF-3, DAP2, and HDF5 data models into what is called the Common Data Model (CDM). It has a pluggable "I/O Service Provider" architecture that allows it to read various file formats into the CDM, including NetCDF, HDF5, GRIB, NEXRAD levels 2 and 3, and others, as well as datasets served through the OPeNDAP protocol. The TDS then builds data services on top of the CDM.
Notices
Special note about netCDF-Java
As of this release, the current stable version of netCDF-Java is v5.0.0 (the current stable version of the TDS is v4.6.14). The netCDF-Java code base is now located at https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf-java. This release, v4.6.14, is a maintenance release of the 4.6.x line of development. For netCDF-Java issues, please open an issue on the new repository. Bug fixes will be applied first to v5.x and, if possible, may be applied to v4.6.x. However, the code base has diverged quite a bit, and bug fixes to the 4.6.x line may be impractical. Security fixes, such as upgrading third-party dependencies with known open vulnerabilities, will continue to be applied to the 4.6.x branch in support of the stable version of the TDS. Upon the release of a stable TDS v5.0, such security fixes to the 4.6.x branch will continue to be addressed for at least six months.
Java Web Start
Java Web Start has been deprecated as of Java 9, and has been removed in Java 11, the Long-term Release post Java 8. As of v5 of netCDF-Java and the TDS, Web Start files and features have been removed. We will continue to publish the current set of Java Web Start files (netCDFtools.jnlp and netCDFtoolsExtraJars.jnlp) for v4.6.x at least until the TDS has reached a stable v5.0 release. Java 8 public updates are currently scheduled to end December 2020, at which point Java 11 will be the only LTS release available from the current major providers (OpenJDK and Oracle), although some vendors have committed to patching OpenJDK 8 until sometime later. As of January 2021, it is our plan to remove all netcdf-java and TDS Web Start files from Unidata servers, and Web Start functionality in TDS v4.6 and prior will no longer work. Users will still be able to download ToolsUI and run the application locally. In preparation for this, the next version of the TDS (v4.6.15) will allow server administrators to turn off links to the Web Start viewers found on many Dataset catalog pages. The Godiva2 client will still be available as a Viewer for gridded datasets in v4.6.x of the TDS. While TDS v5 does not include Java Web Start based viewers, it does include the updated Godiva3 client, as well as a new Jupyter Notebook viewer service.
Downloads
| Artifact | Description |
|---|---|
| netCDFAll.jar | The netCDF library implements the full CDM model, including all other jar dependencies. [md5] [sha1] |
| toolsUI.jar | The toolsUI.jar contains everything to run the ToolsUI application. [md5] [sha1] |
| tdmFat.jar | The THREDDS Data Manager (TDM) does background indexing for GRIB Feature Collections. [md5] [sha1] |
| thredds.war | The THREDDS Data Server web application. Please note that you will need to rename the download to thredds.war, or, if you are using tomcat, thredds##4.6.14.war. [md5] [sha1]
|
Documentation
Changes
New features and enhancements
- None
Bug fixes
- Address assorted security vulnerabilities in third-party libraries
- Fix NCSS html page layout
For a full list of changes between v4.6.13 and v4.6.14, as well as links to the original GitHub issues, please see the GitHub issue tracker.
All TDS administrators are strongly encouraged to move to 4.6.14. For more information about the 4.6 release and how to upgrade from previous versions, please see Upgrading to TDS 4.6.
Real-world use by the user community is integral to the process of creating and refining these libraries. Please direct all potential security issues directly to Unidata using the address security@unidata.ucar.edu. Please send all other potential issues to the development team via the the user community mailing lists (netcdf-java@unidata.ucar.edu or thredds@unidata.ucar.edu), through the Unidata support system (support-netcdf-java@unidata.ucar.edu or support-thredds@unidata.ucar.edu), or on the THREDDS or netCDF-Java GitHub issue trackers.