v2.4.0-alpha Release Notes - April 15, 2021

New features

FABGW-1: Fabric Gateway Technical Preview

The Hyperledger Fabric v2.4.0 Alpha contains a technical preview of the new Fabric Gateway feature.

The Fabric Gateway is a new component that will implement much of the high-level 'gateway' programming model in the Fabric peer,
enabling the removal of much of the transaction submission and query logic from client applications, and shifting it to a common gateway component running within the Fabric peer.
The various client SDKs can therefore be slimmer, more consistent, and require less maintenance.

The Fabric Gateway will also simplify the administrative overhead of running a Fabric network because client applications
will be able to connect and submit transactions via a single network port rather than the current situation where ports
have to be opened from a client application to multiple peers across potentially multiple organizations.

The Fabric Gateway technical preview is delivered along with slim SDKs in the https://github.com/hyperledger/fabric-gateway repository,
along with client application samples.

Improvements

peer and orderer - Implement legacy name constraints verification for Go 1.15

These changes reproduce the Go 1.14 name constraint verification in the MSP.
Without these changes, certificate chains that would fail verification in Go 1.14 would
successfully validate in Go 1.15 due to the change mentioned in the Go 1.15 release notes.
Specifically, if a signing certificate contains a name constraint, the leaf certificate
does not include SAN extensions, and the leaf's common name looks like a host name,
then the additional verification is performed to ensure deterministic behavior relative
to prior Fabric releases.

peer and orderer - Default log record format improvements

Expanded the width of the log record sequence number to a minimum of four characters,
moved the log sequence number and log level to the left,
and added bold formatting to the function name.
These changes keep the fixed-width columns together at the left
and add a visual break between the logging module name and log message text.

Fixes

All fixes as of v2.3.1 are included in v2.4.0-alpha. Additionally, the following fixes are made in v2.4.0-alpha.

FAB-18427: orderer - Report correct reason of stream abort in orderer cluster

This commit fixes a bug that makes the cluster communication infrastructure
always report an "aborted" reason after a stream terminates.

FAB-18424: peer - Ledger snapshot request submission with special value "blockNumber 0"

If a ledger snapshot request is submitted with the special value "blockNumber 0", peer is expected to translate the request to last committed block.
This patch fixes the issue where, it may happen sometimes that the request is translated to block number 1 instead of last committed block.
This leads to the situation where no snapshot gets generated, including any future snapshot requests.
If you have ever used this special value, we encourage you to check the list of pending snapshots requests with peer snapshot listpending.
If you notice one or more pending requests that are for the the block numbers lower than the latest committed block, cancel such requests with peer snapshot cancelrequest to enable the further snapshot requests to be processed.

FAB-18304: peer and orderer - Fix leveldb manifest corruption

This fix updates the version of goleveldb. The prior version of goleveldb had a bug which
could cause manifest corruption in crash scenarios, especially in disk full crash scenarios.
With a corrupted goleveldb database, the peer or orderer would fail to start with error
"panic: Error opening leveldb: leveldb: manifest corrupted".

Dependencies

Fabric v2.4.0-alpha has been tested with the following dependencies:

Go 1.15.7
CouchDB v3.1.1
Alpine images 3.13

Deprecations (existing)

FAB-15754: The 'Solo' consensus type is deprecated.

The 'Solo' consensus type has always been marked non-production and should be in
use only in test environments, however for compatibility it is still available,
but may be removed entirely in a future release.

FAB-16408: The 'Kafka' consensus type is deprecated.

The 'Raft' consensus type was introduced in v1.4.1 and has become the preferred
production consensus type. There is a documented and tested migration path from
Kafka to Raft, and existing users should migrate to the newer Raft consensus type.
For compatibility with existing deployments, Kafka is still supported,
but may be removed entirely in a future release.
Additionally, the fabric-kafka and fabric-zookeeper docker images are no longer updated, maintained, or published.

Fabric CouchDB image is deprecated

v2.2.0 added support for CouchDB 3.1.0 as the recommended and tested version of CouchDB.
If prior versions are utilized, a Warning will appear in peer log.
Note that CouchDB 3.1.0 requires that an admin username and password be set,
while this was optional in CouchDB v2.x. See the
Fabric CouchDB documentation
for configuration details.
Also note that CouchDB 3.1.0 default max_document_size is reduced to 8MB. Set a higher value if needed in your environment.
Finally, the fabric-couchdb docker image will not be updated to v3.1.0 and will no longer be updated, maintained, or published.
Users can utilize the official CouchDB docker image maintained by the Apache CouchDB project instead.

FAB-7559: Support for specifying orderer endpoints at the global level in channel configuration is deprecated.

Utilize the new 'OrdererEndpoints' stanza within the channel configuration of an organization instead.
Configuring orderer endpoints at the organization level accommodates
scenarios where orderers are run by different organizations. Using
this configuration ensures that only the TLS CA certificates of that organization
are used for orderer communications, in contrast to the global channel level endpoints which
would cause an aggregation of all orderer TLS CA certificates across
all orderer organizations to be used for orderer communications.

FAB-17428: Support for configtxgen flag --outputAnchorPeersUpdate is deprecated.

The --outputAnchorPeersUpdate mechanism for updating anchor peers has always had
limitations (for instance, it only works the first time anchor peers are updated).
Instead, anchor peer updates should be performed through the normal config update flow.

FAB-15406: The fabric-tools docker image is deprecated

The fabric-tools docker image will not be published in future Fabric releases.
Instead of using the fabric-tools docker image, users should utilize the
published Fabric binaries. The Fabric binaries can be used to make client calls
to Fabric runtime components, regardless of where the Fabric components are running.

FAB-15317: Block dissemination via gossip is deprecated

Block dissemination via gossip is deprecated and may be removed in a future release.
Fabric peers can be configured to receive blocks directly from an ordering service
node by using the following configuration:

peer.gossip.orgLeader: true
peer.gossip.useLeaderElection: false
peer.gossip.state.enabled: false

FAB-15061: Legacy chaincode lifecycle is deprecated

The legacy chaincode lifecycle from v1.x is deprecated and will be removed
in a future release. To prepare for the eventual removal, utilize the v2.x
chaincode lifecycle instead, by enabling V2_0 application capability on all
channels, and redeploying all chaincodes using the v2.x lifecycle. The new
chaincode lifecycle provides a more flexible and robust governance model
for chaincodes. For more details see the
documentation for enabling the new lifecycle.

Changes:

06509ad v2.4.0-alpha release notes
4365412 remove redundant slice cast
5d500ee Fixed Typo
d001dbc Add debug for gateway endorsement requests (#2538)
4cfc722 Skip plugin tests when the noplugin tag is used (#2535)
ba7e923 fix: fix typo
dead74f Fixed Typo (#2533)
c7dc5d7 Improve snapshot dir error message
3714ca3 Document ledger.snapshots.rootDir
b1f4329 Simplify GitHub Action for AZP Triggering

See More

a8bfc98 Update deploy_chaincode.md
345a08b Add Security Model topic to docs
aefa755 Fix link in international_languages.md
a559b2c Fix timeout in orderer connection from gateway
d88e09c peer: the 'noplugin' build tag disables plugins
f5de431 FABGW-9 Select endorsers with max block height
f4dba9d Fix old or incorrect contents in the doc build instruction
576d186 Fix the fix for race condition in Finder unit test (#2504)
1147977 Clarify private data doc for endorsement policies (#2502)
1cc0ed0 Clarify private data doc related to private data responses. (#2501)
7ac0b60 FABGW-8: Fix race condition in Finder unit test
62e327e FABGW-8: Implement Gateway CommitStatus service
a1d06eb Wire function parameter to its actual usage (#2499)
4793d86 build(deps): bump jinja2 from 2.10.1 to 2.11.3 in /docs
54e27a6 Update "master" branch references to "main".
c0ca3c2 Regression test for prev commit "Bugfix: loadLastConfig wrongly returns nil instead of error"
a54199b FABGW-8: Hook commit notifier into Gateway service
13092bb Bugfix: loadLastConfig wrongly returns nil instead of error
18b78da integration: PKCS#11 SKI to CKA_ID mapping test
5484a18 pkcs11: Add SKI to CKA_ID mapping for BCCSP [ #11 ]
178de67 nwo: capture config file updates through network
fffb2bf docs: Add some comments about untested code
fd72843 Handle unsuccessful status from Gateway orderer send
9319f4a Prepared tx must be signed before submission
ab79e69 FABGW-8: Tidy up commit notifier
fad002c Gateway error logic refactor
5ff76d3 Tidy up gateway unit tests
76763d1 FABGW-8: Wait for transaction commits
b40f703 platform/golang: loosen assertion for Go 1.16.2 (#2480)
fd62c39 msp/mgmt: remove reflect based type assertion
e5827c5 lscc: remove GetManagerForChain from prod code
2c7c37d peer: remove GetManagerFromChain from prod code
ba6a87e peer: use MSPManager from bundle instead of mspmgmt
86d1d0a common: remove the unused common/config package
85dbd43 cscc: stop wiring policy.PolicyChecker
7204344 peer: remove NewConfigSupport and friends
e2218d7 msp/mgmt: remove Setup/Deserialize wrappers
c40cce0 msp/mgmt: remove LoadLocalMsp
50406fe msp/mgmt: remove LoadLocalMspWithType
8e3751a msp/mgmt: remove GetLocalSigningIdentityOrPanic
c4eb80f peer: stop using GetLocalSigningIdentityOrPanic
10b09b9 msp/mgmt: move TestLocalMSP into mgmt_test
1dbd6e9 msp/mgmt: move MSPPrincipalGetter to policy
bfa7dcf Remove unused policy checker from lscc
e6a04b9 msp/mgmt: move DeserializersManager its user
ed964d3 msp: construct DeserializersManager with local MSP
0c28b4e Update Gateway with latest fabric-proto-go version
dc5ceca Implementation for commit notification events for embedded gateway.
73d6539 Gateway gRPC functions to return google.rpc.Status
8edf513 Update fabric-proto-go to latest version
2d81cb2 FABGW-6 endpoint factory to use refactored comms
e71b99a Provide commit events from ledger (#2470)
69b636c Run go mod tidy with the latest Go version
8209646 Remove un-needed casts in discovery_impl.go (#2469)
0afd404 Upgrade goleveldb
542f320 comm: move GetLocalIP to its caller
acceb08 comm: move cert extraction to common/util
ef156bd comm: move BindingInspector to its consumer
a2f2fa5 comm: remove AddPemToCertPool
61ecf96 comm: remove GRPCClient structure
701ef16 comm: get dial options from config at new conn
505b917 comm: remove unused fixtures from testdata
1767b55 comm: remove TLSOption list from NewConnection
3a91146 deliverservice: update DialerAdapter signature
a402702 deliverservice: replace CertPool PEM certs
ac5fd79 comm: stop passing GRPCConnection to deliver svc
933ac90 comm: move ServerNameOverride to SecureOptions
5242742 comm: remove GRPCClient#SetServerRootCAs
ca15dc4 comm: remove GRPCClient#TLSEnabled
8c7cb70 comm: move Certificate to SecureOptions#ClientCert
8ae44de comm: remove MutualTLSRequired from GRPCClient
e7b9c38 comm: ClientConfig builds the grpc.DialOption list
d944633 comm: rename ClientConfig#Timeout to DialTimeout
6281c0c comm: SecureOptions used to build TLSConfig
e0fbdf3 comm: hang option accessors off KeepaliveOptions
ab9ff14 comm: remove ClientConfig#Clone
4829636 Add a note explaining channel name restrictions on test network tutorial
9ac47b1 FABGW-6 Use concurrent go routines for endorsement
6279191 Initial gateway integration tests
4a37575 Update Prereq, Install, and SDK docs
15e95d6 Docs: Update Getting Started section with install commands and add links to asset transfer basic.
e1915a3 Change name of comm msg size default consts
6a458ad Refactor max message sizes in comm client config
11636f5 Replace WaitGroups with channels and timeouts
fda1ee7 hygiene: minor cleanup from previous commits
b83dacf Replace Config interface with ConfigUpdate struct
7751eae hygiene: remove camelCase import name
7a8e1de FABGW-6 Implement Submit()
7172484 protoutil: add CreateTx helper
21a800b integration: exercise osnadmin in the e2e suite
e708729 osnadmin: add --no-status flag to remove Status
e53b900 Add check-help-docs target to basic checks
7dc4d03 integration: throttle grpc/http client creation
9c3a732 integration/ledger: rename commitTx argument
2f78967 Add tools target for the tools docker image
5bad6ae deps: bump fabric-config to v0.1.0
e0253ef Fix images in network concept and upload new diagrams power point
c4e6a48 Increase build timeout for integration/pluggable
24da29e integration: remove use of internal/peer/chaincode
6108e5b integration/nwo: add grpc.ClientConn accessors
d32d1e6 integration/lifecycle: refactor RestartNetwork
95cb08a Bump Alpine to 3.13
51cf708 Add Alpine Version to Tools Image
c73a680 integration: replace custom function with matcher
3b15d60 integration: move templates to nwo/template
6a28a35 integration: remove yaml network definitions
b3e6036 integration: remove helpers package
b22af03 integration: move runners under nwo/runners
44abc6b Fix bug in snapshot request submission
f0584c6 Report correct reason of stream abort in orderer cluster
db0a864 Log stream total lifetime
6c3dcc4 integration/raft: use nwo.Signer
28b9f00 integration/kafka: use nwo.Signer
99e8cd5 integration/ledger: use nwo.Signer
8279188 integration/pvtdata: use nwo.Signer
bd2c193 integration/lifecycle: use nwo.Signer
ff7f98d e2e: replace common/signer with nwo.SigningIdentity
f832807 nwo: add nwo.SigningIdentity and accessors
ecaf697 Disable connection pool in operational clients
d3d7e05 corrected organization labels
316cdcd corrected Org1 text in Org2 box to Org2
ed8d556 Only run Kafka suite and ccenv-1.4 test on amd64
54ae5c7 Remove Kafka test from integration/network
4090606 Use busybox image for cc platform pull/build test
7dc39a4 add linux/runtime.GOARCH to legacy cc package deps
84b332d deps: bump golang/snappy for arm64 fixes
33886a4 Add binutils-gold to resolve link failures
5caf9f2 Fix a duplicate message while orderer setting up
f9d05b3 Update x509.CertPool equality checks
9776d46 JoinBySnapshotStatus returns a string
1fdfe55 Isolate Kafka tests to their own suite
1467f20 Update build to use Go 1.15
f840f9b Replace test cert fixtures with generated certs
862687a Format and errcheck test cert generation helper
03f9381 Implement legacy name constraints verification
975b28b Add test to assert on name constraint behavior
ed2b330 Fix some typos in docs
5a581fd Change docker compose network name
c57a0fb Fix typos in a "Developing Applications" doc
ba465d0 Retire dormant Fabric maintainers
dcf5d38 Re-encode ECDSA CRL signature during MSP setup
49c1c8c Add test to exercise signature validation change
c6b0b7c Add release note template for future v2.4.0
c032220 Update documentation to include Go SDK
b366eae Move all fixed width log entry fields to the left
373420d FABGW-1 Move gateway server into the peer
96f24f9 Fix broken link in orderer deployment guide
bd60dba Fix link in SECURITY.md
964e47a Replace certificate fixtures in etcdraft/consensus with certificates generated at runtime (#2370)
0146307 deps: bump hyperledger/fabric-*
ac56acd Test network works with Docker Desktop version 2.5.0.1
457e670 Update AZP Service Connection Name
e6aa947 Add Create a channel tutorial without a system channel and using test network
f2a226c Fix typo in install.rst
b042500 Updates in master for v2.3.1
d71e87f deps: bump prometheus/client_golang
ebff04e Add information about pkcs11-spy to devenv doc (#2344)
104caa0 Add to MAINTAINERS.md a link to the relevant doc
22f7547 deps: bump miscellaneous packages
f0d6b9c deps: bump github.com/fsouza/go-dockerclient
4e74441 Add peer log message for failure to invoke chaincode (#2339)
6f5bf54 deps: bump gopkg.in/yaml.v2
f0214bb Replace hostname with invalid IP address
15a33cc deps: bump testify
507b0c3 deps: bump zap
132dc45 Bumping pkg errors
1da235b Replace gofmt with the more opinionated gofumpt
8ddb55f Run gofumpt -l -s -w against the tree
825a5e4 Remove dead code
6745594 Use staticcheck as part of go linting
997e601 Address some more issues flagged by staticcheck
8df9e0d Address some issues flagged by staticcheck
0515d17 Test network does not work with latest Docker
bbdb4e7 Small refactors to setup for #2323 (#2324)
c583c29 Add comment to generated command documentation
9adbb41 Fix channelID flag reference in osnadmin help
a7ef393 generateHelpDocs filters trailing space from text
06d5ad5 Avoid os.Exit behavior when an osnadmin test fails
2a9251c Rename --channel-id to --channelID in osadmin
125f7dc [FABGW-1] Add gateway configuration
52816d4 Participation edits to network concept doc
5b50aa5 Fix some wrong spelling in the README.md
fcf5d40 Remove system channel from Test Network tutorial
5ef827a Fix the issue of Nil/Zero-length-byte-array value (#2305)
0744363 [FAB-15648] document update: Non-TLS orderer with etcdraft usage (#1678)
df38822 Fix doc to handle $PWD containing whitepaces
72a3c8b Remove warming reference from couchdb_tutorial.rst
9b427da [FAB-18005] remove couchDB index warming
a4a8520 Remove unreachable and unnecessary code in gossip membership
4fe9c76 Fix test network tutorial to deploy go smart contract
bf40955 Update Brett Logan's Information
8555262 Orderer deployment tutorial update
beec8f1 [doc] fix broken link
567614c Adjust etcdraft error assertions for go 1.15 (#2276)
00e644d [FAB-18398] Added osnadmin binary to tools image (#2275)
f4c3dfc [FAB-18170] Endorsement policy page discusses NodeSDK
bcc0b39 [FAB-18392] Clarify scope and limitations of test network
7a803a7 Remove GetSigningIdentity from MSP interface (#2265)
e4f17eb [FAB-18252] Documentation should reference Java chaincode support
e8c0d76 Add note to AnchorPeers in sampleconfig/configtx.yaml
e208c7c Remove anchor peers from configtx.yaml tutorial (#2257)
a76ba08 Update "add an org" tutorial to not use CLI
0a4066e FAB-16233 Improve UT - stop svc via explicit done channel (#2241)
36eec0d Split command in "add an org to network" tutorial
eec9341 Add more details to logging specification examples
55d651e Minor create channel doc typos
b744335 Even more edits to docs for participation API (#2208)
c2fc776 [FAB-18315] Ch.Part.API: Create Swagger definition for API (#2113)
4220751 [FAB-18357] Generate certs for peer CLI tests (#2238)
16e1cbc Update image filter used by integration tests
33711c1 Remove redundant identity unmarshaling
a953bbe [FAB-18382] Fix staticcheck issues in gossip/privdata
b952638 Add Language Argument to DeployCC Calls
74a17d9 Update Wiki link for Hyperledger Caliper (#2225)
7da02d1 Check correct error
cb7ca8a Fix staticcheck issues in gossip/discovery (#2215)
055b7e7 Fix staticcheck issues in gossip/comm (#2214)
dc2e59b Update test_network.md
5f61ff0 [FAB-18378] Log warning when peer is lagging behind and cannot catch up
b2b4b0f Remove string conversion and add error judgment (#2174)
c31cfac Fix unusual dash character in channel participation tutorial
26c2baa More doc edits for system channel removal
72d5cc8 [FAB-17039] Skip retrieving pvtdata from transient store when txid is missing (#2183)
24459b0 Remove Short Names and Replace With Full Path in Fabric
bc5416c FAB-16233 fail test with names instead of brutal panic
c2e20aa Use Deliver to ensure leader elected after sys chan removal
a321f6e Invert control flow to reduce indentation
6aed72a Remove old orderer deploy doc
25457a3 Edits to orderer and capabilities concept for participation API
db22a37 [FAB-17954] Document CouchDB JSON determinism (#2187)
3b98a7b Fix name of CHANNEL_CONFIG_BLOCK in the Channel participation API tutorial (#2186)
ba2607d Update README.md to include link to Fabric v2.3 documentation
5446f10 Orderer deploy guide edits for participation API (#2148)
9c41cbd [FAB-18339] CLI: rename GetCerificate to GetClientCertificate (#2146)
109bcb1 Fixes Hardened to Hardware
02b63bd remove repeated the
3406c35 update private-data sample instruction for Asset owner string
4d9fbdf Invert control flow to trim indentation
9890b37 Fix link to security bug reporting process (#2160)
f2b7aec Fix typo in comment (#2158)

This list of changes was auto generated.

hyperledger/fabric v2.4.0-alpha on GitHub