Kory Draughn

Chief Technologist

iRODS Consortium

June 17-20, 2025

iRODS User Group Meeting 2025

Durham, North Carolina

Contributors

Kory Draughn

Alan King

Markus Kitsinger

Derek Dong

Martin Jaime Flores Jr

Terrell Russell

Justin James

Daniel Moore

Nishant Dash

Violet White

Felix A. Croes

Phillip Davis

Awab

Peter Verraedt

June Releford

lenocil

4.3.3 Release Highlights

• Removed support for CentOS 7
• Support for Ubuntu 24.04
• Support for PostgreSQL 15
• Support for newer compilers and libstdc++
• Plugin package names include the server version which they were built against
• GenQuery2 improved support for SQL functions
  • SQL function syntax can be used in the WHERE and ORDER-BY clauses
  • Understands multi-argument SQL functions
• 10x performance improvement to timestamp generation for log messages

https://irods.org/2024/08/irods-4-3-3-is-released/

4.3.4 Release Highlights

• More deprecations
  • ilocate, igetwild, imeta qu, imeta's interactive mode
  • Server monitoring tools, modification of ACL policy - i.e. STRICT ACLs
• More bug fixes
• Cleaned up implementations

• imiscsvrinfo reports SSL/TLS certificate information

  • Made possible through enhancements to the rcGetMiscSvrInfo API endpoint

• Server removes ACLs following the removal of a user

• Expanded permission levels supported by the atomic ACL operations API endpoint

https://irods.org/2025/03/irods-4-3-4-is-released/

5.0.0 / 5.0.1 Release

iRODS 5 represents a significant effort to deliver an enterprise grade data management platform.

Great focus has been put into making iRODS 5 easy to deploy and manage in a variety of environments.

https://irods.org/2025/05/irods-5-0-1-is-released/

https://irods.org/2025/05/irods-5-0-0-is-released/

4.3.2 Core Server Updates

• GenQuery2
• Replica Truncate API
• Support for MariaDB
• Serialization of more iRODS data types
• Improved server stability

** Bold items discussed in this talk **​​

https://github.com/irods/irods/milestone/40?closed=1

• Improved documentation
  • How to report security vulnerabilities
  • Updated dynamic PEP listing
• Replication
  • Good replicas overwriting good replicas is now a no-op rather than an error

GenQuery2

GenQuery2 is now shipped with the server.

It is still considered experimental, but use is encouraged.

Its implementation can change as a result of community feedback.

Not used by the server, yet.

GenQuery2 will be available in the next release of the Python iRODS Client and Jargon.

• https://github.com/irods/python-irodsclient/pull/555
• https://github.com/DICE-UNC/jargon/pull/443

https://docs.irods.org/4.3.2/doxygen/genquery2_8h.html#a2b7171a0bea5f65ab4ca7c67fc87b3fa

New API - rc_replica_truncate

Allows applications to adjust the size of a single replica.

Motivated by NFSRODS.

• https://github.com/irods/irods_client_nfsrods/issues/178

Additional Information

• Modeled after POSIX truncate(2)
• Includes a microservice for policy
• Replaces rcDataObjTruncate (deprecated)

There are plans to add support for an ftruncate-style API as well.

• https://github.com/irods/irods/issues/7559

https://docs.irods.org/4.3.2/doxygen/replica__truncate_8h.html#a982a350e8933d32b4a81ba3053269a7f

Serialization of more iRODS data types

iRODS 4.3.2 now serializes the following data types for the rule engine plugin framework.

• StructFileExtAndRegInp (ibun)
• ExecMyRuleInp (irule)
• MsParamArray (irule)

Policy implementers can now inspect the contents of requests dealing with archive files and rule execution, and react accordingly.

iRODS 5.0 - Primary Goals

Modernize the startup/shutdown process for the iRODS server.

Things we are going to address ...

• Startup/Shutdown sequence is more deterministic
  • No mixing of fork[-exec] and multi-threading logic
  • No dependency on external Python code
• Server configuration is only loaded on startup
  • Supports live reloads via SIGHUP signal
  • Agents no longer reload the configuration
• Non-package installation is supported by design

We are considering ...

• Decoupling of hostnames from servers
  • Possibly the removal of hostnames altogether
    • May not be possible due to server-to-server redirects

iRODS 5.0 - Early Design and Implementation

Experimentation is now in progress. It's too early to assert anything about the design/implementation. Initial design is heavily influenced by the iRODS HTTP API.

At the moment, the plan is to honor the following ...

• Clear separation of concerns between components
• Plugins handle their own shared memory
• Multi-threaded code is constrained to leaf processes
• Runs as a normal application
  • Accepts a path to directory containing configuration files
  • Can be launched as a daemon process
• Control plane runs as a separate process
• Meets all requirements for working with systemd

Core Development Team Talks

• Not in This Talk / Separate Talks

  • Phil Owen

    • iRODS Build and Test v9: Automation via GitHub and Kubernetes

  • Markus Kitsinger

    • iRODS Build and Packaging: 2024 Update

  • Kory Draughn and Martin Flores

    • iRODS HTTP API v0.3.0 with OpenID Connect

  • Justin James

    • iRODS S3 API v0.2.0 with Multipart

  • Terrell Russell

    • DAViDD: Initial data management solution for UNC's READDI AViDD Center

    • iRODS Metadata Templates Working Group: Building Blocks and Lessions Learned

• Included in This Talk

  • Kory Draughn

    • Indexing Capability Plugin

    • Python Rule Engine Plugin

  • Derek Dong

    • Metadata Guard Rule Engine Plugin

  • Justin James

    • S3 Resource Plugin

    • Globus Connector

  • Daniel Moore

    • Python iRODS Client

  • Kory Draughn

    • NFSRODS

Indexing Capability Plugin

• Requires Elasticsearch 7 or later
• Uses Boost.Beast library for communication with Elasticsearch
  • elasticlient and CPR replaced by Boost.Beast
  • No change in behavior
• Removed document type rule engine plugin
  • No longer serves a purpose due to changes in Elasticsearch
    • Removal of mapping types
• Supports TLS communication with Elasticsearch
• Supports Basic Authentication
• Modernized CMake

Python Rule Engine Plugin

irods_rule_vars now available in more contexts

• Accessible in imported python modules
• irods_rule_vars formerly known as global_vars
• Deprecated global_vars

Improved documentation

• Covers how to pass values back to the caller, across rule engine plugin boundaries
• Covers what happens to the output of print()

Metadata Guard Rule Engine Plugin

Resolved some holes in the implementation.

• Handles atomic metadata operations API PEPs
• Disallows renaming non-protected AVU to existing protected AVU
• Disallows use of deprecated imeta rmw
  • Wildcard operations can bypass plugin logic (e.g. "irod%")
  • Wildcard operations make it difficult to cover all metadata cases

S3 Resource Plugin and Globus Connector

Python iRODS Client - from 1.1.9 to 2.0.1

$ git shortlog --summary --numbered v1.1.9..v2.0.1
    25  d-w-moore
     7  Terrell Russell
     1  Raoul Schram

Python iRODS Client - from 1.1.9 to 2.0.1 (cont.)

Bug fixes

• Tickets now work with parallel transfer
• Tickets are now applied to all connections within a session
• Regression in which ssl_verify_server = 'none' stopped working
• Data objects opened with append flag now seek to end

New features

• Now redirects to resource server for improved transfer performance
• Client-side configuration can now be loaded/saved
• Added auto-close option of data objects
• Added ability to manipulate and query user/group quotas
• Added support for case-insensitive queries

Python iRODS Client - from 1.1.9 to 2.0.1 (cont.)

Deprecation and Removal

• permissions manager has been removed (originally deprecated)
  • Replaced by acls manager
    • Defaults to only raw listing of ACLs, per ils -A

Compatibility Updates

• 2.0.1 brings full compatibility with 4.3.2
• pam_password support since 2.0.0
  • Allows working alongside icommands environments in 4.3+

NFSRODS - from 2.1.0 to 2.3.0

Updates

• Reports its name to the iRODS server for ips
• Resilient to restarts of the iRODS server
  • No longer requires remounting
• Supports resizing of data objects (requires iRODS 4.3.2)
• Improved stability

Ongoing Investigations

• Improve performance of list operation

iRODS Internships - Summer 2024

Convert existing web applications to our new HTTP API (ReactJS + HTTP)
The relatively new iRODS Zone Management Tool is due for its first refactor. Originally built to talk with a REST API, it needs to be converted to talk to the new iRODS HTTP API. If this work on the administrator tool proves pretty straightforward, we are interested in evaluating a similar refactor for our user-level GUI, Metalnx (or to even start designing a new webapp from scratch).

Create new client libraries around our new HTTP API (Various Languages)
Our new iRODS HTTP API is making it easier for developers to interact with the iRODS ecosystem. We would like to help them even more by providing new client libraries in various languages that wrap their native or library-provided http calls. We are most interested in Java, Python, and Javascript, but any language will provide a learning opportunity and help map out the space for other languages.

https://irods.org/2024/01/irods-internship-summer-2024/

Big Picture

Core

• 4.3 - Focus on stability, bug fixes, plugins, clients

• 5.0 - Modernize the deployment process, improve determinism, libstdc++

Clients

• GUIs (ZMT, Metalnx, et al.)

• Onboarding and Syncing (Automated Ingest)

• File System Integration (NFSRODS, SFTP)

• iRODS HTTP API

• iRODS S3 API

Continue building out policy components (Capabilities).

We want installation and management of iRODS to become about policy design, composition, and configuration.

Please share your ...

• Use cases

• Pain points

• Hopes and dreams

Open Source Community Engagement

Get Involved

• Working Groups

• GitHub Issues

• Pull Requests

• Chat List

• Consortium Membership

Tell Others

• Publish, Cite, Advocate, Refer