1. GemStone/S 6.7.2 Release Notes

Overview

GemStone/S 6.7.2 is a new version of the GemStone/S object server. This release provides a solution for a significant bug, updated build platforms, and a few other minor changes.

These release notes provide changes between the previous version of GemStone/S, version 6.7.1, and version 6.7.2. If you are upgrading from a version prior to 6.7.1, review the release notes for each intermediate release to see the full set of changes.

Customers on 32-bit GemStone/S are encouraged to migrate to GemStone/S 64 Bit, for additional scalability and reliability as well as many important new and enhanced features.

For details about installing GemStone/S 6.7.2 or upgrading from earlier versions of GemStone/S, see the GemStone/S Installation Guide for version 6.7.2.

Supported Platforms and GBS Versions

Platforms

GemStone/S version 6.7.2 is supported on the following platforms:

  • Solaris 10 and 11 on SPARC
  • AIX 7.1 and 7.2
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server and CentOS Linux 7.9 and Ubuntu 18.04
    GemStone performs testing on a mixture of Red Hat and CentOS servers; both are fully certified platforms. Any reference to Red Hat applies to both distributions.
  • Windows 10
Updated Build Platforms

The build platform for AIX is now AIX 7.1; GemStone/S v6.7.2 will not run on AIX 6.x.

The build platform for Windows is now Windows 10. GemStone/S v6.7.2 runs on Windows 7, but this is not a certified platform.

GBS version summary

The following versions of GBS have been certified with GemStone/S version 6.7.2, with the following client Smalltalk and platforms versions.

GBS version 8.3

VW 8.2.1

32-bit
  • Windows 10
  • Solaris 10 on SPARC
  • RedHat Linux ES 7.9 and Ubuntu 18.04
GBS version 5.2.7

VA Smalltalk 8.6.3

32 bit

VA Smalltalk 8.6

32 bit
  • Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016
  • Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016

VSD version

The GemStone/S v6.7.2 distribution includes VSD version 5.5.1. The previous version of GemStone/S, v6.7.1, included VSD v5.4.

VSD version 5.5.1 includes many updates, new features and bug fixes. For details on the changes, see the Release Notes for VSD v5.5.1.

VSD versions are not tied to GemStone server versions: both older and newer versions of VSD can be used to read statmonitor files generated by both older and newer versions of GemStone/S and GemStone/S 64 Bit.

However, note that 32-bit VSD is no longer built or distributed. If you are running on 32-bit Windows or Linux machines, you must continue to use VSD v5.4 or earlier.

Changes in this Release

RcQueue will have problems on January 5, 2022

On January 5, 2022, the number of seconds since January 1, 2005 (as returned, for example, by the method System class>>timeGmt2005) will exceed the value of SmallInteger maximumValue. RcQueues use this value to mark the time elements are added to the queue; the RcQueueEntry has a createTime variable for seconds and createTimeUs for microseconds.

After the rollover, the createTime will be set to a negative SmallInteger, starting with negative SmallInteger maximumValue - 1, and increase from there.

While the RcQueue will continue to work, elements added after the rollover will be returned out of order, before elements added before the rollover.

To address this problem, a new class RcQueueEntry2020 has been added, which set the time based on the seconds since January 1, 2020. Instances of RcQueueEntry2020 are used for new items added to an RcQueue. Instances of RcQueueEntry2020 transparently interoperate with any previously existing entries in an RcQueue, which are instances of RcQueueEntry.

The number of seconds since January 1 2020 will return positive SmallIntegers until January 4, 2037.

The method System >> timeGmt2020 has been added, which returns the value used for RcQueueEntry2020.

Improvements in DNS lookups

Internal socket code has been refactored to avoid reverse and unnecessary DNS lookups, which can create problems if name resolution is not correctly setup, and may have performance impacts. (#49323)

Windows dll now included in distribution

If a Windows machine had a different version installed of the Windows DLL msvcrNNN.dll than GemStone was compiled for, it resulted in errors with unclear error messages. With Windows 10, this file has been renamed to vcruntimeNNN.dll, and it is now included within the GemStone distribution. (#47874)