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Inquisitor is an open-source hardware testing and certification platform, suitable for both enterprise and home use, customizable, modular and available in both serverless Live CD/DVD format and server-controlled network boot production system.

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Inquisitor 3.0 release

Inquisitor is a mature hardware diagnostics, stress testing,
certification and monitoring platform, running on GNU/Linux. It's
suitable for both enterprise and home use, customizable, modular and
available in standalone version ... [More] , server-controlled network boot
production system and serverless Live CD format.

Inquisitor team is pleased to announce Inquisitor v3.0 - a first major
open-source version of the platform. After initial announcement of
Inquisitor branch 3.x in August 2007, it's a fruit of almost a year of
labor.

Inquisitor version 3 is a major redesign of older 1.x and 2.x systems.
New features:

* Modularity: it consists of dozens of interconnected and
interchangeable modules with well-defined API; one can easily add new
modules to add new tests, detections, production steps, etc.

* Three varieties: standalone (runs on top of already installed OS),
live CD (can be used to analyse/test just one home computer), enterprise
(server-controller network boot).

* Flexibility: every test parameter can be adjusted, all system can be
customized.

* Server-controlled testing: server-based version includes a database
that stores all the data on all computers that were tested by
Inquisitor. If only some parts of hardware will change, clever scheduler
won€™t redo all the long testing, but only tests relevant to hardware
changes.

For those who would like to try Inquisitor, the easiest way is to download
a 130MB ISO, available for both x86 and x86_64 from http://www.inquisitor.ru/.

Comments and especially bug reports are welcome. (0 comments) [Less]


Inquisitor v3.0-rc2 release

Inquisitor is a mature and proven hardware testing and certification system, suitable for both enterprise and home use, customizable, modular and available in both serverless Live CD/DVD format and server-controlled network boot production ... [More] system.

Today we€™re proud to announce the release of Inquisitor v3.0-rc2. This would be last release candidate until the 3.0-final, which is scheduled to go gold on 2008-07-20.

New features

Client

* Einarc v1.2 inside: more supported controllers, better detects, adapter flashing support.
* Firmware flashing support: a unified facility to make sure that every support device would have a latest firmware €“ complete with UI.
* New monitorings: odd-read, cpu-temp-ipmi, cpu-temp-sensors, cpu-vcore-ipmi, cpu-vcore-sensors.
* Enhanced curses UI for Live CD.
* Improved Live CD build process: added gfxboot, added memtest, switched to initramfs.
* New test: hdd-smart.

Server

* New server UI features: Java SSH client tab, advanced graph plotting tab. Multiple server interface facelifts and usability fixes (Ajax updates, realtimeness, etc).
* €œAttention€ status: used in interactive tests to pause timecount and grab the attention of user to make him do something.
* Authentication on server: makes it possible to implement role-based privilege separation system, complete with user/permissions editor and €œMy settings€ page that allows per-user setup of certain configuration things.
* Wiki-like comments for stages: now every authenticated user can edit comments for every stage and see it€™s history of edits.

Fixes

* Multiple general performance and stability fixes: detects, scheduler, tests, web UI.
* Web UI is now compatible with Konqueror, Opera and MSIE.
* Build system: increased fool-proofness.

Miscellaneous

* Lots of refactoring and API stabilization. API improvements: advanced searching using hal (hal-searcher), monitoring_submit_multiple(), show_components().
* Almost all server pages were tested live under heavy stress and improved to withstand it.
* Further modularization: various enterprise-specific things, such as MyKit and label printing were separated from base platform.
* Added lots of embedded documentation and metainformation extraction facility: extract various metainformation from source files and publishes them as documentation, uses them for scheduling purposes, in UI, etc. (0 comments) [Less]


Inquisitor v3.0-rc Live CD torrents

Yet again, new release of Inquisitor (v3.0-rc) is available to download using BitTorrents. (0 comments)


Inquisitor v3.0-rc release

Inquisitor team is proud to release v3.0-rc today, both in source and LiveCD builds.

New features:

* Added new flavour: €œstandalone€. Inquisitor Standalone is packaged in normal rpm/dpkg to be installed and ran in normal ... [More] running system. It is limited in functionality, but can be used to demonstrate Inquisitor principles well.

* Added monitorings API, server-side support and graphing support and one sample client-side monitoring: hdd-smart.

* New detects: BMCs, tape drives.

* New tests: hardware audit step for manual comparison of order with computers (€œwhat was required by documents€ vs €œwhat hardware is really there€), €œoffline€ firmware flashing.

* New server-side features: current order and search views, new sticker print system with XML sticker profiles, intellectual computer creation, simple profile editor, general navigation on all pages, shell IPs showing, new version of stages progress bars (with icons, packed information and comment/overdue markings), added €œchecking€ computer_stage and logic for it, computers€™ log viewing using iframe, special tftp version for loading one-shot firmware disk images.

Fixes:

* Detect fixes: quad-core / multi-core processors, Mitsumi OSDs, memory without DMI, multiple HDDs, Hitach HDDs, new IPMI FRU memory detect method, SPD vs DMI memory detects (broken i2c bus quantity), USB FDD/ODD.

* Test fixes: large rewrites in stress HDD and memory tests: greater testing stability and predictable results, stability (and longer flash disk life) fixes in usb-flash-drive, skip virtual drives in HDD tests.

* Multiple server-side fixes: proper device detection while publishing self IP, datetime comparison in server watchdog daemon, showing current computers under test, starting a new testing always sets a profile for testing, improved planner, general usability and design fixes.

Miscellaneous:

* General cleanup (removed obsolete functions, server methods, templates, refactoring, etc), compatibility with earlier versions of Ruby and REXML, BSD terminals, ascetic shells.

* General fixes: visual improvements, database indexing improvements, proper Debian architecture names, CSS fixes, move to Rails 2.0.2, lots of AJAX magic, added client hard reboot/poweroff method, added working test units. (0 comments) [Less]


Inquisitor 3.0-beta Live CD torrents

We are ready to announce that Inquisitor 3.0-beta Live CD is available for downloading via BitTorrent network now, using LinuxTracker and ThePirateBay trackers.

Links are available at http://www.inquisitor.ru/download.html (0 comments)


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