pexec - 1.0rc8

[Andras Pal]

I'm pleased to announce the first public version of the program `pexec` 
available on the GNU project.

The main purpose of the program `pexec` is to execute the given command or 
shell script (e.g. parsed by /bin/sh) in parallel on the local host or on 
remote hosts, while some of the execution parameters, namely the redirected 
standard input, output or error and environmental variables can be varied. 
This program is therefore capable to replace the classic shell loop 
iterators (e.g. for ~ in ~ done, in bash) by executing the body of the 
loop in parallel. Thus, the program `pexec` implements shell level data 
parallelism in a barely simple form. The capabilities of the program is 
extended with additional features, such as allowing to define mutual 
exclusions, do atomic command executions and implement higher level 
resource and job control.

The web page of the `pexec` is located at:
        http://www.gnu.org/software/pexec/
You may browse the package directory at:
        http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/pexec/

The software signatures can be verified using the public key 0x86531BCA.

Please find below the complete NEWS file (since the first public release
available on SF).

-- Andras Pal [apal () szofi ! net]

1.0rc8: new features, changes and fixes since pexec version 1.0rc7
==================================================================
 * fix: subscript excess on array bounds fixed.

1.0rc7: new features, changes and fixes since pexec version 1.0rc6
==================================================================
 * fix: additional "message" responses are added to the hypervisor protocol.
 * fix: according to standards, no <memory.h> included at all.
 * fix: hypervisor mode: a possible hangup is fixed in the main
        hypervisor server loop (if the loadavg feature is used
        to limit the maximum processes, past versions would
        results pexec clients to hang in some cases).
 * fix: unix domain socket binding (in remote_control_port_bind())
        fails if the socket file exists.
 * fix: immediate close() of hypervisor client socket -- after sending
        the ``close'' command -- under some weird circumstances may
        have caused an EPIPE on server side and therefore an abnormal
        server termination. This has been fixed by waiting for
        read availability right after sending the ``close'' command,
        involving the select()-based function fdwait().
 * new: FIFO and LIFO queue processing in the hypervisor mode. The previous
        versions supported only the FIFO model. The new default queue
        processing from now is LIFO.
 * fix: signals raised by EPIPEs are ignored.
 * fix: hypervisor mode: small fix in the scheduling algorithm.
 * chg: `help2man`-compatible long help is generated by the `longhelp`
        library.

1.0rc6: new features, changes and fixes since pexec version 1.0rc5
==================================================================
 * fix: fixes in the documentation (nodes, menus, copyright issues)
 * fix: some minor improvements in the documentation
 * fix: safe malloc, realloc and strdup calls throughout the code

1.0rc5: new features, changes and fixes since pexec version 1.0rc4
==================================================================
 * chg: man page is generated from --long-help, detailed description
        is available as a Texinfo manual. This feature requires the
        `help2man` utility (http://www.gnu.org/software/help2man/).
        This utility is also available as a debian package.
 * new: documentation is available under GFDL (see ./doc/COPYING.gfdl)

1.0rc4: new features, changes and fixes since pexec version 1.0rc3
==================================================================
 * new: ./configure support (autoconf)
 * chg: ./man directory renamed to ./doc
 * chg: ./html directory renamed to ./webdoc
 * new: texinfo documentation (./doc/pexec.texi)

1.0rc3: new features, changes and fixes since pexec version 1.0rc2
==================================================================
 * new: hypervisor mode, `-H|--hypervisor` + all related functionalty
 * new: additional section in the manual discussing the hypervisor mode
 * fix: some minor fixes in the hprintf() and get_number_of_cpus()
 * chg: the command line option -d|--daemon has been changed to -T|--tunnel
        (this switch this is used only internally when executing
        pexec daemons via a remote shell, i.e. this change would not
        affect the end-user interfaces; however the same version of pexec
        must be installed on both sides)
 * new: `make deb` creates a debian package on the current architecture
        (this feature requies the `dpkg-deb` utility)

1.0rc2: new features, changes and fixes since pexec version 1.0rc1
==================================================================
 * fix: missing options from -h|--help
 * new: new option `-E|--pexec-connection-variable` added
 * fix: code fixed under Solaris and Mac OSX operationg systems

1.0rc1: new features, changes and fixes since pexec version 1.0rc0
==================================================================
 * new: support for direct execution on remote hosts

1.0rc0: new features, changes and fixes since pexec version 1.0pre2
===================================================================
 * fix: mutex algorithm bugs
 * fix: closing unused fd's after some fork()s
 * new: complete remote control user interface
 * new: dump/save files using remote control and mutexes
 * new: atomic execution of commands (and scripts) using remote control and
        mutexes

1.0pre2: new features, changes and fixes since pexec version 1.0pre1
====================================================================
 * fix: some minor fixes in format.c
 * fix: code cleanup in some modules (linebuffer.[ch]: separate libraries)
 * new: mutex backends
 * new: remote control user interface

1.0pre1
=======
 * The first public release of pexec. See ./README and the reference manual
   (./man/pexec.1) for further details. See ./INSTALL for installation tips.