[AG-TECH] Beacon 0.9.58-2 released!

[Mitch Kutzko]

Hi, folks -- The latest Beacon (v0.9.58-2) is now up!

It's available at:

	http://dast.nlanr.net/projects/beacon

You can see the output at:

	http://beacon.ncsa.uiuc.edu/

(Once the release is final, I'll change this to
http://beacon.dast.nlanr.net. I'll announce the change beforehand, of
course, just so the change doesn't take anyone by surprise.)


IMPORTANT: The 0.9.58-2 Beacon uses a different multicast group, and
different port values, too, so you may need to tweak your firewalls.
(Group is 233.4.200.23, and ports are 10002 and 10003 for UDP and 10004 for
TCP.)



This version adds Burst testing and Silence testing, as well as a number of
bug fixes.  (Unfortunately, we're still working on the RTT calculation bug,
but both Loss and Jitter are working correctly.)  

Burst testing periodically sends 100-packet RTP bursts into the group, at
random intervals between two and six hours if enabled.   (BURSTTEST in
beacon.conf, -z or --bursttest from the command line)

Silence testing stops sending RTP and RTCP traffic to the group for three
minutes at random intervals between two and six hours if enabled.
(SILENCETEST in beacon.conf, -y or --silencetest from the command line)

This version also implments the ability to change the UID the Beacon is
running as to a non-privileged user.  It also uses Net::Domain to get the
hostname, instead of Sys::Hostname, so it's more accurate now.  (Thanks to
John Kristoff at Northwestern for both patches!)

Several more minor releases will be coming soon, and I'm always pleased to
receive user contributions as well.  If there's a feature you'd like to
see, please feel free to implement it and send it to me -- I'll add it to
the main Beacon code ASAP.

I'll also be upgrading the README and INSTALL files, as well as the web
site docs.  If there's something that was unclear or unexplained, please
let me know and I'll get that corrected.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to seeing
your new Beacons on the new group.

Cheers!

Mitch

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--
Mitch Kutzko | mitch at dast.nlanr.net | mitch at ncsa.uiuc.edu | 217-333-1199
Project: http://dast.nlanr.net/  |  Personal: http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/