Share

NodeSource is announcing the release of NSolid 3.8.0 which comes with a wide array of features and updates. These include:

Updates:

• Update NSolid to support Node.js V12.13.1

New Features:

• Support for Federated Authentication
• Sourcemap Support
• Flamegraph Export Button
• pauseMetrics() and resumeMetrics() runtime API endpoints to dynamically cease and resume metrics collection

NSolid for Node.js V12.13.1:

System Requirements

NSolid 3.8.0 is supported on the following operating systems:

• macOS
• macOS 10.11
• macOS 10.12
• macOS 10.13
• Amazon Linux
• Amazon Linux AMI release 2015.09 and newer
• Ubuntu
• Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr)
• Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus)
• Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver)
• Debian
• Debian 8 (jessie)
• Debian 9 / stable (stretch)
• Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
• RHEL6 / CentOS 6
• RHEL7 / CentOS 7
• Fedora
• Fedora 27
• Fedora 28
• Fedora 29
• Fedora 30
• Alpine
• Alpine 3.3 and newer

Changes

This is a minor release for NSolid.

There are three available LTS Node.js versions for you to use with NSolid 3.8.0:

• Node.js 8 Carbon
• Node.js 12 Erbium
• Node.js 10 Dubnium

NSolid v3.8.0 Carbon ships with Node.js v8.16.2 The Node.js 8 Carbon LTS release line will continue to be supported until December 31, 2019.

NSolid v3.8.0 Dubnium ships with Node.js v10.17.0 The Node.js 10 Dubnium LTS release line will continue to be supported until April 30, 2021.

NSolid v3.8.0 Erbium ships with Node.js v12.13.1 The Node.js 12 Erbium LTS release line will continue to be supported until April 30, 2022.

Features included in this release

NSolid 3.8.0 introduces a range of new features, design to enhance profiling, access management and dynamic sampling:

1. Flamegraph Export Button
2. SourceMap Support
3. Federated Authentication (SAML)
4. Pause and Resume metrics feature

1. Flamegraph Export:

Users can now export NSolid Falamegraphs when viewing a CPU profile. In addition to downloading the CPU profile to visualize it via external tools such as Chrome Dev Tools, users can export the Flamegraph visualization to an SVG format in a few easy steps.

Step 1: View the NSolid Console’s flame graph visualization, once a CPU profile has been taken.

Step2: Go to your browser’s search bar. Above on the right hand side click the 'Download Profile SVG' button.

2. Source Map Support:

Using typescript and/or transpilers with NSolid makes interpreting CPU profiles difficult unless the user is deeply familiar with the code. The integration of Source Maps provides a translation layer that provides a reference between the compiled or minified source-code and the original source code.

When compiling code, a Source Map is currently being generated. The integration of Source Maps would provide a translation layer that provides a reference between the compiled source code and source code.

How to use sourcemaps with NSolid

To use sourcemaps in NSolid ensure that the sourcemap’s .map file is placed in the application’s main folder. From there, the feature works as follows:

1. User opens up a Flamegraph
2. Sourcemap Box is checked
3. Client traverses CPU profile and requests sourcemap for all function locations from the Console backend
4. Console backend assumes (at this point) that the sourcemap is right next to the file, i.e. foo.js.map, reads and sends that to the client
5. Client then uses the updated CPU profile to generate a flamegraph
6. If Sourcemap box is unchecked it uses original CPU profile again
7. Stored asset of the Profile includes Sourcemap setting and applies it when the asset is loaded again

3. Federated Authentication (SAML):

Federation is a collection of common standards and protocols to manage and map user identities between Identity Providers across organizations (and security domains) via trust-relationships (usually established via digital signatures, encryption, and/or Public Key Infrastructures; PKIs).

Enterprise customers leveraging NodeSource organizations can now take advantage of Identity Providers (IdP) such as Okta, PingID by using NSolid’s new SAML integration to manage user-access to NSolid.

SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) is an open standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data between an Identity Provider (such as Okta) and a service provider. This integration can be used for SSO (Single Sign-on) into the NodeSource Account. Customers’ NodeSource accounts now permit the integration of third-party SAML 2.0 sources via compatible identity providers (i.e. Okta). Organization admins can set up said integration in the setting menu on accounts.nodesource.com.

For set-up instructions and a step-by step guide on how to activate Federated SAML SSO in your NodeSource organization, please visit the following docs page here.

4. Dynamically cease and resume metrics collection

Using the new pauseMetrics() and resumeMetrics() API endpoints users of NSolid can dynamically toggle metrics collection off and back on again. This is particularly useful in large development environments and deployment venues where the number of simultaneously samples processes exceeds 5000.

For details on how these new API points work specifically, please visit the docs here.