Web Safety 9.0 Release Candidate 1

[rafael....@diladele.com]

Hello everyone,
 
The next version of Web Safety 9.0 is now in Release Candidate 1 stage. We are actively using the version internally and plan to finally release it in March of 2024.
 
The following changes are included into this version:

• Added support for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. This version is used in virtual appliance and is recommended for production use.
• Added support for Squid 6.5.
• Discontinued support for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.
• Rewritten definition files updater module.
• Traffic Reporting module is completely rewritten in C#. Daily database storage is moved from CSV files to SQLite databases. Several custom reporters are removed.
• Removed most broken functionality for YouTube channel and video filtering. YouTube header restriction module is still working as expected.
• Small changes in ICAP web filtering module.
• Optimization in Squid logging daemon, access log storage scheme is moved to ‘YYYY-MM-DD.access.log’ custom storage format instead of default flat access log file (required for new Traffic Monitoring module).

The virtual appliance images can be downloaded from here:

• for VMware ESXi/vSphere
• for Microsoft Hyper-V

This is a large update involving new base operating system Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and new version of Squid 6.5. Upgrade steps required are described in the Admin Guide, but ideally you would just deploy a new virtual appliance.

As always list of open issues is available on GitHub. Please do not hesitate to add more if something is missing or needs to be improved.

Hope you will find this useful.
 
Best regards,
Rafael