2020 Mendix Cloud Release Notes

December 2020

December 17, 2020

• We added the ability to allow customers to test beta features by adding certain allowed Custom Environment Variables. These can be added like Custom Environment Variables in Mendix Cloud v4 environment, using a text field beside the current dropdown.

  For more information on custom environment variables, see Runtime Tab in the Environment Details documentation.

• As part of a Developer Portal clean up, we removed the Model option from the DEVELOP section of the Developer Portal menu when you are looking at environments on Mendix Cloud. The functions of this page are still available via the Edit in Studio Pro button on the environments page.

December 8, 2020

• We changed the way Log Levels can be set in Mendix Cloud v4.

  • For single-instance apps, the log level can be changed while the app is running.
  • For a multi-instance app, the new log level will only be applied after a restart.

  This is a requested improvement after the release of December 3rd. Note that changes to the log levels are still permanent as announced on that date.

December 3, 2020

• We added the ability to permanently change the Log Levels in Mendix Cloud v4 for an app so that they persist between restarts. This was in response to customer requests. (Ticket 101413)
  Log Levels will only become persistent after the next restart of your app, so you may have to set them one more time.
  For more information on log levels, see Log Levels Tab in the Environment Details documentation.
• You can now retrieve the version of the buildpack used in deployment via the Deploy API Retrieve Environment call. The version is returned as RuntimeLayer. You will need to redeploy your app to ensure it returns this in the API response.

November 2020

November 26, 2020

Fixes

• We fixed an issue where you could not set the value for a constant which was defined as long to a value greater than the maximum value for an integer.
• We fixed an issue where the Company Admin could not search through licensed nodes. (Ticket 109742)

November 5, 2020

Improvements

• We added support to generate 1024x1024 icons for iOS.

Fixes

• We resolved an issue where an incorrect debugger password was sometimes shown for Mendix Cloud v4 apps in the Developer Portal. This meant that customers were not able to connect to the debugger. (Ticket 105317)

October 2020

October 26, 2020

Fixes

• We resolved an issue where HTTP headers were only returned for a successful request. You will have to redeploy your app to apply this fix. (Tickets 94915 and 107140)

  See Mendix Buildpack Releases on GitHub for more information.

October 22, 2020

Improvements

• We are in the process of migrating the alerting service to our internal infrastructure to improve maintainability. Your alerts will continue to operate in the same way after the migration.
• As part of the migration, the existing alert history will be deleted. The alerts history tab will only contain those alerts which have been triggered since the migration.
• We added the ability for the Technical Contact to download a list of node permissions as a CSV to assist with audits
• We added information about the size of backup files.

October 5, 2020

Improvements

• In response to user feedback, we changed the way that you can control the target environment when deploying apps from Studio Pro
  • You can now choose only to build the MDA without deploying to an environment
  • The setting of the target environment (for Technical Contacts only) has been moved from the individual Environment Details pages to the Environments page of the app

September 2020

September 22, 2020

Improvements

• We have added the ability for Technical Contacts to download the activity log from an environment.
• On some of the Developer Portal pages (Environments, Mobile App, App Services, Metrics, Alerts, Logs, Backups, and the Node Permissions tab of Security), we have split the Edit App button into two separate buttons: Edit in Studio and Edit in Studio Pro.
• We removed the ability to build PhoneGap hybrid applications through the Developer Portal. The PhoneGap Build service will be removed by Adobe on 1 October, so this action would have failed after this date. You can still build your hybrid app locally.

Fixes

• We resolved an issue where transports which failed were not reported correctly to the customer. (Ticket 106033)
• We resolved an issue where memory could not be scaled above 16GiB even though 32GiB was available. (Ticket 101035)
• We resolved an issue where the documentation field was empty when editing a constant in the Developer Portal, even though there was documentation in the model. To see the documentation, you will need to redeploy your app. (Tickets 78758, 78958, 79212, 79359, 92954, 93107, and 100756)

September 17, 2020

Improvements

• We improved the way that the SSL/TLS connection is established to the database instance in Mendix Cloud v4. Now the application will verify that the Subject Alternative Name attribute (or attributes) or the Common Name attribute of the database server certificate is matched against the database host name.

September 15, 2020

Fixes

• We fixed an issue where some customers were getting JVM heap size out of memory errors for applications with a Studio target set. (Tickets 106848, 106966)

  You must restart the affected environment to apply this fix.

September 14, 2020

Announcement - Deprecation of HTTPS SSL/TLS weak ciphers from December 1, 2020

To improve the security of the HTTPS connections made to apps in Mendix Cloud v4, we enabled TLSv1.3 in February this year. Since then, more than 50% of the requests to Cloud v4 apps have been served over TLSv1.3.

To further improve the security of the HTTPS connections to apps in Mendix Cloud v4, we are deprecating and stopping support for block ciphers. Block ciphers are considered weak.

On December 1, 2020, we will stop technical support for TLSv1.2 Block ciphers (CBC) for HTTPS connections to apps in Mendix Cloud v4.

What this means for your Mendix apps

Stopping support for TLSv1.2 Block ciphers (CBC) means that old clients will not be able to connect to your Mendix app any more.

Some examples of clients which will no longer be supported are:

• Java 7 (Mendix 5)
• Internet Explorer version 11 on Windows 7
• Internet Explorer version 11 on Windows 8.1
• Safari before version 9 on OS X 10.11
• Safari before version 9 on iOS 9

What we continue to support (expert details)

SSL/TLS ciphers that are still supported for HTTPS connections after December 1, 2020:

TLSv1.3

• TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
• TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
• TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256

TLSv1.2

• TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
• TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
• TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
• TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
• TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

September 4, 2020

Improvements

• We have added used storage space to the Database Node Disk Usage graph in Mendix Cloud v4. See Metrics for more information.

August 2020

August 28, 2020

Fixes

• We fixed issues related to the Deploy to Licensed Cloud Node flow in Mendix Studio Pro:
  • We rolled back the restriction for Mendix Cloud v3 apps in the Deploy to Licensed Cloud Node flow in Mendix Studio Pro.
  • We improved the error messages for Mendix Cloud v4 apps that appear when you deploy from Studio Pro with no Mendix Studios Target set or you do not have sufficient privileges to deploy to the Studios target.
  • We fixed an issue where you were able to log in as a Demo User to the Studios target. Please note that in this scenario, you have to clear the Studios target and redeploy to the affected environment. The target can then be set after redeploying. (Ticket 106312)

August 26, 2020

Improvements

• We improved the error handling and feedback of the scale app functionality for Mendix Cloud v4. (Ticket 103304)
• We fixed an issue where some customers were not able to access the Deploy APIs. (Ticket 103241)
• We have modified the Deploy to Licensed Cloud Node flow in Mendix Studio Pro. When Deploy to Licensed Cloud Node is selected in Mendix Studio Pro, your application will automatically be deployed to the Mendix Studios Target environment of your licensed node. This deployment will include a restart of that environment. It is now only possible to deploy Mendix Cloud v4 applications that have a Mendix Studios Target set. You will get an error message if you deploy from Studio Pro when no Mendix Studios Target is set.

Fixes

• We fixed an issue where some customers were unable to manually add certificates to access restriction profiles. (Ticket 102615)

August 7, 2020

Fixes

• We fixed an issue where some customers did not receive an SMS for two-factor authentication. (Ticket 104252)

July 2020

July 30, 2020

Fixes

• We fixed an issue where users did not see changes they made to node permissions. (Tickets 104154 and 104642)

July 22, 2020

Fixes

• We fixed an issue where trends graphs were not being updated with the latest data. (Ticket 102400)

July 16, 2020

Improvements

• We added the ability to set the SameSite value on cookies to None for existing apps. This enables apps to run in iframes in browsers where the default SameSite setting for cookies is Lax or Strict. (Tickets 97187, 97190, 97699, 97701, 97900, and 98507)
  • This is implemented through the SAMESITE_COOKIE_PRE_MX812 custom environment variable. For more information see Running Your App in an Iframe in the Environment Details documentation.

July 8, 2020

Fixes

• We resolved an issue where deactivated users were still shown in the Node Permissions tab of the Security page for an app. (Tickets 90744 95319, 97722, 98474, 99978, 100493, 101595, 103007, and 103549)
• We resolved an issue where you could not change the role of the built-in administrator account for apps deployed to the cloud. (Tickets 87013 and 87605)
  You will still need to change the password of the administrator account for the new role to be assigned to the administrator. See the User Role section of Administrator for more information
• We resolved an issue where an incorrect debugger password could be displayed for Mendix Cloud v4 when the Show Debugger Information button was clicked on the Environment Details page. (Ticket 99469)

July 2, 2020

Improvements and Fixes

• We have changed the way that the unused java heap metric is calculated to make the data more accurate.
  • This also fixes the issue where this metric could have a negative value (tickets: 92998, 93241, 93725, 94560, 99308, 99979, 100086, 101004, 101429, 102260, and 103225).

This value is displayed in the following graphs in Metrics for Mendix Cloud v4:

• as unused in JVM Object Heap
• as unused java heap in JVM Process Memory Usage

June 2020

June 17, 2020

Fixes

• We fixed an issue where manual backups on Mendix Cloud v3 did not correctly update the status in the Developer Portal when they completed. (Tickets 97485, 97573, 97577, 97748, 97819, and 98313)
• We fixed an issue where some valid certificate authorities could not be uploaded. (Tickets 98150 and 100271)
• We made some changes to the Mendix Cloud v3 Trends graphs.

June 16, 2020

Improvements

• We introduced new alerts for Mendix Cloud v4.
  • Database IOPS Burst Balance, based on the graph Database IOPS Burst Balance
  • Database Freeable Memory, based on the graph Database Node Operating System Memory

June 4, 2020

Improvements

• We introduced a new graph in the Trends metrics for Mendix Cloud v4. This shows the database burst balance. See Database Burst Balance in the Trends in the Mendix Cloud v4 document for more information.

• In Mendix Cloud v4, we introduced changes to the Access Restriction Profile (ARP) Certificate Authorities (CAs). These changes allow you to:

  • Have stricter access restrictions by allowing the selection of intermediate certificates instead of the root
  • Use different root certificates for each path
    Existing configurations will not be changed and environments can be restarted safely.
    
    To migrate to the new ARPs, you must remove all existing ARPs and replace them with clones that you have edited using the latest Developer Portal.
    In other words, Clone the existing ARPs, Edit the CAs, and Apply the new ARPs to all paths.
    For more information, see How To Restrict Access for Incoming Requests.

  You will need to redeploy your app in order to apply the new ARP (or ARPs).

May 2020

May 1, 2020

Improvements

• For Mendix Cloud Dedicated, we have added the ability to safelist outgoing IP addresses.

March 2020

March 17, 2020

Improvements

• We have updated the environment details and backups screens for Mendix Clouds to show a more precise region, and the location of the secondary backup.

March 2, 2020

Improvements

• Restoring data on the Mendix Cloud now takes place asynchronously. This means the following:
  • You can continue working in the Developer Portal while your backup is restored
  • You will be unable to stop or start your app while the backup is being restored
  • Your environment details page will display a message while the backup is being restored
  • The environment activity log will indicate when the restore has completed
• New Deploy API calls have been added. These will be added to the Deploy API documentation shortly.
• You will now be warned that you cannot restore a file-only backup to Mendix Cloud. You can only restore backups that include the database.

February 2020

February 27, 2020

TLSv1.3 Support for Mendix Cloud (All Regions)

• Mendix Cloud v4 and Mendix Cloud v3 now support TLSv1.3. TLSv1.3 improves the speed and security of HTTPS connections.

February 17, 2020

TLSv1.3 Support for Mendix Cloud v4 Free Tier EU

• We enabled TLSv1.3 support in Mendix Cloud v4 Free Tier EU. TLSv1.3 improves the speed and security of HTTPS connections.

January 2020

January 21, 2020

Fixes

• We fixed an issue where, if the data type of a constant was changed in the app model, it was not changed in the Developer Portal. This meant that validation sometimes failed and the app could not be started. (Ticket 88425)
• We fixed an issue on the page where you select a node to deploy your app, where the app name and the link to the Environments page disappeared.
• We corrected the text of the welcome email for new cloud environments which gave incorrect instructions for deploying your app. (Ticket 93145)

January 7, 2020

Improvements

3DES Ciphers Disabled for Mendix Cloud v3

• We have implemented a change to our Mendix Cloud v3 infrastructure so that incoming SSL connections no longer support 3DES ciphers. 3DES ciphers are considered insecure.