Amster

Release notes

Amster is a lightweight command-line interface, ideal for use in DevOps processes, such as continuous integration and deployment.

Read these release notes before you install Amster. The information contained in these release notes cover prerequisites for installation, known issues and improvements to the software, changes and deprecated functionality, and other important information.

ForgeRock® Identity Platform serves as the basis for our simple and comprehensive Identity and Access Management solution. We help our customers deepen their relationships with their customers, and improve the productivity and connectivity of their employees and partners. For more information about ForgeRock and about the platform, see https://www.forgerock.com.

What’s new

This page covers new features and improvements in Amster.

What’s new in Amster 7.2

No new features were added in Amster 7.2.0, 7.2.1, or 7.2.2.

Use this Amster version with the corresponding version of AM.

Before you install

This page covers software and hardware prerequisites for installing and running Amster.

ForgeRock supports customers using the versions specified here. Other versions and alternative environments might work as well. When opening a support ticket for an issue, however, make sure you can also reproduce the problem on a combination covered here.
Supported host operating systems
Operating System Versions

Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Centos

7, 8

Amazon Linux

2018.03, 2

SuSE

12, 15

Ubuntu

18.04 LTS, 20.04 LTS, 22.04

Windows Server

2016, 2019
Supported Java versions
Vendor Versions

OpenJDK, including OpenJDK-based distributions:

  • AdoptOpenJDK/Eclipse Temurin Java Development Kit (Adoptium)

  • Amazon Corretto

  • Azul Zulu

  • Red Hat OpenJDK

ForgeRock tests most extensively with AdoptOpenJDK/Eclipse Temurin.

ForgeRock recommends using the HotSpot JVM.

11

Oracle Java

11

Always use a JVM with the latest security fixes.

Special requests

If you have a special request regarding support for a combination not listed here, contact ForgeRock at info@forgerock.com.

Changes to existing functionality

This page covers critical and important changes to existing functionality.

Important changes

This section lists changes made to existing functionality in Amster.

Amster 7.2

No changes were made to existing functionality in Amster 7.2.

Fixes, limitations, and known issues

Key fixes

The following issues are fixed in this release.

Amster 7.2.2

  • OPENAM-21747: Amster not working after connecting when AM REST call has extra set-cookie headers

  • OPENAM-21277: Running Amster in debug mode doesn’t work on Windows

  • OPENAM-21030: Amster CLI doesn’t work on Windows

Amster 7.2.1

  • OPENAM-19592: Amster - Unable to use Amster in M1 Macbook

  • OPENAM-19411: Amster installation failure with authorizedKey parameter when overwriting an existing configuration

Amster 7.2.0

  • OPENAM-18027: Amster import clean fails intermittently with server error 500: Authentication instance does not exist

  • OPENAM-17977: Amster connect command ignores connection-timeout parameter

  • OPENAM-17650: Amster generates RSA keys smaller than recommended

  • OPENAM-17519 Amster 7 package contains outdated elements

Limitations

Amster 7.2 has the following known limitations:

  • No support for load balanced deployments

    Amster cannot connect to a load balancer URL. You must connect Amster directly to a single AM instance. Using a load balancer could send sequential commands to different AM instances, and could result in concurrency issues when writing to the underlying configuration store.

  • Bulk import to external application stores with affinity

    If affinity is enabled for an external application data store, bulk import intermittently fails with errors similar to the following:

    Resource path 'http////////eea87a38e3ca476fa93a3669375ada3a' contains empty path elements

    Before using Amster for a bulk import to an application store, disable data store affinity, or remove the load balancer from the application store deployment. You can re-enable affinity when the import has completed.

  • Importing resources containing slash characters can fail

    Some Access Management resources have names that can contain slash characters (/), for example policy names, application names, and SAML v2.0 entities. These slash characters can cause unexpected behavior and failures in Amster when importing into Access Management instances running on Apache Tomcat.

    To workaround this issue, configure Apache Tomcat to allow encoded slash characters by updating the CATALINA_OPTS environment variable. For example:

    On Unix/Linux systems:

    $ export CATALINA_OPTS= \
  "-Dorg.apache.tomcat.util.buf.UDecoder.ALLOW_ENCODED_SLASH=true"
$ startup.sh

    On Windows systems:

    C:\> set CATALINA_OPTS= ^
  "-Dorg.apache.tomcat.util.buf.UDecoder.ALLOW_ENCODED_SLASH=true"
C:\> startup.bat
    It is strongly recommended that you do not enable org.apache.tomcat.util.buf.UDecoder.ALLOW_ENCODED_SLASH when running AM in production as it introduces a security risk on Apache Tomcat.

    For more information, refer to How do I safely enable the org.apache.tomcat.util.buf.UDecoder.ALLOW_ENCODED_SLASH setting in AM/OpenAM (All Versions)? in the ForgeRock Knowledge Base.

  • [INFO] messages showing on SuSE on Amster start up

    Running Amster on SuSE may produce [INFO] messages, for example:

    # ./amster
[INFO] Unable to bind key for unsupported operation: up-history
[INFO] Unable to bind key for unsupported operation: down-history
[INFO] Unable to bind key for unsupported operation: up-history
[INFO] Unable to bind key for unsupported operation: down-history
OpenAM Shell (version build build, JVM: version)
Type ':help' or ':h' for help.
-----------------------------------------------------
am>

    These messages are caused by the keyboard mappings configured in the /etc/inputrc file and can safely be ignored, as they do not affect functionality.

Known issues

Amster 7.2

No new issues were identified in Amster 7.2.1.

  • OPENAM-19039: Amster query command base64-encodes the _id attribute for Saml2Entities

  • OPENAM-18715: Due to an unresolved issue in the updated version of Groovy used by Amster, Amster cannot execute multi-line commands from a script while creating a realm using the :load option

    Workaround : Use a single-line command instead. For example, instead of a multi-line command like this:

    payload='{ \
        "name": "employeur-test", \
        "active": true, \
        "parentPath": "/", \
        "aliases": [] \
}'
create Realms --global --body payload

    Create a single-line command like this:

    create Realms --global --body '{ \
"name": "employeur-test", \
"active": true, \
"parentPath": "/", \
 "aliases": [] \ }'
Consider any required modifications to your Amster scripts before you upgrade to version 7.2.0.

Documentation updates

The following table tracks changes to the documentation set following the release of Amster 7.2:

Documentation change log
Date Description

2024-06-26

Release of Amster 7.2.2.

2023-05-31

  • Clarify version support in Amster release notes

2023-03-25

Release of Amster 7.2.1.

2022-10-06

  • Clarified the --realms option of the export-config command.

  • Documented a limitation related to bulk import to external application stores with affinity.

  • Added a workaround for a problem with amster running multi-line commands (OPENAM-18715)

2022-06-30

Release of Amster 7.2.0.

Getting support

ForgeRock provides support services, professional services, training through ForgeRock University, and partner services to assist you in setting up and maintaining your deployments. For a general overview of these services, see https://www.forgerock.com.

ForgeRock has staff members around the globe who support our international customers and partners. For details on ForgeRock’s support offering, including support plans and service level agreements (SLAs), visit https://www.forgerock.com/support.

ForgeRock publishes comprehensive documentation online:

  • The ForgeRock Knowledge Base offers a large and increasing number of up-to-date, practical articles that help you deploy and manage ForgeRock software.

    While many articles are visible to everyone, ForgeRock customers have access to much more, including advanced information for customers using ForgeRock software in a mission-critical capacity.

  • ForgeRock product documentation, such as this document, aims to be technically accurate and complete with respect to the software documented. It is visible to everyone and covers all product features and examples of how to use them.