Elara is the latest entry in our quarterly rollup series. It branches off from our main rolling Voyager development, into a fixed target for our partners to qualify and build upon.
Comet Elara takes its name from another moon of Jupiter - It is the eighth largest Jovian satellite, and is named after Elara, one of Zeus’ lovers. It was discovered on 5 January 1905.
Elara brings 12 features and 24 enhancements, including a new Settings page in the Comet Server web interface; support for WebAuthn as a 2FA method; and single file or folder restore for Disk Image backups. All users of the previous quarterly series 21.11.x ‘Himalia’ and earlier are encouraged to upgrade, but we’re happy for them to continue using older quarterly versions if they are not experiencing any issues.
As always for a new quarterly release, there are two changelogs for 22.2.0 ‘Elara’ depending on whether you are coming from the previous quarterly or the previous Voyager.
Changes compared to 21.11.3
- Terminology: 'Organisations' are now 'Tenants'
- Deprecation: Comet Server no longer supports Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008. Note that the Comet Backup desktop app continues to support Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008; this only affects Comet Server. Windows Server 2008 R2 is still supported for both Comet Server and the Comet Backup desktop app.
- Deprecation: Removed support for U2F for two-factor authentication for admin users due to the removal of U2F from browsers (read more here). Existing U2F 2FA will be automatically migrated to use WebAuthn when the Comet Server instance is upgraded; this requires no action on an admin's part, and the same U2F devices can continue to be used.
New Features
- Replaced the Comet Server web interface Setup Wizard with a Settings page
- Add option to create ISO file as the recovery media in the Comet Backup desktop app
- Added support for WebAuthn for two-factor authentication for admin users, including support for Windows Hello Face / Fingerprint / PIN, Android SafetyNet / Fingerprint and other Hardware Security Keys
- Add new wizard for synchronizing time zone in the recovery environment
- Added three new S3-compatible storage providers: Digital Ocean, Catalyst Cloud, and Cynny Space
- Added Test Connection button to verify Storage Role credentials in the Comet Server web interface settings screen
- Add the new schedule option "If last job was Missed" to allow a backup job to run as soon as the Comet client is reconnected when there are missed jobs
- Support to restore single files and folders from Disk Image backup on both Comet Backup desktop app and Comet Server web interface (current only support for NTFS)
- Support for generating Synology SPKs for DSM 6 and DSM 7 for the Comet command line client, which can be used instead of the generic .tar.gz installer for Synology NAS devices. SPKs integrate with the Synology package center and are not removed by DSM upgrades.
- Add a quick search component to the admin web interface. Storage Vaults, Protected Items and User Profiles can be searched for
- Allow configuring how often a retention pass runs after a backup job
- Support to restore single file and folder from VMDK snapshot as archive (zip, tar, tar.gz, and sqfs) and download only
You can now select "If last job was Missed" from the schedule dialog. When a device re-connects to the server and detects that it has recently missed a backup, it will immediately start a new backup job. This replaces the previous option "When PC starts, if last job was missed". The "If last job was Missed" option bypasses any issues with fast startup, hibernation or sudden power off interrupting a backup schedule.
You can browse and restore single files and/or folders from Disk Image backup by selecting "Restore files and folders" from the restore method wizard. The feature currently only supports for NTFS.
You can get started with Synology by downloading your .spk package from the Comet Server downloads page. For more details, check out the documentation.
The quick search component is now available in the header bar of your Comet Server. You can search for Storage Vaults, Protected Items and User Profiles.
Enhancements
- Unified tenant management
- Keep table headers visible when scrolling a long table in the Comet Server web interface
- Add icons to the main menu bar and header text in the Comet Server web interface
- Warn when closing the Settings screen with unsaved changes
- Upgrade Qt library on Windows for various minor rendering and performance improvements in the Comet Backup desktop app
- Support fractional screen DPI scaling in Comet Backup on Windows
- Improve device response time when remotely cancelling jobs from the Comet Server web interface
- Log additional error messages to the Windows Event Log when a device is unable to process a live-connection action command
- Update Danish translation
- Allow to view the full logs for creating USB/ISO recovery media in the Comet Backup desktop app
- Added support for editing WebAuthn authenticator descriptions and authenticator types
- Improved descriptions for newly registered WebAuthn authenticators
- Update offline documentation to be a single pdf file instead of html based
- Use more descriptive explanations for special entries in the Storage Vault analysis dialog in the Comet Server web interface
- Add Storage Vault size as a hidden column on the Job Search page in the Comet Server web interface
- Update Thai translation
- Retry on failure when calculating Storage Vault size for more Storage Vault types
- Show the TOTP URI when enabling TOTP so that it can be copied into a password manager
- Show Protected Item and Storage Vault icons in more places in the Comet Server web interface
- Improve page load speed when returning multiple times to the admin homepage in the Comet Server web interface
- Adjust automatic retention pass rules - Accounts with only a single device run more often, and Server OS devices with less than 2GB of RAM run less often
- Show snapshot IDs for restore if the 'Advanced mode' checkbox is enabled in the Comet Server web interface
- When configuring multiple AutoSSL Domains, you can use leading and trailing whitespace in the comma separated list of hosts.
- Indicate how to create Protected Items in the package description of the Synology package
Changes compared to 21.12.8
Enhancements
- When configuring multiple AutoSSL Domains, you can use leading and trailing whitespace in the comma separated list of hosts.
- Indicate how to create Protected Items in the package description of the Synology package
Bug Fixes
- Fix an issue with admin login on storage role servers
- Fix Synology extended attributes system directories being included in File and Folder Protected Items on DSM 7