Roller: free and open source Java blog software

Apache Roller 6.1.4 is available

Dave Johnson — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 22:11:09 +0000

The Apache Roller project is pleased to announce the release of Roller 6.1.4! This release includes several updates and improvements to enhance the security, stability, and functionality of your Roller installations.

Dowload the latest release from:

https://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/roller/roller-6.1/v6.1.4

Key Changes in Apache Roller 6.1.4

Safer defaults

As of Roller 6.1.4, several default settings have been updated to enhance security for multi-user weblog sites:

HTML content sanitization: Roller now sanitizes all HTML content by default to prevent malicious content. This is controlled by the weblogAdminsUntrusted=true property in your roller-custom.properties file.
Custom themes and file-uploads disabled by default. You can enable this feature via the Server Admin page if you trust your users, as these features can pose security risks.
Better CSRF and XSS protection by user-specific and one-time-use salts.

Dependency updates

Over 20 mostly minor dependency updates including Spring, Eclipse-Link JPA, Log4j, Lucene, and more.

Bug fixes

Fixed some bugs that impacted category create, update and delete.

Apache Roller 6.1.3 is available

Dave Johnson — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 22:01:37 +0000

The Apache Roller project is pleased to announce the availability of Roller 6.1.3, a release that includes some minor bug fixes, dependency updates and input sanitization changes. If you run a multi-user Roller site and you do not trust your users, you should upgrade as this release fixed a couple of XSS vulnerabiltiies.

https://roller.apache.org/downloads/downloads.html

You can find some more details about the release in the vote thread here:

https://lists.apache.org/thread/xnnf63bdzmq7z08ptdptyg5c30rfvzq5

Thanks to all who helped out with this release!

Apache Roller 6.1.2 is available

Dave Johnson — Thu, 3 Aug 2023 22:03:05 +0000

The Apache Roller project is pleased to announce the availability of Roller 6.1.2, a release that includes some minor bug fixes and input sanitization changes.

https://roller.apache.org/downloads/downloads.html

You can find some more details about the release in the vote thread here:

https://lists.apache.org/thread/7wq8gb0g143zzbd6ds0c1k2zm51gbv2h

Thanks to all who helped out with this release!

Apache Roller 6.1.1 release is available

Dave Johnson — Sat, 30 Apr 2022 12:54:26 +0000

The Apache Roller project is pleased to announce the availability of Roller 6.1.1, a release that upgrades many dependencies including Spring, Struts, Lucene, Log4J, Guice and Bouncy Castle. The release and convenience binaries can be found on the Roller project download page here:

https://roller.apache.org/downloads/downloads.html

You can find some more details about the release in the vote thread here:

https://lists.apache.org/thread/ctnrxh333ftkgq54g073q9o4lk8fgrsv

Thanks to all who helped out with this release!

Apache Roller 6.1.0 release is available

Dave Johnson — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 22:37:50 +0000

The Apache Roller project is pleased to announce the availability of Roller 6.1.0, a release that upgrades over a dozen dependencies (including Log4J) and includes a number of bug fixes and improvements to the code-base. The release and convenience binaries can be found on the Roller project downloads page here:

https://roller.apache.org/downloads/downloads.html

You can find some more details about the release in the vote thread here:

https://lists.apache.org/thread/7334kfm8g5mlq1g0y8783ldfopdfc3sc

Thanks to all who helped out with this release!

Apache Roller 6.0.2 is available for download

Dave Johnson — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 01:38:20 +0000

The Roller PMC has approved the release of Apache Roller 6.0.2, a minor bug fix release.

You can download the release via Apache mirrors link here:

http://roller.apache.org/downloads/downloads.html

Roller 6.0.2 includes the fixes listed below:

Parse referrer URL instead of using string value directly

https://github.com/apache/roller/pull/90

Improved: the UI for the blog entries page

https://github.com/apache/roller/pull/87

Improved: tooltip content on the registration form

https://github.com/apache/roller/pull/89

Updated: the main menu to have proper space when displaying permission message

https://github.com/apache/roller/pull/95

Updated: the header to show the tagline only when it's available

https://github.com/apache/roller/pull/99

UI fixes are thanks to new contributor Yash Maheshwari.

On behalf of the Roller PMC,

Enjoy and best regards!

Apache Roller 6 released!

Dave Johnson — Mon, 30 Dec 2019 20:01:23 +0000

The Apache Roller community is pleased to announce the release of Apache Roller 6.0.0, the latest and greatest release of Roller. For more details of the changes introduced with this new version please refer to the release notes in JIRA. In summary, Roller 6 is a new version of Roller with these features:

Web interface has been rewritten to use Twitter bootstrap via the Struts 2 Bootstrap tags.
Most dependencies have been upgraded to the latest version.
Compiled with Java 11 and requires Java 11.
The installation guide has been converted from OpenOffice to AsciiDocs.

It should be relatively easy to upgrade from Roller 5.2.4 to Roller 6 because there are no changes to the database schema (that means you can easily roll back if you find problems). The user interface is different and we hope you'll find it better, easier to use, more intuitive and with a more modern feel.

Thanks to the many contributors to Roller for this new release. We hope you'll enjoy and find it useful.

Apache Roller is available on the download page:

https://roller.apache.org/downloads/downloads.html

For more information on Apache Roller, visit the project website:

https://roller.apache.org

Apache Roller 5.2.4 is available

Dave Johnson — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 21:41:24 +0000

The Apache Roller community is pleased to announce the release of Roller v5.2.4, a bug fix release that fixes a problem introduced in Roller 5.2.3. The Xinha-based rich-text editor was broken in 5.2.3 and this release fixes that.

The release may be downloaded from the Roller project download page:

http://roller.apache.org/downloads/downloads.html

Thanks,

The Apache Roller community

Apache Roller 5.2.3 released

Dave Johnson — Thu, 11 Jul 2019 22:32:59 +0000

The Apache Roller community is pleased to announce the release of Roller v5.2.3, a bug fix release with some minor improvements. You can find the list of fixes and improvements at the end of this email.

Release may be downloaded from the Roller project download page:

http://roller.apache.org/downloads/downloads.html

Roller 5.2.3 also fixes a Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability (CVE-2019-0234) in Roller's comment authenticator, so users are strongly encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible.

Thanks,

The Apache Roller community

Changes in Roller 5.2.3

Bug fixes:

[ROL-2100] - HTTPS Scheme Enforcement feature removed

[ROL-2127] - Automatic database upgrade fails

[ROL-2129] - duplicate index on roller_oauthconsumer as Primary Key

[ROL-2132] - Remember-me fails when LDAP used for auth

[ROL-2135] - Comment Authenticator fix

[ROL-2138] - NOTICE file does not have standard content

[ROL-2143] - Fix mvn jetty:run

Improvements:

[ROL-2137] - Require rememberme.key to be set

Tests:

[ROL-2142] - Skip RSS/Atom feed fetcher tests on Java 1.7

Apache Roller 5.2 released!

Dave Johnson — Tue, 7 Nov 2017 01:23:33 +0000

The Apache Roller community is pleased to announce the release of Roller 5.2.0. This release includes some small improvements to Roller and a couple dozen bug fixes. It also upgrades many dependencies including Apache Struts 2.5 and eliminates use of Dynamic Method Invocation (DMI).

The list of resolved JIRA issues is here: JIRA Change List

Release may be downloaded from the Roller project Downloads Page

Enjoy!

About Roller

Dave Johnson — Mon, 8 May 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Apache Roller is the open source Java blog server that once powered the ground-breaking employee blogging site blogs.sun.com, FreeRoller, JavaLobby's JRoller community and still powers the Apache Software Foundation blogs. If you want to set up a Java-powered blog server for yourself or for several thousand of your closest friends, try Roller!

Roller supports fundamental weblogging features such as group blogging, RSS and Atom newsfeeds, rich-text editing, customizable page templates, comments, pings, trackbacks, blogroll management and provides Atom Publishing Protocol and XML-RPC interfaces for blogging clients.

Roller was featured in an O'Reilly OnJava.com article on April 17, 2002. That article is no longer online, but you can read it here: Building an Open Source J2EE Weblogger (PDF).

For more information...

For more information about Roller, see the Apache Roller website and the Roller WIKI

Apache Roller 5.1.2 Released!

Glen — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 08:17:41 +0000

Apache Roller 5.1.2 has been released and is available for download here Roller download page.

This release takes care of a potential security problem involving bloggers with admin permissions on a blog being able by default to execute arbitrary code on the server hosting Roller. As a reminder, even without this issue, as bloggers can blog and instantly post anything and everything including copyrighted, privacy-infringing, and other objectionable content, do not grant blog-writing accounts above the "Limited" role (can edit but not post blog entries) to people whom you do not thoroughly know and trust.

Below is the list of fixes and enhancements over Roller 5.1.1:

ROL-2057 - Missing NPE check in Roller PageServlet class
ROL-2058 - No salt renewal on POST request
ROL-2059 - Comment preview is invisible in Gaurav theme
ROL-2060 - Missing custom.css import in tags_index.vm in Gaurav theme
ROL-2061 - Wrong next month link of Calendar
ROL-2062 - Missing NPE check in IndexOperation#getDocument()
ROL-2064 - Add viewport meta tag to Gaurav theme
ROL-2065 - Gaurav sometimes displaying empty summary as unresolved "$entry.summary"
ROL-2066 - Comment URLs using https:// not saving properly in Gaurav theme
ROL-2067 - Velocity configuration improvement

Apache Roller 5.1.1 Released!

Glen — Wed, 1 Oct 2014 23:53:58 +0000

Apache Roller 5.1.1 has been released, offering the following fixes/enhancements over Roller 5.1:

ROL-1387 - In creating tag aggregate counts (for tag clouds, etc.), count tags only from published blog entries
ROL-1620 - Plus signs in Category names result in 404s for Atom and RSS feeds
ROL-2050 - Have Design Tab default to Templates page when custom themes are being used (speeds up template customization)
ROL-2051 - Themes not falling back to standard templates when mobile ones undefined (affecting ability for Roller to be read from tablets and smartphones.)
ROL-2052 - Custom stylesheets not being updated correctly when user switches between shared and custom themes.
ROL-2054 - Newly saved categories not appearing on blog
ROL-2055 - Comment search should be case-insensitive

Update needed for Roller 5.1 blogs to display on smartphones/tablets

Glen — Tue, 2 Sep 2014 15:56:06 +0000

Note (1 October 2014): Below problem has been fixed with the latest Roller 5.1.1 release.

Apache Roller 5.1 has a bug in which the standard blog theme templates are not being activated when no mobile theme templates are defined, resulting in blogs not being readable in most cases from tablets or smartphones. (Roller 5.1 now allows the option of separate templates, called template renditions, for mobile and standard displays, however the standard rendition is supposed to be activated when a mobile rendition is not defined.) I've just committed a fix to this problem in Roller trunk, i.e., the future Apache Roller 5.1.1. Until we have a new release, here are some solutions to this problem:

Upgrade to a snapshot version of Roller containing the fix - Providing you've already upgraded to Roller 5.1, switching to a patched version should be just a simple switch of the WAR file. First checkout and build Roller tag http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/roller/tags/roller_5.1.0-ROL2051patch and redeploy the WAR. You can alternatively just deploy Roller 5.1.1-SNAPSHOT (i.e., trunk), which at the point of publication of this blog entry is the same as the above tag, however with additional commits to the trunk over time bugs and incompatibilities may pop up as we develop the code. As with any upgrade, good to manually back up any custom (modified) templates and stylesheets so you can bring them in again if a problem occurs in the upgrade, however this particular patch should not have any effect on customized templates.
Switch to the basic-mobile theme. This theme already has separate mobile and standard renditions explicitly defined in its theme.xml descriptor.
For shared themes in the WEB-INF/themes folder of the WAR, in the theme.xml (for example here for basic), duplicate each rendition, marking one for standard and one for mobile, just as done right now with the basic-mobile theme. Such a change will result in Roller 5.1 picking up the same template regardless of device type. If you've customized a shared theme however, back up your templates as you will probably need to copy them over once you re-import the new shared theme.

Apache Roller 5.1 Released!

Glen — Mon, 25 Aug 2014 15:18:34 +0000

Announcement email here. Download and give Roller 5.1 a try! As mentioned in the email, for Roller users upgrading from previous versions, make sure to back up your current Roller database prior to doing the upgrade in case problems occur and you need to roll back to your previous Roller instance.

Upgrading Roller 5.1-SNAPSHOT database instances

Glen — Mon, 7 Jul 2014 11:53:19 +0000

Apache Roller trunk (i.e., 5.1-SNAPSHOT) will automatically upgrade any Roller database that was part of an official release from Roller 3.1 onwards during its install process. Follow the Apache Roller installation guide for more information on this process, including making sure that you do a safety back up of your database prior to running the install.

However, for those who have earlier deployed unreleased 5.1-SNAPSHOT versions, neither later 5.1-SNAPSHOTs nor the future release 5.1 will be able to automatically upgrade your SNAPSHOT database, which will create a incompatibility issue if database changes occurred in development since the snapshot version you deployed. This will necessitate some manual database upgrade changes prior to moving to the later version of Roller.

To determine if any manual database changes are needed, check the revision number located on the footer of the Roller login page, i.e., the (rXXXXXX) value at the end of the "Powered by Apache Roller Weblogger Version 5.1.0-SNAPSHOT" string. Then, using the source control repository of the createdb.vm file, do a comparison (using the "select for diffs" links) between versions of the file immediately preceding that version number and either the latest version of the file (for a future 5.1-SNAPSHOT) or the version just before but no later than the release date of Roller 5.1.

For example, here is a comparison between March 2014 and May 2014 database instances. Note the createdb.vm does not provide the actual SQL statements needed for your particular database instance (as that will vary depending on the database you're using) but just the pseudocode SQL informing you which tables and columns need deletion, creation, modification, etc. Check your database's manuals for information on the necessary SQL statement syntax for table alterations, and of course back up your database first.

Language Support for Upcoming Roller 5.1

Glen — Mon, 7 Jul 2014 09:45:50 +0000

Apache Roller 5.1 is expected to be released "soon" (no fixed date yet available). For the Apache Roller trunk branch (i.e., upcoming 5.1), I recently cleaned out the language resource files of unused strings that have accumulated over the years and also introduced generic.* property strings for common functions (Save, Edit, Delete, etc.) that are used in multiple places to further reduce the number of strings that need translation. As a result, each of the language files shrank 25-35%, with the results browsable online. As one can see, Roller 5.1 will be shipping with support for English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Chinese - Simplified, Japanese, and Korean. (By language support, I'm referring to the user interface for administering your blog--creating blog entries, managing comments, etc.--and certain boilerplate text within your blog templates. For writing blog articles and customizing your blog templates, Roller supports virtually any written language desired.)

However the non-English languages have only between 30-50% of the total strings (roughly 1800 in all) translated. Any strings missing will appear in the default English. If you're looking to deploy Roller in an office or school and wish to have better support for a given language, now would be a great time to check out Roller trunk from Subversion and submit a patch to our JIRA issue tracker, translating some-to-all of the missing strings of your desired language. IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition provides an easy-to-use editor to identify and translate strings present in the English but missing in the other files, and Eclipse offers similar.

Apache Roller 5.0.4 Released

Glen — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:30:40 +0000

The Roller team has made a patch release of the Apache Roller 5 branch, upgrading to the latest 2.3.16.3 release of Struts2 to fix some security issues found in earlier releases of that library. It's recommended to upgrade your Roller installation to this latest version.

Meanwhile, we're getting closer to a new Roller 5.1 release (perhaps within a few weeks), which features fully updated dependencies, a refactored and shrunk code base, and a more modern and simplified user interface. Stay tuned for its release!

New article on coding Apache Roller

Glen — Sun, 27 Apr 2014 12:29:58 +0000

Roller committer Glen Mazza (me!) has written a new article providing tips on how to efficiently work with the Apache Roller source code, helpful for those wishing to contribute to Apache Roller development and/or customize it for their particular needs.

Apache Roller 5.0.3 security fix release now available

Dave Johnson — Sat, 11 Jan 2014 17:18:36 +0000

The Apache Roller project has announced the availability of a new Apache Roller 5.0.3 release. This new release is identical to Apache Roller 5.0.2 but includes an updated Apache XML-RPC library that fixes a security vulnerability in Roller's XML-RPC feature.

All Roller sites are urged to upgrade to Roller 5.0.3 as soon as possible. Download Apache Roller 5.0.3 at the Roller downloads page here.

You can find a little more information about the vulnerabilities at the links below:

The official release announcement: Apache Roller 5.0.3 available & upgrade recommended for all Roller sites
CVE-2014-0030 Apache Roller XML-RPC susceptible to XML Entended Entity attacks

Apache Roller 5.0.2 security fix release now available

Dave Johnson — Sun, 3 Nov 2013 11:14:20 +0000

The Apache Roller project has announced the availability of a new Apache Roller 5.0.2 release. This new release is identical to Apache Roller 5.0.1 but with the addition of two security fixes: 1) fix for XSS vulnerability in Roller's search feeds 2) fix for remote code execution vulnerability.

All Roller sites are urged to upgrade to Roller 5.0.2 as soon as possible. Download Apache Roller 5.0.2 at the Roller downloads page here.

You can find a little more information about the vulnerabilities at the links below:

The official release announcement: Apache Roller 5.0.2 available & upgrade recommended for all Roller sites
CVE-2013-4171 Apache Roller RSS/Atom Feed templates contain XSS vulnerabilities
CVE-2013-4212 Apache Roller contains remote code execution vulnerabilities
This blog entry from Coverity explains the remote execution issue in more detail: Remote Code Execution in Apache Roller via OGNL Injection

Roller on OpenShift

Dave Johnson — Tue, 9 Jul 2013 21:13:26 +0000

Here's a wonderfully detailed and informative (even if you don't intend to use Roller) blog post from Roller committer Glen Mazza about how to install Roller on Red Hat's Open Shift platform as a service (PAAS) offering: Apache Roller on OpenShift

Apache Roller 5.0.1 security fix release now available

Dave Johnson — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 16:14:19 +0000

The Apache Roller project has announced the availability of a new Apache Roller 5.0.1 release. This new release is identical to Apache Roller 5.0 but with the addition of two security fixes: 1) fix for Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities and 2) fix for Cross-Site Resource Forgery (XRSF) vulnerabilities.

All Roller sites are urged to upgrade to Roller 5.0.1 as soon as possible. Download Apache Roller 5.0.1 at the Roller downloads page here

The two security vulnerabilities have been reported to the [Full Disclosure mailing-list at grok.org.uk|http://www.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure/] and the [Bugtraq list at SecurityFocus.com|http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1]. You can find a little more information about the vulnerabilities at the links below:

CVE-2012-2380: Roller Cross-Site-Resource-Forgery (XSRF) vulnerability
CVE-2012-2381: Roller Cross-Site-Scripting (XSS) vulnerability

Apache Roller 5.0 released

Dave Johnson — Wed, 25 May 2011 08:36:11 +0000

Here's some more happy Roller news. Apache Roller 5.0 has been released!

The major new feature in Roller 5.0 is Media Blogging, a set of enhancements to Roller's file upload and management capabilities. Also included in 5.0 are simple multi-site support, ~OpenID and ~OAuth support for Roller's ~AtomPub interface. All major dependencies have been updated and Roller now uses Maven for build and dependency management. You can find a summary of Roller 5.0's new features on the Roller wiki.

The road to Roller 5.0 has been a long one and if you are interested the history, you might want to check Dave Johnson's What's New in Roller 5.0 presentation from ApacheCon US 2009. Roller 5.0 includes contributions from contributors from Google Summer of Code, San Jose State Univ. and the usual cast of Roller committers. Thanks to all who contributed to Roller 5.0 over the years.

To download Apache Roller 5.0 and documentation, visit the Apache Roller download page at the Apache Software Foundation's website.

Welcome Shelan Perera

Dave Johnson — Mon, 23 May 2011 17:43:35 +0000

Here's some happy news. A new committer has joined the Roller project. Shelan Perera has been helping out on the mailing lists, submitting fixes and recently won a Google Summer of Code (GSOC) project to add mobile blogging features to Roller. He was nominated for committership and voted in on May 5, 2011.

Shelan's GSOC project is to add mobile theming capabilities to Roller. You can find the Mobile Theming for Roller proposal on the GSOC website. Shelan is seeking feedback on requirements and design for the project, and keeping the community in the loop by running a blog to journal his progress: Apache Roller Mobile Platform.

Welcome Shelan!

Roller needs YOU!

Dave Johnson — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 12:33:16 +0000

If you’re a Roller user, developer, tester or technical writer then the Apache Roller project needs your help. This blog entry explains the reasons why and how you can help.

How the project works:

Apache Roller is an all volunteer project, there is no paid staff. All development, testing and documentation is done by folks in their spare time. Some folks have have made enough contributions to Roller to become part of the Roller Project Management Committee (PMC). The PMC is the group that oversees Roller, has permission to write to check-in new patches, do development directly into the Roller repository and each member has a binding vote on releases and on any contentious issues that cannot be resolved by lazy consensus.

Why Roller needs your help:

Unfortunately, with Sun and IBM no longer contributing to Roller, the number of active participants on the Roller PMC is very small, small enough that it is difficult to get a new Roller release out. To make a new release, we need three +1 votes from PMC members and it can take some time to get PMC members to review and vote on each release candidate.

If you depend on Roller you should consider getting more involved and becoming part of the PMC. It benefits you because you can influence Roller direction, add the fixes you need and by doing so you help to ensure that Roller can continue as an Apache project and make new releases. Or, if you're a student or a person new to open source development and you want to learn by doing, improving Roller or adding all new features, that's a good reason too.

How you can help:

Getting involved in Roller is easy and there is no obligation for you to do anything other than follow the Apache way when you do participate. We don't want your money, we want your participation To get started, let the community know you're interested in becoming a committer and contribute to Roller in any positive way: helping users on the mailing list, contributing docs, fixes or new features -- and you should be noticed and nominated for as a committer/PMC member.

Get involved, Roller needs you!

Here's a link to the newly updated How to contribute to Roller page.

Notes:

This is a personal blog, represents an individual view-point and is not an official statement of the Apache Software Foundation or any other organization.
Roller doesn't want your money, but our parent organization, The Apache Software Foundation does accept financial contributions: http://www.apache.org/foundation/contributing.html

Apache Roller 4.0 Beginners Guide

Dave Johnson — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:41:08 +0000

Alfonso Romero's new book Apache Roller 4.0 Beginners Guide is now available and it looks like a great resource for Roller beginners and even for more experienced users who want a step-by-step guide to customizing their Roller blog.

Here's the cover:

And here's a blurb from the publisher's site:

Apache Roller enables you to build a fully-featured, multi-user blog server apt for all kinds of blogging sites. It is an ideal tool to create your own blogging network with unlimited users and blogs, forums, photo galleries, and more! While it is exciting to have a list of interesting features it can offer you, it might be a little difficult to get started with it by your self.

This book will teach you how to get started with Apache Roller and make the most of all its features using step-by-step, detailed instructions. You will learn how to establish your internet presence with an Apache Roller blog and use the latest web tools to enhance your posts and attract visitors. You will also learn how to promote your blog on popular social bookmarking services and customize it to suit your need.

There's also a very nice except of the book available online:

Working with Templates in Apache Roller 4.0

You can read more on the book's homepage at Pakt Publishing.

One more thing before I close out this entry: Big congratulations to Alfonso and thanks for helping beginning Roller users everywhere!

Roller at ApacheCon US 2009

Dave Johnson — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:56:45 +0000

Want to learn about the new features coming in Roller 5.0? Come to ApacheCon US 2009 in Oakland, California this November and find out.

If you've been to an ApacheCon, then you know what a great experience the conference can be. If not, well then this is the perfect opportunity to join that experience. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the ASF, we're planning a conference like no other. FREE events include a 2-day BarCamp and Hackathon, and evening MeetUps.

Dave Johnson will be attending the conference and giving a talk on on Roller 5.0. Here are the details:

Title: What's new in Roller 5.0
Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Time: 4PM Pacific Time

Abstract: We'll cover the features of Apache Roller 5.0 (to be released Summer 2009 Fall 2009) and how it compares to other blog server options, typical deployment architectures and examples of Roller sites in production today. Ongoing student-driven work on OpenID and better Media Blogging support will be disucssed in detail. And, you'll learn how blog software is changing and adapting to incorporate Social Networking features such as profiles, friend relationships and social gadgets and how you can use Apache Shindig and Project SocialSite to add these features to Roller.

You can register for ApacheCon US 2009 via the link below.

Ganesh Mathrubootham joins the Roller project

Dave Johnson — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:10:11 +0000

Ganesh Mathrubootham has been doing great work on the Media Blogging for Roller project and helping out in other ways in Roller development and support. So in January we nominated and voted him in as Roller's newest committer. Welcome Ganesh, we're very happy to have you on the team.

Apache Roller 4.0.1 bug fix release now available

Dave Johnson — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:40:50 +0000

It's been over a year since our last Roller release and we've fixed a couple dozen bugs in that time including an XSS vulnerability reported recently by Secunia.com. Now those fixes are available as an official Roller release, 4.0.1

Bugs fixed are listed in the JIRA Issue Tracker Release Notes page
Updated files and docs are available via the Apache download mirror network

This is a bug-fix only release with no new features.

November 2008 Board Report

Dave Johnson — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 12:30:00 +0000

It was a pretty quiet fall for Roller, as you can see in the November 2008 Board Report, but two San Jose State Univ. students have made great progress on a detailed proposal for Media Blogging in Roller, a set of new features that makes it easy to upload images, video and audio files, to manage those files and to include them in blog posts and feeds.

August 2008 Board Report

Dave Johnson — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:00:00 +0000

The Apache Roller project's latest report to the ASF board is available here: August 2008 Board Report. Highlights include some commentary about community health, OpenID support via the Google Summer of Code and a new project to improve Roller's Media Blogging facilities.

May 2008 Board Report

Dave Johnson — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:50:02 +0000

The Apache Roller project's latest board report is available here: May 2008 Board Report. The highlights include the completion of new Externalized User Management and Tag Data API work for Roller 4.1.

February 2008 Board Report

Dave Johnson — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:00:00 +0000

The Apache Roller project reports status on a quarterly basis and the latest report is now available here: February 2008 Board Report. Highlights from the report include the release of Apache Roller 4.0 and work towards a proposal for Roller 4.1.

Announcing Apache Roller 4.0

Dave Johnson — Wed, 5 Dec 2007 13:04:07 +0000

Apache Roller 4.0 has been released and is now available for download.

This is a major new Roller release which includes easier blog theme customization, a much more simple installation/upgrade process, infrastructure improvements and numerous other small fixes. You can get the release files and the official documentation via the Apache mirrors at this page:

http://roller.apache.org/download.cgi

And you can read about the new features on the What's New in Roller 4.0 page of the Roller wiki.

Project releases are approved by vote of the Apache Roller Project Management Committee (PMC). For help with Roller, subscribe to the Roller mailing lists. To file a bug report or to suggest improvements use Roller's JIRA issue tracker.

Roller is a Project of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), formed by a resolution of the ASF Board of Directors. As an ASF Project, Roller is subject to the ASF Bylaws and the direction of the ASF Board.

The user mailing list and issue tracker are the only support options hosted by the Apache Roller project.

Roller 4.0 coming soon...

Dave Johnson — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:55:31 +0000

As noted in Roller Strong #9, we're on the second release candidate for Roller 4.0 now and release voting may begin this week, so get ready for the new release. If you are interested in testing the new release, download the release files and subscribe to one of the Roller mailing lists to provide feedback.

Announcing project graduation and new Apache Roller 3.1 release

Dave Johnson — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 12:00:00 +0000

The Apache Roller team is pleased to announce that the project has graduated from the Apache Incubator and we've made available the long awaited Apache Roller 3.1, our first official Apache release.

First, the big news, we've graduated! In our time in the Apache Incubator we grew the already diverse Roller community, demonstrated our commitment to and understanding of Apache governance, reviewed all of our code to ensure compliance with Apache licensing policies and made major improvements in the Roller software. Now we have met all graduation requirements, the ASF board has passed our graduation resolution and we're an official top-level project of the Apache Software Foundation, hosted at http://roller.apache.org.

And last but not least, the big new release. Roller 3.1 is a major new release that includes support for tagging (contributed by IBM), an improved weblog editor based on Xinha, numerous other improvements and bug fixes. Learn more from the What's New in Roller 3.1 page. And you can find the list of issues addressed in our issue tracker.

This is a new release, but the Roller 3.1 code-base has been in use for months at a number of production sites, including http://blogs.sun.com and this site. Here are direct links to the download files:

Web application, binary release

Roller 3.1 Web application (tar.gz) (key)
Roller 3.1 Web application (zip) (key)
Roller 3.1 Support at Java.net - required jars for use with Roller webapp

Source code release

Roller 3.1 Source code (tar.gz) (key)
Roller 3.1 Source code (zip) (key)
Roller 3.1 Support at Java.net - required jars for use with Roller source

Here are links to the Roller 3.1 docs in PDF format.

If you run into installation problems please seek assistance on the Roller User Mailing List. Please report bugs and enhancement requests to Roller's JIRA based Issue Tracker.

Apache Roller 3.0 (incubating) available for download

Dave Johnson — Tue, 7 Nov 2006 21:46:37 +0000

Apache Roller 3.0 (incubating) is now available via the Apache incubator. For more information about the release see What's New in Roller 3.0 on the Roller wiki. This is a new release, but the Roller 3.0 codebase has been in use for over a month at a number of production sites, including http://blogs.sun.com and this site. Here are direct links to the download files:

Note that we no longer use the wiki for the user and installation guides. Instead, we're using OpenOffice format and generating HTML and PDF versions of these two documents. Here are links to the latest docs for Roller 3.0 in PDF format.

Please report bugs and enhancement requests to Roller's JIRA-based issue tracker.

NOTE: Roller is in the Apache Incubator, but this release is not an official release of or endorsed by the Apache Software Foundation. Roller itself is licensed under the Apache license v2.0, but requires some components that have more restrictive licenses (i.e. Hibernate).

Apache Roller 2.3 (incubating) is available for download

Dave Johnson — Fri, 2 Jun 2006 18:28:00 +0000

Apache Roller 2.3-incubating is now available via the Apache incubator. For more information about the release see What's New in Roller 2.3 on the Roller wiki. This is a new release, but the Roller 2.3 codebase has been in use for over a month at a number of production sites, including http://blogs.sun.com and this site. Here are direct links to the download files:

Please report bugs and enhancement requests to Roller's JIRA-based issue tracker.

Roller 2.1.1 and 2.0.2 emergency bug fix releases

Dave Johnson — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:25:11 +0000

We have removed the Roller 2.1 and Roller 2.0.1 releases from the Roller downloads area because of a serious problem that affected those upgrading from Roller 1.X. If you downloaded Roller 2.1 or Roller 2.0.1 before today and you plan to upgrade a Roller 1.X system, throw away that old download and get the latest one.

Roller 2.1.1 is available here: Roller 2.1.1 download directory

Roller 2.0.2 is available here: Roller 2.0.2 download directory

Roller 2.1 is available for download

Dave Johnson — Fri, 3 Mar 2006 15:02:46 +0000

Roller 2.1-incubating is now available on Roller's Java.Net download space. For more information about the release see What's New in Roller 2.1 on the Roller wiki. This is a new release, but the Roller 2.1 codebase has been in use for weeks at a number of production sites, including http://blogs.sun.com and this site.

We no longer use the wiki for the user and installation guides. Instead, we're using OpenOffice format and generating HTML and PDF versions of these two documents. Here are links to the latest docs for Roller 2.1.

Roller 2.1 Installation Guide (HTML)
Roller 2.1 Installation Guide (PDF)

Roller 2.1 User Guide (HTML)
Roller 2.1 User Guide (PDF)

The Roller 2.1 Upgrade Guide is still on the wiki.

As usual, if you run into installation or upgrade problems, please seek assistance on the Roller mailing lists. Please report bugs and enhancement requests to Roller's JIRA-based issue tracker.

And work is well underway for Roller 2.2. What's New in Roller 2.2 describes what's coming in the next release.

NOTE: Roller is in the Apache Incubator, but this release is not an official release of or endorsed by the Apache Software Foundation. Also, Roller itself is licensed under the Apache license v2.0, but some components included in Roller have more restrictive licenses.

Roller 2.0.1 (for PostgreSQL) available

Dave Johnson — Thu, 5 Jan 2006 10:02:55 +0000

Roller 2.0.1 is a patched version of Roller 2.0 that fixes some problems that PostgreSQL database users were experiencing. If you are upgrading a PostgreSQL based Roller 1.X system to Roller 2.0, then this is the build for you. Otherwise, you can ignore Roller 2.0.1.

Get it in our Java.Net project's Roller 2.0.1 download folder

UPDATE: A small problem was found in the database upgrade scripts and the Roller 2.0.1 download has been refreshed with a fix for the problem.

Welcome Matt Schmidt

Dave Johnson — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 14:58:34 +0000

Welcome to Matt Schmidt, who just joined the Roller project as a committer. From the Roller development mailing-list:

Dave Johnson: Matt was one of the earliest users and supporters of Roller. He's the director of technology at the Javalobby and along with Rick Ross he helped grow the Roller community by offering free Roller-based blogs at JRoller.com. Matt, Rick and I spent many hours on instant messenger, on the phone and at Javalobby headquarters (here in Cary, NC) debugging Roller's early performance problems. Since then, he's played an active role in the Roller dev list and I've continued to work with him on Roller issues via instant messenger.

Matt is part of the Roller developer and user community, does good work and I'd like to encourage his further contributions and involvement by nominating him for committer status on Roller and giving him his first +1

Roller 2.0 is available for download

Dave Johnson — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 21:14:33 +0000

Roller 2.0 is now available on Roller's Java.Net download space. Roller 2.0 is a major release that includes:

Full support for group blogging. Users can have multiple blogs and can invite other users to join group blogs with three permission levels and simple workflow.
Web user interface redesign. The entire UI has been reworked to support group blogging, simplify and enhance the user experience.
Additional database support. Database creation scripts added for Apache Derby, IBM DB2 and Oracle (in addition to existing MySQL, PostgreSQL and HSQL-DB support).
Superusers. Global administrators can now admin and edit any blog in the system.
And lots more!. The release also includes numerous bug fixes and small improvements, see CHANGES.txt for the full list of changes.

This is a new release, but the Roller 2.0 codebase has been in use for weeks at a number of production sites, including http://blogs.sun.com and this site. Here are links to the updated documentation:

User Guide
Macro Reference
Installation Guide
Upgrade Guide - how to upgrade Roller 1.x to Roller 2.0
Configuration Guide
Javadocs

As usual, if you run into installation or upgrade problems, please seek assistance on the Roller mailing lists. Please report bugs and enhancement requests to Roller's JIRA-based issue tracker.

Roller 1.3 is available

Dave Johnson — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 17:11:27 +0000

Roller 1.3, a minor bug-fix release, is now available at Roller's Java.Net download space. Bug fixes are listed in the CHANGES.txt file. The RollerDocumentation_1.x lists the documenation associated with the release.

Roller 1.3 on the way

Dave Johnson — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 14:19:36 +0000

The Roller team voted to ship Roller 1.3 and is now preparing to make it's very first officially un-official release from the Apache Incubator. Henri set up a Roller status page for us on the Incubator website and today we're branching, tagging, creating release files and discussing where to maket he release.

Elias Torres joins the Roller project

Dave Johnson — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 11:11:04 +0000

Warm welcome to Elias Torres, Roller's newest committer. From Dave's blog:

Welcome to Elias, who brings the Roller committer count up to 
seven (in chronological order: Dave, Matt, Lance, Anil, Henri, 
Allen, and now Elias). Elias runs one of the biggest Roller 
installs in the world at IBM and he's got lots of cool feature 
ideas and practical suggestions for improving Roller.

Roller 1.2 available for download

Dave Johnson — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:33:22 +0000

Roller 1.2 has been released and is available for download. The release features , bug fixes, and some minor improvements. You can find the files in Roller's Java.Net download space or via the links below:

roller-1.2.tar.gz: Roller 1.2 web application
roller-src-1.2.tar.gz: Roller 1.1 source code
roller-tools-1.2.tar.gz: Roller 1.2 dependencies (jars needed to build Roller source)
roller-demo-1.2.tar.gz: Roller 1.2 standalone demo (w/Tomcat, HSQLDB and JSPWiki)

Once you've downloaded Roller refer to the docs to install and use Roller:

Roller Installation Guide
Roller User Guide
Roller 1.2 Change List

Run into problems during installation? Subscribe to the Roller user mailing-list.

Roller Mailing Lists moving to Apache

Dave Johnson — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 08:54:44 +0000

As part of our ongoing move to Apache, we're leaving the old SourceForge mailing lists behind and switching to new new mailing-lists hosted by the Apache Incubator. Subscription instructions:

Roller Developer mailing list

Subscribe by sending email to mailto:roller-dev-subscribe@incubator.apache.org
Unsubscribe by sending email to mailto:roller-dev-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org

Roller User mailing list

Subscribe by sending email to mailto:roller-user-subscribe@incubator.apache.org
Unsubscribe by sending email to mailto:roller-user-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org

Roller 1.1.2 available

Dave Johnson — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 17:36:59 +0000

This release is another bug fix release that fixes Roller search feature. You can download the full release or a patch that you can apply to your existing Roller 1.1 (or Roller 1.1.1) installation.

The full release

roller-1.1.2.tar.gz: The web app - what you need to run Roller
roller-1.1.2-src.tar.gz: The source code - what you need to build Roller from source
roller-1.1.2-tools.tar.gz: The tools - you'll also need these jars to build Roller from source

The patch release

roller-1.1.2-patch.tar.gz: Patch release - with a README.txt file that explains how to install