conserver-8.0.0-beta1 is available

For anyone out there that saw my "sneak peek" at the LISA conference
last year, you'll be expecting this.  For the other folks out there -
surprise!  Why?  Well, 8.0.0-beta1 has some very major changes compared
to 7.2.7.  All of it is related to the new configuration file format
which allows for things such as read-write and read-only access to
consoles, per-console options that were global before (like -F, the
auto-reinitialize option), user groups, per-conserver access lists, and
inheritance of config items.  Unfortunately, a lot of that may make no
sense until you see it 'cause I haven't gotten all the docs updated to
match the code.  *But*, I do believe the code to be fully functional
(yeah, to the extent I could test it) and I'm hoping a few of you are
interested in testing it as well.

If you'd like to see examples of the new config file, scan the bits of
docs I have updated, or even go as far as doing a 'make test' on a
system, you can find the beta at http://www.conserver.com/beta/ (or in
the beta sub-dir on the ftp site).

Personally, I'm very excited about the possibilities this is going to
open up for the code (many things were limited by the old configuration
file format).  I'm also very interested in hearing feedback, results,
or questions, so feel free to email me (obviously things are still
changing).  Here are the things I listed in the CHANGES file:

version 8.0.0-beta1 (Jul 4, 2003):
	- ***NOTICE*** the format of conserver.cf and conserver.passwd
	  has completely changed.  see the INSTALL file for
	  upgrade instructions (it should be "fairly painless").
	  some documentation has been updated to reflect the new world,
	  some hasn't - my goal for beta2 is to have all the docs updated
	- many command-line options now also conserver.cf options options
	- POSIX termios interface now required for compilation - some
	  POSIX requirements were already in the code and others will
	  undoubtedly creep in as time goes by
	- configure --with-regex option removed because of conserver.cf
	  and conserver.passwd changes
	- added -S option to server for syntax checking of the
	  configuration file - suggested by Dave Stuit <djs@tellme.com>
	- authorized users now either have r/w or r/o access to consoles
	- getpassword.o replaces getpass() and getpassphrase() so we
	  can get any string length
	- fixed rm commands in test script - patch by Petter Reinholdtsen
	  <pere@hungry.com>

Bryan Stansell