Update to Ubuntu 14.04 - Inside DNAnexus

Ubuntu 12.04 has reached end-of-life, and the DNAnexus team is taking  steps to ensure that customer applications and DNAnexus backend systems migrate away from this version of the software. We recommend any customers who develop and maintain DNAnexus applications update your applications and applets to Ubuntu 14.04 as soon as possible to identify any issues that may arise. We are currently using Canonical’s Extended Security Maintenance feature to help ensure the ongoing security and integrity of Ubuntu 12.04 systems, however, support for 12.04 DNAnexus applications and applets on all instance types will officially end on April 28th, 2018.

Tips for Updating to Ubuntu 14.04: 

• If your application uses assets, ‘execDepends’, or installs from ‘apt’ directly within the application, it is recommended that you ensure any version changes in these packages when using Ubuntu 14.04 are compatible with your application. It may be helpful to use a Cloud Workstation to test out these differences.
• Instead of using ‘execDepends’ for installing packages, consider using DNAnexus assets or Docker images. Your application will incur less runtime dependency on the network availability of Canonical packages, and by using Docker, you can choose different runtime environments, including Ubuntu 16.04, to encapsulate the core functionality of the application.

Beginning October 15th, 2017, the DNAnexus Platform will also require the ‘distribution’ and ‘release’ fields to be specified within the application’s ‘runSpec’ when building an applet. Please ensure that any applications you build from source contain those fields. Note that if you use ‘dx-app-wizard’ to generate an application template, these fields are populated for you. Please ensure you are using a recent version of the dx-toolkit when using ‘dx-app-wizard’ or performing a build. You can obtain the latest version of the toolkit from our wiki or by using the ‘dx upgrade‘ command.

Please do not hesitate to contact support@dnanexus.com with any questions or concerns regarding this software update.