Attention all Hive Node-in-a-box Customers
Wwe've released a brand new VPS image for 
Hive 
Node-in-a-box™!
It's strongly recommended that all Hive Node-in-a-box customers request a re-installation as soon as possible, since this is a major upgrade to our NIAB template.
The new image includes the Hive v1.24.4 update, which fixes cli_wallet among other things, plus the OS has been upgraded an entire major release to 20.04 Focal!
Hive NIAB's base OS has now been upgraded from Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic) to Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal), which brings a lot of great improvements such as:
20.04 brings the new Linux Kernel 5.0 - a whole major release above 18.04, which still uses the Linux 4.x series (latest version for Bionic is 4.15 AFAIK)
Faster boot times when your server is rebooted, thanks to various improvements to the general service management system (systemd), along with improvements brought in by the Linux 5.0 kernel.
Overall improved system performance - you'll find that SSH connects faster, the shell (both zsh and bash) is much more responsive as you type, and many commands simply run faster.
The system drivers and services which handle CPU, RAM, and disk I/O for virtualised systems (i.e. VPS's) have been majorly improved, resulting in faster and more reliable disk performance, CPU performance, and memory performance
Python 3.8 is now the default Python systemwide, and Python 2 is no longer installed by default. This means any Python applications you use (such as beem) - will now use Python 3.8 by default, resulting in easier installation of packages and Python software that requires Python 3.7/3.8+, and of course increased performance and reliability of most Python applications that use the systemwide Python
Native support for U2F/FIDO (2FA) authentication (e.g. YubiKey's / Trezor / Ledger Nano S) with OpenSSH, to help you improve your system's security without having to fumble around trying to install an external SSH server plugin for it etc.
apt (the package manager) now has "lock waiting". If you try to run two apt processes at once, instead of one of them immediately failing due to the lock, it will wait by default for 30-60 seconds for the lock to be released, instead of immediately failing - improving the overall package installation / updating experience
Many, many more awesome improvements, including new features, bug fixes, performance/reliability updates and more! :)
Upgraded and replayed to :hive: Hive v1.24.4 - which fixes a lot of issues, such as the fact that cli_wallet previously didn't work.
Since 1.24.4 requires a replay from 1.24.2, we strongly recommend a reinstallation just for this update.
steemfeed-js is now hivefeed-js - we've updated the pre-installed copy to properly track the new Github repo, so you won't have trouble upgrading to the new repo name in the future.
It's also been updated to the latest version, including the latest docker image pre-installed
hive-docker has now been updated to the latest version v3.5.0, which includes various bug fixes and new features
hive-witness-essentials by therealwolf has been updated to the latest version
steem-peers along with it's dependencies have been updated to the latest version, and the pre-installed GeoIP2 databases have been upgraded to the latest versions from Maxmind
The default config.ini which is pre-created by default, has now been updated to the latest example config from hive-docker, which has clearly organised sections, and comments explaining how/when/why to use various config options - including examples for witness and private-key to prevent the issue of confusion over which one needs to be quoted, and which one doesn't etc.
beem is now pre-installed by default, including the command line tool beempy - which should be usable from both root and ubuntu
And various other improvements, fixes, updates, and new features! Contact us for a re-installation of your Hive Node-in-a-box™ server :)
As the updated NIAB image is brand new, it's not available for all customers just yet - but it should be available for most of you.
It's currently available for all customers with an SSD Hive Node-in-a-box VPS, including:
Sweden SSD Hive VPS's
Germany SSD Hive VPS's
Finland SSD Hive VPS'sIt's also the default for new Hive SSD VPS orders,
We'll be gradually rolling out the new updates to our HDD servers' Hive templates over the next 24 to 72 hrs, and we'll make another announcement when the upgrade is ready for HDD Hive NIAB customers.
Hive SSD VPS's in Finland are back in stock!
Get em while you can, they're backed by blazing fast NVMe storage in RAID 10, meaning you'll be up and running in just minutes :)
($50/mo + $10 setup) 8GB RAM Finland Hive NIAB: https://pay.privex.io/order/package/vhive8-fi
($80/mo + $20 setup) 16GB RAM Finland Hive NIAB: https://pay.privex.io/order/package/vhive16-fi