2.18.0 release notes

November 08, 2024

NGINX Instance Manager 2.18.0 release notes

Upgrade Paths

NGINX Instance Manager 2.18.0 supports upgrades from these previous versions:

• 2.15.0 - 2.17.4

If your NGINX Instance Manager version is older, you may need to upgrade to an intermediate version before upgrading to the target version.

What’s new

This release includes the following updates:

• Resilient Docker Compose NGINX Instance Manager deployment

  In 2.17, we released a bundled container image with all NGINX Instance Manager components. While this is a great option for demos and lab environments, it is not the most fault-tolerant for production.

  This Docker Compose option unlocks another easy, production-ready installation method for customers using Docker. It will also make upgrades easier when new Docker images are released by F5 NGINX. This option includes health checking, NGINX App Protect compilation support, and security monitoring.

• Entitlement and visibility for NGINX Plus R33 – Telemetry reporting for disconnected environments

  If NGINX Instance Manager has internet access, customers can automatically or manually send the usage data to F5 as part of the new NGINX Plus R33 changes.

  For customers who have NGINX Instance Manager deployed in disconnected environments, this release also includes support for manual usage reporting. Customers can now manually license NGINX Instance Manager and export usage telemetry for fully disconnected environments. For usage reporting, customers can:

  • Export the usage report: Manually export the usage report from NGINX Instance Manager.
  • Send the report to F5: Submit the report to F5 for verification from a location with internet access.
  • Upload the acknowledgment: After verification, upload the acknowledgment from F5 to NGINX Instance Manager.

• Ridiculously easy NGINX Instance Manager installation script (Shell)

  Reduce the number of steps to deploy all NGINX Instance Manager components, including prerequisites, using a single installation script. The script supports every OS that NGINX Instance Manager supports in the technical specifications.

  The script installs NGINX (Plus or Open Source), ClickHouse, and NGINX Instance Manager. Customers only need their NGINX Plus certificate, key, and, for NGINX Plus R33 or later, a JWT downloaded from MyF5. Support for offline installations will be added in a future update.

  Support for offline installations is also available for air-gapped environments.

• Adds support for F5 WAF for NGINX v5.3 and v4.11

  NGINX Instance Manager 2.18.0 adds support for F5 WAF for NGINX v5.3 and v4.11.

  F5 WAF for NGINX v5, designed for both NGINX Open Source and NGINX Plus environments, includes a dynamic NGINX module and containerized WAF services. It provides robust security and scalability.

• Entitlement and visibility for NGINX Plus R33 – Telemetry reporting for disconnected environments

  If NGINX Instance Manager has internet access, customers can automatically or manually send the usage data to F5 as part of the new NGINX Plus R33 changes.

  For customers who have NGINX Instance Manager deployed in disconnected environments, this release also includes support for manual usage reporting. Customers can now manually license NGINX Instance Manager and export usage telemetry for fully disconnected environments. For usage reporting, customers can:

  • Export the usage report: Manually export the usage report from NGINX Instance Manager.
  • Send the report to F5: Submit the report to F5 for verification from a location with internet access.
  • Upload the acknowledgment: After verification, upload the acknowledgment from F5 to NGINX Instance Manager.

• Ridiculously easy NGINX Instance Manager installation script (Shell)

  Reduce the number of steps to deploy all NGINX Instance Manager components, including prerequisites, using a single installation script. The script supports every OS that NGINX Instance Manager supports in the technical specifications.

  The script installs NGINX (Plus or Open Source), ClickHouse, and NGINX Instance Manager. Customers only need their NGINX Plus certificate, key, and, for NGINX Plus R33 or later, a JWT downloaded from MyF5. Support for offline installations will be added in a future update.

  Support for offline installations is also available for air-gapped environments.

Changes in default behavior

This release has the following changes in default behavior:

• The NGINX Usage page now only shows instances configured with the NGINX Plus R33 mgmt block.

  The “NGINX Usage” page previously displayed instances connected to NGINX Instance Manager through multiple methods, including the NGINX Agent, health checks, and the mgmt block in NGINX Plus R31-R32. With the introduction of native reporting in NGINX Plus R33, only instances using this feature appear on the page, preventing duplicates. For more information on R33 usage reporting, see About subscription licenses.

Resolved issues

This release fixes the following issues. Use your browser’s search function to find the issue ID in the page.

• Licensing issues when adding JWT licenses in firewalled environments (43719)
• Failure to notify user when template configuration publish fails (44975)
• Mismatch in date formats in custom date selection on NGINX usage graph (45512)

Known issues

You can find information about known issues in the Known Issues topic.