Upgrade to v6

The purpose of this note is to help developers to upgrade their agent from v5 to v6. Please read carefully and integrate the following breaking changes to ensure a smooth update.​

Please be sure of your agent type and version and pick the right documentation accordingly.

Node.js

This is the documentation of the forest-express-sequelize and forest-express-mongoose Node.js agents that will soon reach end-of-support.

forest-express-sequelize v9 and forest-express-mongoose v9 are replaced by @forestadmin/agent v1.

Please check your agent type and version and read on or switch to the right documentation.

Ruby on Rails

Python

PHP

Upgrade to v6

Please be aware that while Forest Admin make every effort to ensure that our platform updates are broadly compatible and offer detailed instructions for upgrading, Forest Admin cannot guarantee that custom code developed by the developers will always be compatible with new versions of our software. This includes any custom modifications or extensions to core functionalities, such as method overrides or custom integrations. It is the responsibility of the developers to review and test their custom code to ensure compatibility with each new version. Our team provides comprehensive upgrade guides to assist in this process, but these cannot encompass the unique customizations that may be present in each customer's environment. Therefore, Forest Admin strongly recommend establishing a thorough testing protocol for your specific customizations to safeguard against potential issues during the upgrade process.

Please follow the recommended procedure to upgrade your agent version by following this note.

Upgrading to v6

Before upgrading to v5, consider the below breaking changes.

As for any dependency upgrade, it's very important to test this upgrade in your testing environments. Not doing so could result in your admin panel being unusable.

To upgrade to v6, update the version in your Gemfile, then run the following and update your project as shown in the Breaking Changes section below.:

bundle install

In case of a regression introduced in Production after the upgrade, a rollback to your previous agent version 5 is the fastest way to restore your admin panel.

Breaking changes

Easier authentication

The agent version introduces an improved authentication mechanism. The following changes are required:

New environment variable

In your secrets.yml file, set a forest_application_url variable: it must contain your Rails app URL for that environment. Then add the following:

config/initializers/forest_liana.rb

ForestLiana.application_url = Rails.application.secrets.forest_application_url

New CORS condition

Add null_regex = Regexp.new(/\Anull\z/) as a variable and use it in your cors configuration. When using rack cors, it should look like this:

    null_regex = Regexp.new(/\Anull\z/)

    config.middleware.insert_before 0, Rack::Cors do
      allow do
        hostnames = [null_regex, 'localhost:4200', 'app.forestadmin.com', 'localhost:3001']
        hostnames += ENV['CORS_ORIGINS'].split(',') if ENV['CORS_ORIGINS']

        origins hostnames
        resource '*',
          headers: :any,
          methods: :any,
          expose: ['Content-Disposition'],
          credentials: true
      end
    end

Enable caching

You need to enable caching on your environment to be able to authenticate to Forest Admin. You can do it by running the following command:

rails dev:cache

You can either enable caching or setup a static clientId as shown in the next step.

Setup a static clientId

This is required if you're running multiple instances of your agent (with a load balancer for exemple) or if you don't want to enable caching on your environment.

First, you will need to obtain a Client ID for your environment by running the following command:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer FOREST_ENV_SECRET" \
     -X POST \
     -d '{"token_endpoint_auth_method": "none", "redirect_uris": ["APPLICATION_URL/forest/authentication/callback"]}' \
     https://api.forestadmin.com/oidc/reg

Then assign the client_id value from the response (it's a JWT) to a forest_client_id variable in your secret.yml file.

Lastly, add the following:

config/initializers/forest_liana.rb

ForestLiana.forest_client_id = Rails.application.secrets.forest_client_id

Important Notice

Changelogs

This release note covers only the major changes. To learn more, please refer to the changelogs in our different repositories:

• Rails changelog