News / 12 November 2025

iRODS Development Update: November 2025


Hello reader,

Supercomputing is next week! The iRODS Consortium will be at the RENCI booth (#4424). Come say hi. To learn more about our Supercomputing plans, see https://irods.org/sc25/.

For the server, we've added tools for maintaining forward and backward compatibility across server versions. Bugs in physical quotas are being fixed and test coverage is expanding. The iCommands source code is being migrated back into the server repository. The idea has been mentioned in the past a number of times, but we think that now is the perfect time to do it. This decision only affects the source code, not the packaging. The iCommands will continue to be released as a separate package.

iRODS S3 API 0.5.0 is available. This release includes a plugin system for bucket and user mapping. Administrators can now modify mappings and watch the server update its state in real time. To learn more, see the release notes at https://github.com/irods/irods_client_s3_api/releases/tag/0.5.0.

Metalnx 3.1.1 is ready for use. This release fixes the ability to preview PDFs and upgrades Apache Tomcat to 9.0.111.

iRODS Globus Connector 5.0.1 is also available. This is a patch release which resolves a bug involving initialization of memory. Aside from that, work to improve this project's buildsystem has started.

To wrap up, Nirav Merchant (CyVerse) is seeking discussion with individuals interested in integration between iRODS, DuckDB, and DuckLake. See the bottom of this page for additional notes.

See you next month!

November Technology Working Group

  • Imaging Working Group

    • working on an OMERO integration
    • working meeting
      • Thur, January 15, 2026, 10am ET

  • Authentication Working Group

    • working meeting
      • Tues, January 27, 2026, 10am ET

  • S3 Working Group

    • working meeting
      • Fri, February 6, 2026, 3pm ET

  • TRiRODS

    • Wed, December 3, 2025, 4pm ET
    • speaker, TBD

  • 4.3.5

    • 62 bugs / 89 open, 70 closed

  • 5.1.0

    • 29 bugs / 231 open, 7 closed

  • New Development Work

    • no updates

  • Active Development Work

    • iRODS Server

      • merged utilities for maintaining backward/forward compatibility
      • fixed physical quotas math being incorrect when total quota is also applied
      • multiple physical quotas are now applied properly
      • expanding test coverage for physical quotas
      • initial implementation for new authentication scheme nearing completion
        • includes password hashing, session tokens, management, etc.
      • started work to migrate icommands code back into server repository
      • implementing updated error handling for checksum hashers

    • Policy Composition

      • https://github.com/irods/irods_rule_engine_plugins_policy
      • tests have been updated and are passing
      • polishing PRs for merging

    • Python iRODS Client (PRC)

      • GitHub Actions test harness nearing completion
        • https://github.com/irods/python-irodsclient/pull/772
        • includes coverage of multiple iRODS versions and Python versions
        • testing of PAM Interactive not integrated yet, but planned

    • S3 Resource Plugin

      • investigating performance improvements for checksum validation
        • added CRC64/NVME as a checksum scheme
        • adding CRC64/NVME trailing checksum on upload
        • working to retrieve checksum recorded by S3 rather than reading the entire object

    • Globus Connector

      • released 5.0.1
      • improving buildsystem
        • consistency sweep, reorganization, and housekeeping

    • iRODS S3 API

      • released 0.5.0
        • added plugin architecture for bucket mapping and user mapping
        • mappings are defined outside of main configuration file
        • auto-reloads mappings without server restart

    • Metalnx

      • released 3.1.1

    • irods4j

      • released 0.5.0
        • in support of Cyberduck
        • exposed checksum through CollectionEntry

    • Cyberduck

      • addressing review comments from Cyberduck team
        • https://github.com/korydraughn/cyberduck/tree/jargon_to_irods4j
      • adding new general purpose iRODS profile to Cyberduck profiles repository
        • https://github.com/iterate-ch/profiles/pull/163
        • includes common configuration options seen in iRODS clients
        • profile will be available through GUI
      • will require a minimum server version of iRODS 4.3.2

  • Background Items

    • Python Rule Engine Plugin

      • last updated: October 2025
      • released 5.0.1

    • Audit AMQP Plugin

      • last updated: October 2025
      • released 5.0.1

    • Indexing Capability

      • last updated: October 2025
      • released 5.0.1

    • Metadata Guard

      • last updated: October 2025
      • released 5.0.1
      • planning to absorb into the server

    • Logical Quotas

      • last updated: October 2025
      • released 5.0.1
      • planning to absorb into the server

    • CURL microservices

      • last updated: October 2025
      • released 5.0.1
      • may be absorbed into the server

    • Unified Storage Tiering Capability

      • last updated: October 2025
      • released 5.0.1

    • Build and Packaging

      • last updated: October 2025
      • migrated apt repo setup instructions from apt-key

    • Docker-based Testing Environment

      • last updated: October 2025
      • added support for unattended installation

    • iRODS HTTP API

      • last update: October 2025
      • released 0.6.0
      • adding support for quota system
      • adding support for extending lifetime of basic-auth bearer tokens

    • Docker-based Development Environment

      • last update: August 2025
      • genericizing EL Dockerfiles

    • Zone Management Tool

      • last update: August 2025
      • released 0.4.1
        • intern has resolved build failures

    • Jargon

      • last update: August 2025
      • updated to support change in rcGeneralAdmin for adding groups in iRODS 4.3.4+

    • PAM Interactive Authentication Plugin

      • last update: May 2025
      • released 0.1.2

    • idrop

      • last updated: October 2025
      • merged PR from contributor
        • updates application to use Jargon 4.3.7.0-RELEASE
        • https://github.com/irods-contrib/idrop/pull/139
        • enables compatibility with iRODS 4.3.4 and later

    • Mungefs

      • last update: April 2025
      • updating CMake policy requirements for newer versions of CMake
      • migrated externals package to use system-provided libarchive and ZeroMQ

    • Automated Ingest Capability

      • last update: October 2024
      • released 0.6.0
      • https://github.com/irods/irods_capability_automated_ingest/releases/tag/v0.6.0

    • CockroachDB Database Plugin

      • last update: September 2024
      • CRDB license has changed

    • NFSRODS

      • last update: May 2024
      • released 2.3.0

    • iRODS Kubernetes Testing Environment

      • last update: April 2024
      • v9 of the build and test infrastructure
      • can stand up iRODS Providers and Consumers
      • can run core tests
      • running in RENCI K8s cluster, but could run on any cluster

    • NetCDF microservices

      • last update: January 2024
      • released for 4.3.1
      • considering archiving this project in favor of other solutions
        • possible existing Python libraries are 'enough'

    • iRODS GenQuery2

      • last update: December 2023
      • packages for 4.2 and 4.3 can be built using the iRODS Development Environment
        • use the plugin builder images

    • iRODS Command Line Interface (CLI)

      • last update: September 2023
      • added support for many basic operations
        • ls, mv, tree, mkdir, get, put, cd, pwd, touch, etc
      • presented at UGM 2023

    • iRODS Password Booth

      • last update: February 2024
      • CherryPy web application, uses PRC to let users modify their own password

    • R client (rirods)

      • last update: September 2023
      • released 0.1.1
      • submitted and accepted to CRAN
      • new website - https://irods4r.org
      • presented at UGM 2023

    • Logical Locking

      • last update: August 2021
      • read-locks to be implemented

    • New RPC API framework

      • last update: July 2021
      • leverages design from Authentication Working Group
      • supports synchronous and asynchronous operations
      • refactored into parallel_collection_operation base class
        • supports pre/post operations and an object operation

    • Hard Links Rule Engine Plugin

      • last update: July 2021
      • awaiting more use cases before release

    • AWS S3 Lambda

      • last update: July 2020

    • Publishing Capability

      • last update: August 2020
      • needs more README
      • awaiting CI

    • Parallel Filesystem Integration

      • last update: March 2020
      • iRODS API plugin
      • have split BeeGFS and Lustre implementations into aggregator and listener
      • testing against known configurations

  • Discussion

    • Nirav Merchant - interested in ducklake and duckdb integration
      • seeking conversation, discussion
      • given iRODS S3 capabilities, opening many new doors
      • parquet files and apache iceberg
      • high frequency data gets aggregated, massaged, then moved into iRODS
      • https://ducklake.select
Kory Draughn