It’s been a while since we last updated you on the current state of the IOL INTACT® software and future plans. We routinely publish release notes for INTACT and the playlists, but we’d like to highlight some key features and upcoming developments we think will pique your interest. If you have feedback on the mentioned features or any feature/improvement requests, please don’t hesitate to share them with us via our support portal.
What’s New
The INTACT team has worked hard over the past year to update test specifications and maintain the corresponding playlists, addressing general bug fixes and providing a more well-rounded and robust improvement to testing. We have implemented several updates, including general maintenance, new feature additions, and updates to adhere to test specification updates. Notably, two key features have been added to our Core playlists to minimize the potential for misconfiguration, reducing the risk of inaccurate test results compared to those produced by the IOL during a test reservation. These features have been released and are available today.
Unexpected Traffic Detection (Core Only)
The first new feature allows INTACT to detect unexpected network traffic while running tests in our Core playlist1. When using INTACT, the connection between the device under test (DUT) and INTACT Packet Generator (PG) is expected to be isolated, with no other devices transmitting traffic on-link. If other devices are on-link, it can lead to unexpected scenarios and inaccurate results, which may not be replicable when tested at the IOL with the proper setup.
For example, with an improper setup, INTACT may report a passing test, but it may fail when the same test is run at the IOL with the proper setup. This feature aims to minimize this scenario by detecting and logging messages during the test execution in case traffic is transmitted from a device that is not expected to be on-link.
INTACT DUT Configuration Validation (Core Only)
The second new feature integrates DUT configuration validation into our Core playlist2. When a test is executed, all of the information, such as the addresses the tool uses to send and receive packets, is sourced from the DUT configuration window in INTACT. Most playlists contain address fields forthe DUT’s link-local and global addresses, as well as a prefix field that defines the prefix used in Router Advertisements by INTACT. Previously, there was no validation to confirm the DUT configuration was accurately filled out.
For example, a user could mistakenly input a link-local address into the global address field, enter “fe80::” as the global prefix, and more. These incorrect DUT config fields can lead to basic failures that the user would need to investigate and address. However, in some scenarios, incorrect configuration can lead to inaccurate results that the user may not investigate. This feature was implemented to reduce the likelihood of such issues and save users time debugging improper configuration. If configuration issues are detected, a warning message will be logged.
What’s Coming Soon
We’re excited to share that we are developing two new INTACT features that will be released soon! Both features will help our users with seamless automation for download capabilities and automatic config for test scripts.
Automatic Playlist Updates
The first feature is automatic playlist updates3. This feature introduces the ability for INTACT to detect when new or updated playlists are available and download them. This provides two immediate benefits. When a new instance of INTACT is installed and run, it will automatically detect the available playlists based on the purchased licenses and offer the option to download them. This simplified process is designed to reduce initial setup complexities with INTACT. The second benefit is that staying up-to-date with playlist releases becomes easier and more streamlined. Instead of watching for a release email and then downloading the latest version of the playlist, INTACT will automatically check for updates. If updates are available, the user will be given the option to download them.
Automatic Config Updates
The second feature in the pipeline is the ability for test scripts to modify the INTACT config directly. By itself, this feature doesn’t provide any immediate value to a user when released. However, this feature will allow us to provide more useful and dynamic configuration scripts to make it easier to get a new test session up and running. For example, the Core playlist currently provides a configuration script called “Utils_Print_Addrs”. The purpose of this script is to determine the DUTs link-local and global addresses and log it to the user so they can copy the addresses into the respective DUT config fields. This feature can take this script a step further and instead of having the user copy the addresses into the config, the script can enter it for you. This is one specific planned use of this feature, but it opens up the possibility of other scenarios to help set up an INTACT test session quicker than ever.
What’s on the Roadmap
We have a ton of ideas on our roadmap that we’re incredibly excited about but will highlight just a few.
Automatic INTACT Updates
Similar to the automatic playlist update feature that is coming soon, we are planning to introduce a similar feature to make updating the INTACT App easier. The minimum viable product (MVP) of this feature will detect updates and download the installer, but the INTACT installation process will still be manual. The end goal of this feature is to provide a seamless update process in which the user can click a button, restart the app, and voila!, the App is updated.
Test Script Modernization
The second project on our roadmap is updating and modernizing how we develop our test scripts. Currently, we use an antiquated scripting language that has very little support for developer tools to assist with the development process. Updating to a modern language will not only provide additional features offered by the language but will also allow us to leverage modern development tools. This is a change that won’t be seen or leveraged by our users, but it will provide immense value to our development pipeline. This will allow us to develop and update test scripts more efficiently and robustly which we believe will provide value to our users. Lastly, this change opens up the possibility of introducing features that allow our customers to develop custom test scripts. This feature for allowing custom test script development isn’t currently on the roadmap, but, if you would leverage this feature, please let us know.
INTACT Web Application
The third and final project on our roadmap to highlight is an INTACT web application interface. For a long time, the desktop application was the only way to use INTACT. Then came the command line interface (CLI) and finally the REST API. We think it’s about time to introduce a new way to use and interact with INTACT in the form of a web application. Our motivation for this is to provide a more modern application experience while also better positioning ourselves for future evolutions of INTACT.
Additionally, a web application can introduce new and exciting features into the user interface (UI) that can’t easily be implemented into our existing desktop UI. Alongside this, INTACT will also provide a fully featured GraphQL API. When conducting the initial research into the feasibility of an INTACT web application, we quickly concluded that extending the existing REST API for this purpose was not ideal and a GraphQL API was a much better fit.
Learn more about IOL INTACT® and flexible licensing options today.