We're thrilled to announce the release of BVM (BoxLang Version Manager) v1.15.0! This release focuses on three critical areas: security, visibility, and reliability. With SHA-256 integrity verification, comprehensive installation statistics, and enhanced system resilience, BVM v1.15.0 continues to make it easier to work with multiple versions of BoxLang.
🔐 Security First: SHA-256 Checksum Verification
Security has always been paramount in professional software development, and BVM v1.15.0 takes this seriously by introducing SHA-256 checksum verification for all downloads. This critical security enhancement ensures that every BoxLang installation and module download maintains complete integrity from source to your local environment.
When you run commands like bvm install latest or bvm install 1.2.0, BVM now automatically verifies the SHA-256 checksum of downloaded files against known good values. This prevents several attack vectors:
- Man-in-the-middle attacks during download
- Corrupted downloads that could cause mysterious runtime issues
- Tampered packages that might contain malicious code
- Network-induced corruption on unreliable connections
This feature works silently in the background, providing peace of mind without adding complexity to your workflow. If a checksum verification fails, BVM will alert you and refuse to proceed with a potentially compromised installation.
📊 Complete Visibility: The New bvm stats Command
Understanding your BoxLang development environment just got significantly easier with the introduction of the bvm stats command. This powerful new feature provides comprehensive statistics about your BoxLang installation, giving you instant visibility into:
- Number of installed modules and their versions
- Total installation size across all BoxLang versions
- Storage utilization breakdown by component
- Module dependency information
- Version distribution across your projects
# Get comprehensive stats about your BoxLang environment
bvm stats
🌐 Enhanced Connectivity: Network Connection Checker
Recognizing that many developers work in environments with restricted or intermittent internet connectivity, BVM v1.15.0 introduces an intelligent network connection checker. This feature is particularly valuable for:
- Corporate environments with restrictive firewalls
- Development in remote locations with unreliable connectivity
- CI/CD pipelines that may experience network hiccups
- Air-gapped systems that need better error messaging
The network checker provides informative feedback when connectivity issues are detected, helping you quickly identify whether installation problems stem from network issues or other causes. Instead of cryptic timeout errors, you'll receive clear guidance on connectivity status and potential remediation steps.
🛠️ Reliability Improvements: Global Cleanup and Helper Updates
BVM v1.15.0 significantly enhances system reliability through several key improvements:
Global Cleanup Helper
A new global cleanup helper has been introduced to handle edge cases where BoxLang version installations encounter unexpected issues. This safety net ensures that partial installations don't leave your system in an inconsistent state, automatically cleaning up:
- Incomplete downloads that were interrupted
- Partially extracted archives
- Broken symbolic links
- Orphaned configuration files
CDN-Based Helpers
All BVM helpers are now installed directly from the CDN, ensuring you always receive the latest, most reliable versions of installation scripts and utilities. This change improves:
- Installation reliability by reducing dependency on local cached helpers
- Update consistency across different environments
- Security by ensuring helpers are always sourced from trusted locations
🐛 Critical Bug Fixes
This release addresses several important issues that were impacting developer productivity:
mktemp Usage Fix
We've resolved an issue where BVM was incorrectly using mktemp without proper XXX placeholders, which caused installation failures on certain Unix-like systems, particularly those with strict temporary file naming requirements.
Module Installation Path Fix
The install-bx-module script now correctly uses the proper helpers path, eliminating installation failures that occurred when modules couldn't locate required installation utilities.
Build Version Updates
Fixed a critical issue where the build script wasn't updating the correct @build.version variable, which meant that BVM and installer versions weren't being properly tracked. This fix ensures accurate version reporting and better troubleshooting capabilities.
📚 Enhanced Documentation and Testing
BVM v1.15.0 also includes significant improvements to the developer experience:
- Expanded internal documentation for better maintainability and contributor onboarding
- Comprehensive test coverage for the
install-bx-modulehelper functionality - Improved error messages that provide clearer guidance for troubleshooting
🚀 What This Means for BoxLang Development
BVM v1.15.0 represents a significant maturation of the BoxLang tooling ecosystem. These improvements address real-world challenges that development teams face:
For Individual Developers: Enhanced security, better visibility into your development environment, and more reliable installations mean less time troubleshooting and more time building amazing applications.
For Development Teams: Consistent checksum verification and comprehensive stats enable better environment management and easier collaboration across team members.
For Enterprise Users: The network connection checker and global cleanup helpers provide the robustness and reliability that enterprise development environments demand.
For CI/CD Pipelines: More reliable installations and better error handling reduce build failures and improve deployment consistency.
🔄 Upgrading to BVM v1.15.0
Ready to experience these improvements? Upgrading is straightforward:
# Check for updates
bvm check-update
# If an update is available, BVM will guide you through the upgrade process
Professional Open Source
BoxLang is a professional open-source product, with three different licences:
- Open-Source Apache2
- BoxLang +
- BoxLang ++
BoxLang is free, open-source software under the Apache 2.0 license. We encourage and support community contributions. BoxLang+ and BoxLang ++ are commercial versions offering support and enterprise features. Our licensing model is based on fairness and the golden rule: Do to others as you want them to do to you. No hidden pricing or pricing on cores, RAM, SaaS, multi-domain or ridiculous ways to get your money. Transparent and fair.
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