I have just released version 1.19 of Obnam, the backup program. See the website at <http://obnam.org> for details on what the program does. The new version is available from git (see <http://git.liw.fi>) and as Debian packages from <http://code.liw.fi/debian>, and uploaded to Debian, and soon in unstable.

The NEWS file extract below gives the highlights of what's new in this version.

NOTE: Obnam has an EXPERIMENTAL repository format under development, called `green-albatross`. It is NOT meant for real use. It is likely to change in incompatible ways without warning. Do not use it unless you're willing to lose your backup.

Bug fixes:

• Backup no longer ignores a closed SSH connection. This means it won't keep trying to use it, forever. Instead, it crashes and terminates the backup.
• The Paramiko SSH implementation, which Obnam uses, changed the interface to the `prefetch` method in its 1.16 version. Obnam can now deal with either variant of the method. Found and reported by Kyle Manna, who provided a patch that Lars Wirzenius rewrote to be backwards compatible to older versions of Paramiko.
  

Improvements to the manual:

• The manual now has an appendix listing all Obnam errors, with codes and explanations. This will need to be updated manually from time to time.

• The manual now has sections on turning on full debug logging and reporting problems.

Improvements to functionality:

• The output of `obnam generations` now show time zone. Lars Wirzenius implemented based on suggestion by Limdi.