WIS2 in a box Newsletter (2026-No.1)

News
23 January 2026

WIS2 in a box 1.2.0 Released

New to wis2box ? Please check out the the WIS2 in a box landing page in the Knowledge Hub

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Contact: wis2-supportatwmo [dot] int (Subject: wis2box%20newsletter%20Inquiry) (wis2-support[at]wmo[dot]int)

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Issued on: 23 January 2026

We are pleased to announce the release of wis2box version 1.2.0, which brings a range of security updates, enhancements and bug-fixes in support of WIS2 compliance.

The release also fixes the broken cron jobs in wis2box version 1.1.0 Restoring the cleanup processes will help avoid performance issues seen in Elasticsearch-instances on long-running wis2box instances.

All users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to wis2box 1.2.0 to ensure continued WIS2 compliance. 

 🔍 Core Platform and Security Updates

wis2box 1.2.0 includes several foundational updates that improve alignment with modern operating environments and ensure the latest software updates are used:

  • All wis2box container images now run using a non-root user, improving security and best practices for containerized deployments
  • The wis2box-api and wis2box-management images have been upgraded from Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy) to Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble)
  • The ecCodes library used by wis2box-api has been updated to version 2.44, ensuring the latest ecCodes improvements and BUFR tables are included
  • All container images were rebuilt with updated software components to address issues identified through daily Trivy security scans

The wis2box team continues to monitor security using daily Trivy scans of wis2box container images built from the wis2box repositories and will issue further security updates as required. 

🧩 Updates in Support of WIS2 Compliance

To improve alignment with WIS2 standards the following updates were made:

  • URL for discovery metadata link now points to the WCMP2 record, rather than the API URL, to avoid confusion when validating metadata.
  • Prevent the publication of invalid WIS2 notifications caused by edge cases in data size and encoding where base-64-encoded string was longer than 4096 characters.
  • Add option to set cache=false when publishing WIS2 Notification Messages for core datasets.
how to set cache=false in the wis2box-webapp
Illustration how to set cache=false in the wis2box-webapp

🖥️ New User Interface Features

The wis2box user interface continues to evolve with new capabilities designed to assist users to review the data being published by their wis2box-instance:

  • Dataset listings can now be filtered, making it easier to review large number of datasets published in a single instance.
  • A new TEMP data exploration and visualization feature allows users to inspect TEMP datasets directly within the UI.
Example of the new TEMP visualization feature in the wis2box-ui
Example of the new TEMP visualization feature in the wis2box-ui

⚙️ Expanded Integration and Processing Capabilities

wis2box 1.2.0 expands flexibility in deployment and data processing workflows:

  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 is now supported as a storage backend, providing more options for cloud-based deployments.
  • Support has been added for BUFR overrides in the bufr2bufr pipeline, enabling more advanced and customizable data transformations.

🛠️ Bug Fixes and Operational Improvements

This release includes numerous bug fixes aimed at improving stability and day-to-day operations:

  • Fixed command-line retrieval of data from OSCAR/Surface.
  • Resolved issues with broken cron jobs that prevented the deletion of data in the Elasticsearch backend and MinIO storage.
  • Improved background processing for pywis bundle synchronization.
  • Multiple fixes in the wis2box web application, including dataset identifiers, monitoring, and station editor pin placement.

📘 Documentation Updates

The wis2box-documentation has been updated to reflect all new features and changes in wis2box 1.2. In addition:

  • The Getting Started section now clearly lists the external web resources required by a wis2box host and adds more documentation on the importance of running your WIS2 Node in a suitable isolated internet-facing environment like a DMZ.
  • The WIS2 in a box training web page has been updated to align with the latest release. New users of wis2box can use the training webpage to become familiar with WIS2 and the features of wis2box. 

🔄 Updating Existing wis2box-instances

For detailed information on how to migrate your running wis2box-instance: see the update instructions in the GitHub release notes..

We thank the community for its continued feedback and contributions.

WMO is committed to continuously supporting WIS2 in a box. We are actively working on new features, bugfixes and compliance updates based on your feedback.

Please report any bugs found in wis2box on the wis2box issue tracker on GitHub. 

The WMO Secretariat can be contacted with any queries related to WIS2 and wis2box using the dedicated email: wis2-supportatwmo [dot] int (wis2-support[at]wmo[dot]int) . 


We hope wis2box 1.2.0 will contribute to help you exchange WMO data within the WIS2 framework more securely and efficiently!  


The wis2box Team