Copyright © 2019 The FreeBSD Documentation Project
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The release notes for FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE contain a summary of the changes made to the FreeBSD base system on the 12-STABLE development line. This document lists applicable security advisories that were issued since the last release, as well as significant changes to the FreeBSD kernel and userland. Some brief remarks on upgrading are also presented.
This document contains the release notes for FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE. It describes recently added, changed, or deleted features of FreeBSD. It also provides some notes on upgrading from previous versions of FreeBSD.
The release distribution to
which these release notes apply represents the latest point
along the 12-STABLE development branch since
12-STABLE was created. Information regarding pre-built,
binary release distributions along this branch can be
found at https://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/.
The release distribution to
which these release notes apply represents a point along the
12-STABLE development branch between 12.0-RELEASE and
the future 12.2-RELEASE. Information regarding pre-built,
binary release distributions along this branch can be
found at https://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/.
This distribution of FreeBSD
12.1-RELEASE is a release distribution. It can be
found at https://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/ or
any of its mirrors. More information on obtaining this (or
other) release distributions of FreeBSD can be found in the
“Obtaining
FreeBSD” appendix to the FreeBSD
Handbook.
All users are encouraged to consult the release errata before installing FreeBSD. The errata document is updated with “late-breaking” information discovered late in the release cycle or after the release. Typically, it contains information on known bugs, security advisories, and corrections to documentation. An up-to-date copy of the errata for FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE can be found on the FreeBSD Web site.
This document describes the most user-visible new or changed features in FreeBSD since 12.0-RELEASE. In general, changes described here are unique to the 12-STABLE branch unless specifically marked as MERGED features.
Typical release note items document recent security advisories issued after 12.0-RELEASE, new drivers or hardware support, new commands or options, major bug fixes, or contributed software upgrades. They may also list changes to major ports/packages or release engineering practices. Clearly the release notes cannot list every single change made to FreeBSD between releases; this document focuses primarily on security advisories, user-visible changes, and major architectural improvements.
[amd64,i386] Binary upgrades between RELEASE versions (and snapshots of the various security branches) are supported using the freebsd-update(8) utility. The binary upgrade procedure will update unmodified userland utilities, as well as unmodified GENERIC kernels distributed as a part of an official FreeBSD release. The freebsd-update(8) utility requires that the host being upgraded have Internet connectivity.
Source-based upgrades (those based on recompiling the FreeBSD
base system from source code) from previous versions are
supported, according to the instructions in
/usr/src/UPDATING.
Upgrading FreeBSD should only be attempted after backing up all data and configuration files.
This section lists the various Security Advisories and Errata Notices since 12.0-RELEASE.
| Advisory | Date | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| FreeBSD-SA-18:15.bootpd | 19 December 2018 | Buffer overflow |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:01.syscall | 5 February 2019 | Kernel data register leak |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:02.fd | 5 February 2019 | File description reference count leak |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:03.wpa | 14 May 2019 | Multiple vulnerabilities |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:04.ntp | 14 May 2019 | Authenticated denial of service in ntpd(8) |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:05.pf | 14 May 2019 | IPv6 fragment reassembly panic in pf(4) |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:06.pf | 14 May 2019 | ICMP/ICMP6 packet filter bypass in pf(4) |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:07.mds | 14 May 2019 | Microarchitectural Data Sampling |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:08.rack | 19 June 2019 | Resource exhaustion in non-default RACK TCP stack |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:09.iconv | 2 July 2019 | iconv(3) buffer overflow |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:10.ufs | 2 July 2019 | Kernel stack disclosure |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:11.cd_ioctl | 2 July 2019 | Privilege escalation in cd(4) |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:12.telnet | 24 July 2019 | Multiple vulnerabilities |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:13.pts | 24 July 2019 | Write-after-free vulnerability |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:15.mqueuefs | 24 July 2019 | Reference count overflow |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:16.bhyve | 24 July 2019 | xhci(4) out-of-bounds read |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:17.fd | 24 July 2019 | Reference count leak |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:18.bzip2 | 6 August 2019 | Multiple vulnerabilities |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:19.mldv2 | 6 August 2019 | Out-of-bounds memory access |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:20.bsnmp | 6 August 2019 | Insufficient message length validation |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:21.bhyve | 6 August 2019 | Insufficient validation of guest-supplied data |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:22.mbuf | 20 August 2019 | IPv6 remove denial-of-service |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:23.midi | 20 August 2019 | Kernel memory disclosure |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:24.mqueuefs | 20 August 2019 | Reference count overflow |
| Errata | Date | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| FreeBSD-EN-19:01.cc_cubic | 9 January 2019 | Connection stalls with CUBIC congestion control |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:02.tcp | 9 January 2019 | TCP connections may stall and eventually fail in case of packet loss |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:03.sqlite | 9 January 2019 | sqlite update |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:04.tzdata | 9 January 2019 | Timezone database information update |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:06.dtrace | 5 February 2019 | DTrace incompatibility with SMAP-enabled systems |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:07.lle | 5 February 2019 | LLE table lookup code race condition |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:08.tzdata | 14 May 2019 | Timezone database information update |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:09.xinstall | 14 May 2019 | install(1) broken with partially matching relative paths |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:10.scp | 14 May 2019 | Insufficient filename validation in scp(1) client |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:11.net | 19 June 2019 | Incorrect locking in networking stack |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:12.tzdata | 2 July 2019 | Timezone database information update |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:13.mds | 24 July 2019 | System crash from Intel CPU vulnerability mitigation |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:14.epoch | 6 August 2019 | Incorrect locking |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:15.libunwind | 6 August 2019 | Incorrect exception handling |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:16.bhyve | 20 August 2019 | Instruction emulation improvements |
| FreeBSD-EN-19:17.ipfw | 20 August 2019 | "jail" keyword fix |
This section covers changes and additions to userland applications, contributed software, and system utilities.
The gcc
-Werror flag has been turned off by
default. [r352094]
The lockf(1) utility has been
updated to return EX_UNAVAILABLE if the
-n flag is used and the lock file does not
exist. [r345569]
The ktrdump(8) utility has been
updated to include the -l flag which
enables "live" mode when specified. [r342705]
The gzip(1) utility has been
updated to add -l support for xz(1)
files. [r343250]
The trim(8) utility has been added, which deletes content for blocks on flash-based storage devices that use wear-leveling algorithms. [r344688]
The sh(1) utility has been updated
to include a new pipefail option, which
when set, changes the exit status of a pipeline to the last
non-zero exit status of any command in the pipeline. [r345487]
The mlx5tool(8) utility has been updated to implement firmware update capability for ConnectX-4®, ConnectX-5®, and ConnectX-6®. [r347752] (Sponsored by Mellanox Technologies)
The posixshmcontrol(1) utility has been added. [r348426]
The swapon(8) utility has been
updated to invoke BIO_DELETE to trim
swap devices if either the -E flag is used
on the command line, or if the trimonce
option is included in fstab(5). [r349930]
The nvmecontrol(8) utility has been
updated to add a new subcommand, resv,
which is used to handle NVMe
reservations. [r350952]
The
camcontrol(8) utility has been updated to support block
descriptors when using the modepage
subcommand. [r351530]
(Sponsored by
iXsystems)
The freebsd-update(8) utility has
been updated to include two new commands,
updatesready and
showconfig. [r352774]
The zfs(8) utility has been updated
to support the -v, -n,
and -P flags together with the
send subcommand for bookmarks. [r352901]
BearSSL has been imported to the base system. [r343281]
The ntpd(8) suite of utilities have been updated to version 4.2.8p13. [r344884]
The tcpdump(1) utility has been
updated to disable capsicum(4) support when the
-E flag is used. [r346986]
The bsnmpd(1) utility has been updated to include IPv6 transport support. [r346987]
The libarchive(3) library has been updated to version 3.4.0. [r349523]
The clang, llvm, lld, lldb, compiler-rt utilities and libc++ have been updated to version 8.0.1. [r350256]
The lld linker has been enabled by default for i386. [r350297] (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation)
The bzip2recover utility has been added. [r350634]
The bzip2(1) utility has been updated to version 1.0.8. [r351007]
Warnings have been added for Kerberos GSS algorithms deprecated in RFC8221 and RFC8429. [r351243]
The mandoc(1) utility has been updated to the 2019-07-23 snapshot. [r351390]
The WPA utilities have been updated to version 2.9. [r351611]
OpenSSL has been updated to version 1.1.1d. [r352192]
The timezone database files have been updated to version 2019c. [r352353]
The ctm(1) utility has been marked as deprecated, and has been removed in FreeBSD 13.0. [r340444]
The timed(8) utility has been marked as deprecated, and has been removed in FreeBSD 13.0. [r343940]
The libomp library
has been added. [r346331]
This section covers changes to kernel configurations, system tuning, and system control parameters that are not otherwise categorized.
This section covers changes and additions to devices and device drivers since 12.0-RELEASE.
The ichwd(4) driver has been updated to include support for TCO watchdog timers in the Lewisburg PCH (C620) chipset. [r340190] (Sponsored by Panzura)
The amdsmn(4) and amdtemp(4) drivers have been updated to support Ryzen™ 2 host bridges. [r340446]
The amdtemp(4) driver has been updated to correct temperature reporting for the AMD® 2990WX. [r340447]
The rtwn_pci(4) driver has been added for the RTL8188EE chipset. [r342835]
The crypto(4) driver has been updated to print warnings for deprecated algorithms. [r351246]
The ntb_hw_amd(4) driver has been added, providing support for the AMD® Non-Transparent Bridge. [r351536]
The nvme(4) driver has been updated to support suspend/resume for PCI attachment. [r351914]
The cdceem(4) driver has been added, supporting virtual USB network cards provided by iLO 5, found in new HPE® Proliant™ servers. [r351942] (Sponsored by Hewlett Packard Enterprise)
The fusefs(5) driver has been overhauled, implementing new features and performance improvements. [r352351] (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation)
The mpr(4) and mps(4) drivers have been updated with stability fixes. [r352761]
As result of converting mps(4) to
use atomic_swap_64, it is now disabled on
32-bit powerpc and mips. [r352761]
This section covers changes and additions to file systems and other storage subsystems, both local and networked.
The camcontrol(8) utility has been updated to add ATA power mode support. [r347384] (Sponsored by Multiplay)
Deprecation warnings have been added for weaker algorithms when creating geli(8) providers. [r348587]
The cam(4) subsystem has been updated to improve AHCI enclosure management and SES interoperation. [rr349832]
This section covers the boot loader, boot menu, and other boot-related changes.
The loader(8) has been update to
allow booting from ZFS datasets with the
large_dnode feature flag enabled. [r342683]
The loader(8) has been updated to
support the com.delphix:removing
ZFS zpool-features(7) flag. [r351384]
This section describes changes that affect networking in FreeBSD.
The ipfw(8) utility has been
updated to fix showing headers outside of "all"
when executing ipfw table list. [r344667]
Support for NAT64 CLAT has been added, as defined in RFC6877. [r346200] (Sponsored by Yandex LLC)
The
net.inet.tcp.rexmit_initial sysctl(8)
has been added, used for setting
RTO.Initial, used by
TCP. [r347110]
(Sponsored by
Netflix)
Support for GRE-in-UDP encapsulation has been added, as defined in RFC8086. [r348233]
This section covers changes to the FreeBSD Ports Collection, package infrastructure, and package maintenance and installation tools.
The pkg(8) utility has been updated to version 1.12.0.
The GNOME desktop environment has been updated to version 3.28.
The KDE desktop environment has been updated to version 5.16.5.19.08.1.
Starting with FreeBSD-13.0, the default
CPUTYPE for the i386
architecture will change from 486 to
686.
This means that, by default, binaries produced will require a 686-class CPU, including but not limited to binaries provided by the FreeBSD Release Engineering team. FreeBSD 13.0 will continue to support older CPUs, however users needing this functionality will need to build their own releases for official support.
As the primary use for i486 and i586 CPUs is generally in the embedded market, the general end-user impact is expected to be minimal, as new hardware with these CPU types has long faded, and much of the deployed base of such systems is nearing retirement age, statistically.
There were several factors taken into account for this change. For example, i486 does not have 64-bit atomics, and while they can be emulated in the kernel, they cannot be emulated in the userland. Additionally, the 32-bit amd64 libraries have been i686 since their inception.
As the majority of 32-bit testing is done by developers
using the lib32 libraries on 64-bit hardware with the
COMPAT_FREEBSD32 option in the kernel,
this change ensures better coverage and user experience.
This also aligns with what the majority of Linux®
distributions have been doing for quite some time.
This is expected to be the final bump of the default
CPUTYPE in i386.
This change does not affect the FreeBSD 12.x series of releases.
This file, and other release-related documents, can be downloaded from https://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/.
For questions about FreeBSD, read the documentation before contacting <questions@FreeBSD.org>.
All users of FreeBSD 12-STABLE should subscribe to the <stable@FreeBSD.org> mailing list.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.