FreeBSD 12.2-RELEASE Release Notes
Abstract
The release notes for FreeBSD 12.2-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.
Introduction
This document contains the release notes for FreeBSD 12.2-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 12.1-RELEASE and the future 12.3-RELEASE. Information regarding pre-built, binary release distributions along this branch can be found at https://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/.
This distribution of FreeBSD 12.2-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 12.2-RELEASE can be found on the FreeBSD Web site.
This document describes the most user-visible new or changed features in FreeBSD since 12.1-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 12.1-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.
Upgrading from Previous Releases of FreeBSD
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. |
Security and Errata
This section lists the various Security Advisories and Errata Notices since 12.1-RELEASE.
Security Advisories
Advisory | Date | Topic |
---|---|---|
12 November 2019 |
Machine Check Exception on Page Size Change |
|
12 November 2019 |
Intel CPU Microcode Update |
|
28 January 2020 |
fetch(3) buffer overflow |
|
28 January 2020 |
Kernel stack data disclosure |
|
18 March 2020 |
TCP IPv6 SYN cache kernel information disclosure |
|
18 March 2020 |
Insufficient ioctl(2) privilege checking |
|
18 March 2020 |
Insufficient ioctl(2) privilege checking |
|
18 March 2020 |
Incorrect user-controlled pointer use |
|
18 March 2020 |
Kernel memory disclosure with nested jails |
|
18 March 2020 |
Multiple denial of service |
|
21 April 2020 |
Invalid mbuf(9) handling |
|
21 April 2020 |
Remote denial of service |
|
12 May 2020 |
Insufficient packet length validation |
|
12 May 2020 |
Memory disclosure vulnerability |
|
12 May 2020 |
Use-after-free condition |
|
12 May 2020 |
Insufficient MAC key length check |
|
9 June 2020 |
HID descriptor parsing error |
|
8 July 2020 |
Multiple vulnerabilities |
|
8 July 2020 |
Race condition and use-after-free |
|
5 August 2020 |
Memory corruption |
|
5 August 2020 |
Multiple vulnerabilities |
|
5 August 2020 |
Privilege escalation |
|
2 September 2020 |
Use-after-free bug |
|
2 September 2020 |
Heap overflow |
|
15 September 2020 |
Packet-in-packet attack |
|
15 September 2020 |
Privilege escalation via VMCS |
|
15 September 2020 |
SVM guest escape |
|
15 September 2020 |
Privilege escalation |
Errata Notices
Errata | Date | Topic |
---|---|---|
12 November 2019 |
UEFI Loader Memory Fragmentation |
|
28 January 2020 |
Imprecise orderring of canary initialization |
|
18 March 2020 |
Misleading log messages upon successful login |
|
18 March 2020 |
Fix packet forwarding performance |
|
18 March 2020 |
Incorrect checksum calculations |
|
21 April 2020 |
Regression with certain NFS servers |
|
12 May 2020 |
Timezone database update |
|
12 May 2020 |
Fix failure to switch to inactive state |
|
12 May 2020 |
Incorrect build host clang version detection |
|
9 June 2020 |
Stability issues in ena(4) |
|
9 June 2020 |
Watchdog timeout resetting idle queues |
|
8 July 2020 |
Crash with PCI device passthrough |
|
8 July 2020 |
Kernel panic |
|
8 July 2020 |
Kernel panic |
|
5 August 2020 |
Packet loss and degraded performance |
|
2 September 2020 |
Kernel panic |
Userland
This section covers changes and additions to userland applications, contributed software, and system utilities.
Userland Configuration Changes
A new
rc.conf(5) variable has been added,
linux_mounts_enable
, which controls if Linux®-specific
filesystems are mounted in /compat/linux if linux_enable
is set
to YES
.
[r364883] (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation)
The
devd(8) utility has been updated to change the default
syslogd(8) notification for resume from kern
to
kernel
.
[r365540]
Userland Application Changes
The
cron(8) utility has been updated to support two new flags in
crontab(5), -n
and -q
, which suppress
mail on successful runs and suppress logging of command execution,
respectively.
[r353134]
-
conv=fsync
-
conf=fdatasync
-
oflag=fsync
-
oflag=sync
-
iflag=fullblock
See dd(1) for usage details.
The
fsck_msdosfs(8) utility has been updated to include a variety
of enhancements, including reducing the memory footprint, a new
flag, -M
, which disables the use of
mmap(2), and others.
[r357568]
The showmount(8) utility has been updated to implement support for long options. [r357078]
The man:certctl.8; utility has been added. [r357082]
The syslogd(8) utility has been updated to add property-based filters. [r359739]
The
mountd(8) utility has been updated to fix incorrect group
listing under certain conditions when -maproot
or
-mapall
is used for exports.
[r362602]
The sed(1) utility has been updated to read commands from stdin(4) when “-f -” is specified. [r362687]
The hostapd(8) and wpa_supplicant(8) utilities have been updated to support 802.11n, 802.11w, 802.11ac, and 802.11ax. [r363441]
The
sesutil(8) utility has been updated to include a
show
subcommand to print output in a user-friendly
way.
[r364115]
The bhyve(8) utility has been updated to support setting additional AHCI controller parameters. [r364334]
The jail(8) utility has been updated to allow running Linux® in a jailed environment.
Contributed Software
The libbsdxml(3) library has been updated to version 2.2.9. [r355603]
The resolvconf(8) utility has been updated to version 3.9.2. [r355745]
The tcpdump(1) utility has been updated to version 4.9.3. [r356340]
The
mtree(8) utility has been updated to address an issue with
-f
not considering type changes, fix username logic
with -c
when
getlogin(2) fails, and to fix -O
not descending
when a hash collision occurs.
[r356532]
The Elf Tool Chain has been updated to upstream revision r3769. [r358779] (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation)
OpenSSH has been updated to version 7.9p1. [r360313] (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation)
The timezone database files have been updated to version 2020a. [r360361]
The unbound(8) utility has been updated to version 1.10.1. [r361435]
The libarchive(3) library has been updated to version 3.4.3. [r362132]
The private apr library has been updated to version 1.7.0. [r362180]
The svn{,lite} utility has been updated to version 1.14.0 LTS. [r362180]
The private sqlite3 utility has been updated to version 3.32.3. [r363179]
The Sendmail utility has been updated to version 8.16.1. [r363465]
The clang, llvm, lld, lldb, compiler-rt utilities and libc++ have been updated to version 10.0.1. [r363494]
OpenSSL has been updated to version 1.1.1h. [r366177]
Deprecated Applications
Kernel
This section covers changes to kernel configurations, system tuning, and system control parameters that are not otherwise categorized.
General Kernel Changes
The
read(2) system call has been changed to disable
read()
calls on directories by default. A new
sysctl(8) has been added,
security.bsd.allow_read_dir
, which when set to
1
will restore the previous behavior.
[r363017]
The machdep.kdb_on_nmi
sysctl(8) has been removed. The
machdep.panic_on_nmi
sysctl(8) tunable has changed to directly enter the debugger.
[r364002]
Support for APEI (ACPI Platform Error Interfaces) has been added. [r364003] (Sponsored by iXsystems)
Devices and Drivers
This section covers changes and additions to devices and device drivers since 12.1-RELEASE.
Device Drivers
Storage
This section covers changes and additions to file systems and other storage subsystems, both local and networked.
General Storage
The virtio_blk(4) driver has been updated to support TRIM. [r365702] (Sponsored by Klara Systems)
The ZFS file system has been updated to include read/write
kstat
output per dataset.
[r365917] (Sponsored by Klara Systems)
Boot Loader Changes
This section covers the boot loader, boot menu, and other boot-related changes.
Boot Loader Changes
The console is now displayed within the boot loader, allowing to toggle between available console devices. [r366691]
Networking
This section describes changes that affect networking in FreeBSD.
General Network
The tap(4) and tun(4) devices have been updated to create /dev aliases when they are renamed. [r354060]
Updates to the wireless networking stack and various drivers have been introduced to provide better 802.11n and 802.11ac support. [r365670] (Sponsored by Rubicon Communications, LLC (Netgate))
The ice(4)
driver has been added, supporting Intel®
100Gb ethernet cards.
[r365733] (Sponsored by Intel Corporation)
Ports Collection and Package Infrastructure
This section covers changes to the FreeBSD Ports Collection, package infrastructure, and package maintenance and installation tools.
Packaging Changes
The pkg(8) utility has been updated to version 1.15.10.
General Notes Regarding Future FreeBSD Releases
Default CPUTYPE
Change
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 or 11.x series of releases. |
Last modified on: June 19, 2021 by Danilo G. Baio