FreeBSD 14.5-RELEASE Release Notes

Local-unbound-setup now properly configures DNS resolution on IPv6-only systems by disabling unsupported protocols in the server configuration and using 127.0.0.1, ::1, or both in resolv.conf based on kernel support. 973d1f2b12ab.

The /etc/protocols file has been updated with the latest IANA assignments, including documentation of unassigned and deprecated protocols. 9f9f0d3d9e1c.

The lpd(8) daemon now correctly uses the port number specified in /etc/printcap instead of ignoring it, restoring a feature broken since the addition of IPv6 support in 2000. 85852fe5e4a9.

The rc.firewall script now supports reading IP addresses or subnets from on-disk files for the firewall_allowservices and firewall_trusted list variables. Elements that look like absolute paths are read line by line, skipping comments and blank lines, and the first word on each line is treated as an address or subnet. 10075baae2c1.

The default history size in sh(1) has been increased from 100 to 128, complying with the POSIX.1-2024 minimum requirement. 9bc3d8e002b9.

LTO-10 and LTO-10P density codes and cartridge specifications have been added to mt(1) and libmt, enabling detection and reporting of the new tape formats. 5f55c59cbab5. (Sponsored by Spectra Logic)

The default behavior of pwd(1) has changed from -P to -L, aligning with POSIX semantics. ae75d4bdc12b.

The ipfw(8) binary now includes a fallback mechanism to support the new kernel interface introduced in FreeBSD 15.0. When running with a 15.0+ kernel, ipfw(8) automatically invokes a bundled ipfw15 binary to load firewall rules, ensuring compatibility during upgrade procedures. 704ec5e68c44.

The daemon(8) utility now supports the -m option to specify the output file mode, allowing non-root log collectors to access log files. cc35db95eb9e.

The default linker for clang on FreeBSD is now ld.lld (LLD) instead of following the generic ld search path. f81c82a9db12.

Expat has been updated to version 2.8.1. 84f7ee30767b.

file(1) has been updated to 5.47. d58218761eeb.

ldns has been updated to version 1.9.2. 222648172b80.

less(1) has been updated to 704. 7cc6a5d46484.

libarchive has been updated to version 3.8.7. This update includes bugfixes for vulnerabilities, memory leaks, and crashes in multiple archive format readers. 2dddbb67c6a1.

libpcap has been updated to 1.10.6. 09db15067248. (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation)

LLVM and related components have been updated to version 21.1.8. 502fd5427dc8.

mandoc(1) has been updated to 2025-09-26. f763f12ed5eb.

ncurses(3) has been updated to 6.6. 8de7c76ee02f.

The openresolv utility has been updated to version 3.17.4, which brings numerous improvements to the resolvconf implementation, including updated man pages and configuration file documentation, as well as new compatibility scripts for avahi-daemon, mDNSResponder, and systemd-resolved. 266022bf0b60.

openresolv now trims leading dots from domain names in resolvconf, which affects DNS resolution behavior for users with such configurations. aad298c8f9ca.

OpenSSL has been updated to 3.0.21. ca66129a2c8a.

The pci_vendors database has been updated to the 2026-02-10 version. b28b6c6d33ac.

The root certificate bundle has been updated to match NSS 3.123.1, adding new trusted CA certificates and moving others to untrusted. 09bb6a62d00f.

tcpdump(1) has been updated to 4.99.6. 8a0d626219f1. (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation)

tzcode has been updated to 2026c. 3ab59366fed8.

The tzdata database has been updated to version 2026c. 819af80de8e8.

unbound(8) has been updated to version 1.26.0. c555236ec76f.

USB vendor list updated to 2025.12.13. 2f866e0547bd.

xz(1) has been updated to 5.8.3. e32e126c136d.

The lpr(1) suite of programs has been deprecated and may be removed before FreeBSD 16.0. Better-maintained alternatives are available in the Ports Collection (print/cups, sysutils/LPRng). b734006cafa1.

The sortlist parser in libc’s resolver has been reimplemented, restoring the ability to configure address sort order in /etc/resolv.conf. Sorting of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses is now functional again, with updated documentation. fc00e7a18cde.

The libc resolver option parser now strictly validates option names and values, rejecting trailing garbage, negative values, and non-numeric arguments, which changes behavior for malformed resolv.conf options. b52d95bf1494.

C23-standard trigonometric functions using the pi multiplier (such as sinpi, cospi, and related variants) are now exposed in <math.h>. This extends the available math library APIs to align with the C23 standard. 69b3aa35469a.

The inotify API is now available in libc, providing inotify_init(3), inotify_init1(3), and inotify_add_watch(3) functions for file system event monitoring. e61884183ed4. (Sponsored by Klara, Inc.)

A new security knob disables unprivileged access to the kernel environment (kenv), including jailed root, to protect sensitive data. System administrators can configure this via the documented sysctl/tunable. Manual pages updated to reflect the new behavior. c839c1566147.

Adds inotify_init(2), inotify_add_watch(2), and inotify_rm_watch(2) system calls for source compatibility with Linux, allowing applications to monitor filesystem events in a directory hierarchy without opening each file. 296d7f95aab8. (Sponsored by Klara, Inc.)

The br.lenovo.kbd keyboard layout is now installed and available in the system. ca42bd490891.

The US international keyboard layout with accented keys us.intl.acc.kbd is now installed by default and available in the system. 823889aaafa3.

The smartpqi(4) driver has been updated with new controller support and a 32-bit I/O buffer size for passthrough ioctls, replacing the previous 16-bit limit. 8accd4d99f81. (Sponsored by Microchip Technology Inc.)

The acpi(4) driver now supports power management on Apple Mac hardware with dual GPUs by enabling the Darwin OSI by default, which uses the integrated GPU for improved battery life. This behavior can be toggled with the tunable hw.acpi.apple_darwin_osi. 964c97aa80ec.

The ahci(4) driver now supports an additional Marvell 88SE9128 SATA controller variant (device ID 0x91a3), enabling proper operation on systems with this chip (e.g., Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 motherboards). 487eeda542a7.

The asmc(4) driver no longer supports 32-bit Intel-based Macs. Users of 32-bit hardware are affected by this removal. 432c95c57bb5.

The msdosfs(4) filesystem now supports file names containing Unicode surrogate pairs, enabling full access to files with emoji and other characters beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane on FAT32 volumes. e71ad3f7a6b1.

Fixed a boot loader bug in loader.efi(8) for amd64 where late staging area movement after page table computation could cause boot failures, particularly when loading microcode or a large set of modules. 8dca7fccfa65. (Sponsored by Netflix)

Boot loader on powerpc64le works around a SLOF bug in QEMU by adding padding, fixing booting on little-endian PowerPC systems. 5d2b9a17b9c6. (Sponsored by Netflix)

The lualoader now supports be-list and be-switch commands, allowing boot environment changes from the loader command prompt. bddfcbd9bbc6.

The boot loader’s Lua core now follows symlinks when searching for bootable kernels. 1841091eaa0b.

bsdinstall(8) now correctly creates a FreeBSD UEFI boot entry after installation, fixing a regression where some machines could not boot due to a missing boot entry. cfdd90abab51.

The boot loader’s Lua scripting now supports filtering the list of boot environments via a user-defined callback in local.lua, allowing operators to hide certain BEs (e.g., those with a leading dot). 9ef671ef0c6c.

The loader now prefers the embedded memory disk as the current device when built with MD_IMAGE_SIZE, improving boot behavior for such configurations. a4a3825d3e1d. (Sponsored by Chelsio Communications)

The ZFS rc script now runs before the tmp rc script, ensuring ZFS datasets (including a /tmp dataset) are mounted before tmp attempts to test writability and possibly mount a tmpfs. This fixes issues with read-only ZFS roots and the tmpmfs=yes setting. b39cac4b834c.

Fix for handling of foreground and background color settings in the loader’s graphical console environment, ensuring that the environment can set either independently and that colors are correctly applied when switching to the kernel. 14c8e003318b.

Nvidia kernel modules are now blacklisted by the loader to prevent panics if loaded early via loader.conf. The nvidia, nvidia-modeset, and nvidia-drm modules are denied loading at boot time. 7db1376bd151.

The boot logo positions for Beastie and fbsdbw have been corrected. 9ac7e0362a24. (Sponsored by PANS Jarosław)

Manual pages for libusb20_open(3) and libusb20_be_device_foreach(3) have been added, documenting these library functions. 3e05b2366af1.

Manual page mq_getfd_np(3) documents the function that retrieves the file descriptor from a message queue descriptor. 11a0cf32a232.

Manual page for realpath(3) has been updated: RETURN VALUES section improved, SEE ALSO section expanded with basename(3), dirname(3), and free(3), and obsolete CAVEATS section removed. f5b8309b9f63. (Sponsored by Klara, Inc.)

The dwcotg(4) manual page has been added, documenting the DesignWare USB OTG controller driver and making it visible for future release notes. a1479a37fcf8.

The man page for umass(4) now includes references to the usb_quirk(4) and usbconfig(8) pages, helping users troubleshoot device-specific workarounds. f1fe71222aca. (Sponsored by Netflix)

The ports(7) reference manual’s FILES section has been expanded and reorganized into three tables, documenting additional files such as make.conf, CHANGES, CONTRIBUTING.md, UPDATING, and Tools/scripts. 5e1443211528.

Man page documentation for bhyve(8) has been updated to describe the full -c flag syntax including complex CPU topology specifiers. c92c3852a974.

Manual pages for GEOM and related tools (gcache(8),geli(8),gpart(8),ggatec(8), and ggated(8)) now consistently clarify that sizes are specified in binary units (bytes) unless an SI unit suffix is provided, and use non-breaking spaces between numbers and units. 30c821ac04c1.

Manual page documentation updated for jail(8), describing how to create a jail from a distribution set. cf16565eb929.

The deprecated -p option has been removed from lpd(8) and its manual page. 5f10e369a13a.

A new manual page sbintime(9) documents the usage of sbintime_t and its helper functions for kernel developers. 84eec65ebb27.

Added a C++ style guide section to style(9). e8a09797dd19. (Sponsored by Chelsio Communications)