Copyright � 2020 The FreeBSD Documentation Project
FreeBSD is a registered trademark of the FreeBSD Foundation.
IBM, AIX, OS/2, PowerPC, PS/2, S/390, and ThinkPad are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.
IEEE, POSIX, and 802 are registered trademarks of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. in the United States.
Intel, Celeron, Centrino, Core, EtherExpress, i386, i486, Itanium, Pentium, and Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
SPARC, SPARC64, and UltraSPARC are trademarks of SPARC International, Inc in the United States and other countries. SPARC International, Inc owns all of the SPARC trademarks and under licensing agreements allows the proper use of these trademarks by its members.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this document, and the FreeBSD Project was aware of the trademark claim, the designations have been followed by the “™” or the “�” symbol.
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.
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.
[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 12.1-RELEASE.
| Advisory | Date | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| FreeBSD-SA-19:25.mcepce | 12�November�2019 | Machine Check Exception on Page Size Change |
| FreeBSD-SA-19:26.mcu | 12�November�2019 | Intel CPU Microcode Update |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:01.libfetch | 28�January�2020 | fetch(3) buffer overflow |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:03.thrmisc | 28�January�2020 | Kernel stack data disclosure |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:04.tcp | 18�March�2020 | TCP IPv6 SYN cache kernel information disclosure |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:05.if_oce_ioctl | 18�March�2020 | Insufficient ioctl(2) privilege checking |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:06.if_ixl_ioctl | 18�March�2020 | Insufficient ioctl(2) privilege checking |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:07.epair | 18�March�2020 | Incorrect user-controlled pointer use |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:08.jail | 18�March�2020 | Kernel memory disclosure with nested jails |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:09.ntp | 18�March�2020 | Multiple denial of service |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:10.ipfw | 21�April�2020 | Invalid mbuf(9) handling |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:11.openssl | 21�April�2020 | Remote denial of service |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:12.libalias | 12�May�2020 | Insufficient packet length validation |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:13.libalias | 12�May�2020 | Memory disclosure vulnerability |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:15.cryptodev | 12�May�2020 | Use-after-free condition |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:16.cryptodev | 12�May�2020 | Insufficient MAC key length check |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:17.usb | 9�June�2020 | HID descriptor parsing error |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:19.unbound | 8�July�2020 | Multiple vulnerabilities |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:20.ipv6 | 8�July�2020 | Race condition and use-after-free |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:21.usb_net | 5�August�2020 | Memory corruption |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:22.sqlite | 5�August�2020 | Multiple vulnerabilities |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:23.sendmsg | 5�August�2020 | Privilege escalation |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:25.sctp | 2�September�2020 | Use-after-free bug |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:26.dhclient | 2�September�2020 | Heap overflow |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:27.ure | 15�September�2020 | Packet-in-packet attack |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:28.bhyve_vmcs | 15�September�2020 | Privilege escalation via VMCS |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:29.bhyve_svm | 15�September�2020 | SVM guest escape |
| FreeBSD-SA-20:30.ftpd | 15�September�2020 | Privilege escalation |
| Errata | Date | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| FreeBSD-EN-19:19.loader | 12�November�2019 | UEFI Loader Memory Fragmentation |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:01.ssp | 28�January�2020 | Imprecise orderring of canary initialization |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:03.sshd | 18�March�2020 | Misleading log messages upon successful login |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:05.mlx5en | 18�March�2020 | Fix packet forwarding performance |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:06.ipv6 | 18�March�2020 | Incorrect checksum calculations |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:07.quotad | 21�April�2020 | Regression with certain NFS servers |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:08.tzdata | 12�May�2020 | Timezone database update |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:09.igb | 12�May�2020 | Fix failure to switch to inactive state |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:10.build | 12�May�2020 | Incorrect build host clang version detection |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:11.ena | 9�June�2020 | Stability issues in ena(4) |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:12.iflib | 9�June�2020 | Watchdog timeout resetting idle queues |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:13.bhyve | 8�July�2020 | Crash with PCI device passthrough |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:14.linuxkpi | 8�July�2020 | Kernel panic |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:15.mps | 8�July�2020 | Kernel panic |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:16.vmx | 5�August�2020 | Packet loss and degraded performance |
| FreeBSD-EN-20:17.linuxthread | 2�September�2020 | Kernel panic |
This section covers changes and additions to userland applications, contributed software, and system utilities.
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]
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]
The dd(1) utility has been updated to include new operands: [r355520]
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 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.
The tcsh(1) utility has been updated to version 6.21.00. [r354191] (Sponsored by DARPA, AFRL)
The less(1) utility has been updated to version v551. [r355503]
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 pcap(3) library has been updated to version 1.9.1. [r356340]
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)
The xz(1) utility has been updated to version 5.2.5. [r359635]
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 ntpd(8) suite of utilities have been updated to version 4.2.8p15. [r362716]
The file(1) utility has been updated to version 5.39. [r362842]
The bc(1) utility has been updated to version 3.1.1. [r362987]
The private sqlite3 utility has been updated to version 3.32.3. [r363179]
The BSD make(1) utility has been updated to version 20200719. [r363352]
The Sendmail utility has been updated to version 8.16.1. [r363465]
The nc(1) utility has been updated
to include a new --sctp flag. [r363474]
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]
This section covers changes to kernel configurations, system tuning, and system control parameters that are not otherwise categorized.
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 ixl(4) driver has now been enabled by default for FreeBSD/powerpc64. [r363712]
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)
This section covers changes and additions to devices and device drivers since 12.1-RELEASE.
The ubsec(4) driver has been marked as deprecated, and will be removed in FreeBSD�13.0. [r361044]
The ufm(4) driver has been marked as deprecated, and will be removed in FreeBSD�13.0. [r364431]
The apm(4) driver has been marked as deprecated, and will be removed in FreeBSD�13.0. [r365542]
The ctau(4) and cx(4) drivers have been marked as deprecated, and will be removed in FreeBSD�13.0. [r365542] (Sponsored by The�FreeBSD�Foundation)
This section covers changes and additions to file systems and other storage subsystems, both local and networked.
The mps(4) driver has been removed
from the 32-bit GENERIC kernel
configuration. [r352741]
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)
This section covers the boot loader, boot menu, and other boot-related changes.
The console is now displayed within the boot loader, allowing to toggle between available console devices. [r366691]
This section describes changes that affect networking in FreeBSD.
The tap(4) and tun(4) devices
have been updated to create /dev aliases when they are
renamed. [r354060]
The ipfw(4) driver has been updated to support RFC6598/Carrier Grade NAT subnets. [r359694]
The ng_nat(4) driver has been updated to allow attaching to an ethernet interface. [r359697]
The ixl(4) driver has been updated to version 1.11.29. [r363876] (Sponsored by Intel Corporation)
The ena(4) driver has been updated to version 2.2.0. [r365381] (Sponsored by Amazon, Inc.)
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)
The cxgbe(4) driver has been updated to version 1.25.0.0. [r365961] (Sponsored by Chelsio Communications)
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 1.15.10.
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.
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 <[email protected]>.
All users of FreeBSD 12-STABLE should subscribe to the <[email protected]> mailing list.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <[email protected]>.