Extending support for the NetBSD-7 branch

Typically, some time after releasing a new NetBSD major version (such as NetBSD 9.0), we will announce the end-of-life of the N-2 branch, in this case NetBSD-7.

We've decided to hold off on doing that to ensure our users don't feel rushed to perform a major version update on any remote machines, possibly needing to reach the machine if anything goes wrong.

Security fixes will still be made to the NetBSD-7 branch.

We hope you're all safe. Stay home.

[1 comment]

 

NetBSD 8.2 is available!

The third release in the NetBSD-8 is now available.

This release includes all the security fixes in NetBSD-8 up until this point, and other fixes deemed important for stability.

Some highlights include:

• x86: fixed regression in booting old CPUs
• x86: Hyper-V Gen.2 VM framebuffer support
• httpd(8): fixed various security issues
• ixg(4): various fixes / improvements
• x86 efiboot: add tftp support, fix issues on machines with many memory segments, improve graphics mode logic to work on more machines.
• Various kernel memory info leaks fixes
• Update expat to 2.2.8
• Fix ryzen USB issues and support xHCI version 3.10.
• Accept root device specification as NAME=label.
• Add multiboot 2 support to x86 bootloaders.
• Fix for CVE-2019-9506: 'Key Negotiation of Bluetooth' attack.
• nouveau: limit the supported devices and fix firmware loading.
• radeon: fix loading of the TAHITI VCE firmware.
• named(8): stop using obsolete dnssec-lookaside.

You can download binaries of NetBSD 8.2 from our Fastly-provided CDN.

For more details refer to the CHANGES-8.2 file.

Please note that we are looking for donations again, see Fundraising 2020.

Enjoy!

Maya

[1 comment]

 

NetBSD 9.0 available!

Six months after the start of the release engineering process, NetBSD 9.0 is now available.

The NetBSD 9.0 release comes with many new features and lots of improvements over the NetBSD 8.1 release...

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Second (final) release candidate for NetBSD 9.0 available!

Six months after the start of the release engineering process for 9.0, the second (and most likely final) release candidate is now available.

The NetBSD 9.0 release comes with many new features and lots of improvements over the NetBSD 8.1 release...

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First release candidate for NetBSD 9.0 available!

Four months after the start of the release engineering process for 9.0, the first (and hopefully only) release candidate is now available.

The NetBSD 9.0 release comes with many new features and lots of improvements over the NetBSD 8.1 release...

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NetBSD 9.0 release process has started

NetBSD-9 has been branched, with support for AArch64, a new hypervisor, and support for newer machines. Binaries are available, please test them and let us know of any bugs!

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NetBSD 8.1 available

NetBSD 8.1 is available!

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NetBSD 8.1 Release Candidate 1

Nearly a year after the initial release of NetBSD 8.0, and lots of changes on the stable branch, a new release 8.1 is upcoming.

Binaries of the first (and most likely only) release candidate are available for testing.

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NetBSD 7.2 released

The NetBSD 7.2 release is available now.

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End of life for NetBSD 6.x

In keeping with NetBSD's policy of supporting only the latest (8.x) and next most recent (7.x) major branches, the recent release of NetBSD 8.0 marks the end of life for NetBSD 6.x. As in the past, a month of overlapping support has been provided in order to ease the migration to newer releases.

As of now, the following branches are no longer maintained:

• netbsd-6-1
• netbsd-6-0
• netbsd-6

This means:

• There will be no more pullups to those branches (even for security issues)
• There will be no security advisories made for any those branches
• The existing 6.x releases on ftp.NetBSD.org will be moved into /pub/NetBSD-archive/

May NetBSD 8.0 serve you well! (And if it doesn't, please submit a PR!)

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Changes to NetBSD release support policy

The NetBSD release engineering team is announcing a new support policy for our release branches. This affects NetBSD 8.0 and subsequent major releases (9.0, 10.0, etc.). All currently supported releases (6.x and 7.x) will keep their existing support policies.

Beginning with NetBSD 8.0, there will be no more teeny branches (e.g., netbsd-8-0).

This means that netbsd-8 will be the only branch for 8.x and there will be only one category of releases derived from 8.0: update releases. The first update release after 8.0 will be 8.1, the next will be 8.2, and so on. Update releases will contain security and bug fixes, and may contain new features and enhancements that are deemed safe for the release branch.

With this simplification of our support policy, users can expect:

• More frequent releases
• Better long-term support (example: quicker fixes for security issues, since there is only one branch to fix per major release)
• New features and enhancements to make their way to binary releases faster (under our current scheme, no major release has received more than two feature updates in its life)

We understand that users of teeny branches may be concerned about the increased number of changes that update releases will bring. Historically, NetBSD stable branches (e.g., netbsd-7) have been managed very conservatively. Under this new scheme, the release engineering team will be even more strict in what changes we allow on the stable branch. Changes that would create issues with backwards compatibility are not allowed, and any changes made that prove to be problematic will be promptly reverted.

The support policy we've had until now was nice in theory, but it has not worked out in practice. We believe that this change will benefit the situation for vast majority of NetBSD users.

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NetBSD 8.0 released

The NetBSD 8.0 release is available now.

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