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Posted on 03 June 2008
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Hello Everyone,
The branches supported by the FreeBSD Security Officer have been updated
to reflect recent EoL (end-of-life) events. The new list is below and
at <URL: http://security.freebsd.org/ >. FreeBSD 5.5, FreeBSD 6.1, and
FreeBSD 6.2 have `expired' and are no longer supported effective June 1,
2008. Users of these releases are advised to upgrade promptly to FreeBSD
6.3 or FreeBSD 7.0, either by downloading an updated source tree and
building updates manually, or (for i386 and amd64 systems) using the
FreeBSD Update utility as described in the FreeBSD 6.3 and FreeBSD 7.0
release announcements.
This marks the end of support by the FreeBSD Security Team for the
FreeBSD 5-STABLE branch, and at this time support for running software
from the ports tree on FreeBSD 5.x is also ceasing: Packages for binary
installations will no longer be built for FreeBSD 5.5, building ports
from source on FreeBSD 5.x will no longer be supported, and the ports
INDEX will no longer be built and made available via portsnap or the
'make fetchindex' target. Patches for individual ports specific for
their functioning on FreeBSD 5.5 may still be accepted at the discretion
of the port maintainer.
[Excerpt from http://security.freebsd.org/ follows]
FreeBSD Security Advisories
The FreeBSD Security Officer provides security advisories for
several branches of FreeBSD development. These are the -STABLE
Branches and the Security Branches. (Advisories are not issued for
the -CURRENT Branch.)
* There is usually only a single -STABLE branch, although during
the transition from one major development line to another
(such as from FreeBSD 5.x to 6.x), there is a time span in
which there are two -STABLE branches. The -STABLE branch tags
have names like RELENG_6. The corresponding builds have names
like FreeBSD 6.1-STABLE.
* Each FreeBSD Release has an associated Security Branch. The
Security Branch tags have names like RELENG_6_1. The
corresponding builds have names like FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE-p1.
Isses affecting the FreeBSD Ports Collection are covered in the
FreeBSD VuXML document.
Each branch is supported by the Security Officer for a limited
time only, and is designated as one of `Early adopter', `Normal',
or `Extended'. The designation is used as a guideline for
determining the lifetime of the branch as follows.
Early adopter
Releases which are published from the -CURRENT branch will be
supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 6 months
after the release.
Normal
Releases which are published from a -STABLE branch will be
supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 12 months
after the release.
Extended
Selected releases will be supported by the Security Officer
for a minimum of 24 months after the release.
The current designation and estimated lifetimes of the currently
supported branches are given below. The Estimated EoL (end-of-life)
column gives the earliest date on which that branch is likely to be
dropped. Please note that these dates may be extended into the
future, but only extenuating circumstances would lead to a branch's
support being dropped earlier than the date listed.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Branch | Release | Type | Release date | Estimated EoL |
|-----------+-----------+--------+-----------------+-----------------|
|RELENG_6 |n/a |n/a |n/a |January 31, 2010 |
|-----------+-----------+--------+-----------------+-----------------|
|RELENG_6_3 |6.3-RELEASE|Extended|January 18, 2008 |January 31, 2010 |
|-----------+-----------+--------+-----------------+-----------------|
|RELENG_7 |n/a |n/a |n/a |last release + 2y|
|-----------+-----------+--------+-----------------+-----------------|
|RELENG_7_0 |7.0-RELEASE|Normal |February 27, 2008|February 28, 2009|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[End excerpt]
Colin Percival
FreeBSD Security Officer
