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Posted on 04 February 2010
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Hello Everyone,
The branches supported by the FreeBSD Security Officer have been updated
to reflect the EoL (end-of-life) of FreeBSD 6.3. The new list is below
and at <URL: http://security.freebsd.org/ >.
Users of FreeBSD 6.3 are advised to upgrade promptly to a newer release,
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 relevant release announcement.
[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.)
* The -STABLE branch tags have names like RELENG_7. The
corresponding builds have names like FreeBSD 7.0-STABLE.
* Each FreeBSD Release has an associated Security Branch. The
Security Branch tags have names like RELENG_7_0. The
corresponding builds have names like FreeBSD 7.0-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, and for sufficient additional time (if
needed) to ensure that there is a newer release for at least
3 months before the older Normal release expires.
Extended
Selected releases (normally every second release plus the last
release from each -STABLE branch) will be supported by the
Security Officer for a minimum of 24 months after the release,
and for sufficient additional time (if needed) to ensure that
there is a newer Extended release for at least 3 months before
the older Extended release expires.
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 |November 30, 2010|
|-----------+-----------+--------+-----------------+-----------------|
|RELENG_6_4 |6.4-RELEASE|Extended|November 28, 2008|November 30, 2010|
|-----------+-----------+--------+-----------------+-----------------|
|RELENG_7 |n/a |n/a |n/a |last release + 2y|
|-----------+-----------+--------+-----------------+-----------------|
|RELENG_7_1 |7.1-RELEASE|Extended|January 4, 2009 |January 31, 2011 |
|-----------+-----------+--------+-----------------+-----------------|
|RELENG_7_2 |7.2-RELEASE|Normal |May 4, 2009 |May 31, 2010 |
|-----------+-----------+--------+-----------------+-----------------|
|RELENG_8 |n/a |n/a |n/a |last release + 2y|
|-----------+-----------+--------+-----------------+-----------------|
|RELENG_8_0 |8.0-RELEASE|Extended|November 25, 2009|November 30, 2010|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[End excerpt]
The upcoming FreeBSD 7.3-RELEASE will receive Extended support, i.e., it
will be supported until early 2012.
- --
Colin Percival
Security Officer, FreeBSD | freebsd.org | The power to serve
Founder / author, Tarsnap | tarsnap.com | Online backups for the truly paranoid
