14 DAY TRIAL // NetBSD, a free, fast, secure, and highly portable UNIX-like open source OS available for a wide range of platforms, from large-scale servers and desktop systems to handheld and embedded devices, is now at version 5.2.
NetBSD 5.2 is the second maintenance update in the 5.x branch, and implements quite a few critical fixes, either with regard to security or for stability reasons, plus some new features and enhancements.
As a side note from the developer, all the fixes in security or critical updates (for example, NetBSD 5.0.2, 5.1.2, and so on) are cumulative, so the latest update contains all the fixes since the corresponding minor release.
Highlights of NetBSD 5.2:
• OpenSSL TLS extension parsing race condition has been fixed; • BIND DoS was patched due to improper handling of the RRSIG records; • A kernel stack overflow via the nested IPCOMP packet has been fixed; • An error that could lead to file system corruption and “freeing free block” panics has been repaired; • Support has been added for NE2000 with 8bit bus width; • NULL pointer dereferences in IPv6 ESP code paths have been fixed; • Support for Audio NVidia controllers has been implemented; • Various fixes which allow NetBSD to run unmodified under Linux KVM have been implemented.
Even if this is a stable version, there are still some known problems. For example, using block device nodes directly for I/O can cause a kernel crash when the file system containing /dev is FFS and is mounted with -o log.
Also, gdb cannot debug running threaded programs correctly. A workaround is provided by the developer. Users have to generate a core file from the program using gcore(1) and pass the core to gdb, instead of debugging the running program.
A complete list of the changes can be found in the official announcement.
Download NetBSD 5.2 right now from Softpedia.