14 DAY TRIAL // A new maintenance update of the server-oriented Alpine Linux 3.4 operating system has been released, bringing a new Linux kernel version from the long-term supported 4.4 series and the latest security patches.
According to the release notes, Alpine Linux 3.4.5 is now available as the most up-to-date version of the GNU/Linux distribution based on musl libc and BusyBox, it's powered by the Linux 4.4.27 LTS kernel, which was fully patched against the "Dirty COW" vulnerability, and includes numerous updated components and applications.
Among these, we can mention OpenJDK 7.111.2.6.7, Zabbix 3.0.5, Roundcube 1.2.2, OpenJPEG 2.1.2, Mozilla Firefox 45.4.0 ESR (Extended Support Release), c-ares 1.12.0, MariaDB 10.1.18, libx11 1.6.4, libxfixes 5.0.3, libxi 1.7.7, libxrandr 1.5.1, libxrender 0.9.10, libxtst 1.2.3, libxv 1.0.11, libxvmc 1.0.10, and Quagga 1.0.20161017.
XMLSec backported to version 3.4 to fix the loading of the OpenSSL driver
There are several other core components that have been updated in the new Alpine Linux 3.4.5 release, such as Xen, which addresses a missing transaction in the xenstore_client.c file, latest bzip2 version to correct a secfixes comment, and an updated musl library fixing missing int overflow checks in the regex.
The GD and ImageMagick graphics libraries were updated as well, and it looks like the XMLSec XML security library has been backported to version 3.4 to fix the loading of the OpenSSL driver. As usual, our tech-savvy readers can find the full list of changes implemented in Alpine Linux 3.4.5 in the Git log and bug tracker entries.
In the meantime, if you're using Alpine Linux 3.4.4 or a previous release, we recommend that you update as soon as possible to version 3.4.5 using the built-in package management system. On the other hand, newcomers can now download the Alpine Linux 3.4.5 ISO images for various hardware architectures through our website.