Dear friends and followers,

For 3 and a half years now, OPNsense is driving innovation through
modularising and hardening the open source firewall, with simple
and reliable firmware upgrades, multi-language support, HardenedBSD
security, fast adoption of upstream software updates as well as clear
and stable 2-Clause BSD licensing.

Another 6 months passed by ever so quickly! The main goal for 18.7,
nicknamed “Happy Hippo”, is stability so we have not yet begun to adopt
FreeBSD 11.2, but there are several of its Intel NIC driver updates
included to bridge the gap until 19.1 comes out. The upgrade also
includes a tremendous amount of IPv6 improvements including 6RD support
as well as authentication and backup framework consolidation. Please
also take note that QinQ is no longer included in this release.

These are the most prominent changes since version 18.1:

o improved WAN DHCPv6 and SLAAC connectivity and tracking
o functional IPv6 Rapid Deployment (6RD) support
o improved default route handling and gateway switching
o OpenVPN default setup improvements for IPv6 and RADIUS attribute support
o Dpinger gateway monitoring integration
o password policies for local authentication and coupled TOTP
o Monit core integration to eventually replace the legacy notifications
o OpenSSH access via group and shell selection instead of privilege
o pluggable backup framework with new Nextcloud option
o sytem tunables are now also used as loader tunables
o unrestricted VLAN usage for e.g. Xen
o QinQ interface removal
o firmware GUI speedup, improved error parsing and console reboot hint
o ZFS on root boot support (installer support is pending, but opnsense-bootstrap works)
o ZFS and MSDOS config import support
o ISC DHCP version moves from 4.3 to 4.4
o RRDtool version moves from 1.2 to 1.7
o rework rc.syshook facility to use drop-in directories instead of suffixes
o backports of FreeBSD 11.2 Intel NIC drivers
o stand-alone frontend UI development tools
o language updates for Czech, French, German, Portuguese (Brazil)
o UI header security and SSL cipher hardening
o extensive UI cleanups and menu consolidation
o new and rewritten plugins: os-cache, os-lcdproc-sdeclcd, os-net-snmp,
os-nut, os-openconnect, os-relayd 2.0, os-shadowsocks, os-theme-cicada,
os-theme-rebellion, os-theme-tukan, os-wol 2.0

We thank all of you for helping test, shape and contribute to the project!
We know it would not be the same without you.

Download links, an installation guide[1] and the checksums for the images
can be found below as well.

o Europe: https://opnsense.c0urier.net/releases/18.7/
o US East Coast: http://mirrors.nycbug.org/pub/opnsense/releases/18.7/
o US West Coast: https://mirror.sfo12.us.leaseweb.net/opnsense/releases/18.7/
o South America: http://mirror.upb.edu.co/opnsense/releases/18.7/
o South-East Asia: https://ftp.yzu.edu.tw/opnsense/releases/18.7/
o Full mirror list: https://opnsense.org/download/

Here are the full changes against version 18.7-RC2:

o system: clarify help for preventing local nameserver usage in general settings
o system: deal with ACL trailing slash wildcards due to its removal from menu links
o system: allow LDAP user import even when multiple authentications servers are set
o system: merge duplicated encrypt() and decrypt() config backup implementations
o system: extend encrypt() and decrypt() with optional header, footer and attribute usage
o system: optional encryption of Nextcloud backup through user-specified password (contributed by Fabian Franz)
o interfaces: do not yield IPv6 tunnel addresses via legacy_getall_interface_addresses()
o firewall: rules alias preview on hover when no description was provided
o firewall: transitional code for upcoming alias API usage
o firewall: remove alias types urltable_ports and url_ports
o firewall: revert only binding to first interface address due to ambiguity in IPv6 local-link setups
o dnsmasq: unconditionally listen on loopback device but avoid binding more than 127.0.0.1 in IPv4
o installer: properly accept cancel on guided install
o installer: removed unused mail log feature
o ipsec: remove validation to support for IPv6 over IPv4 tunnel and vice versa
o web proxy: more elaborate fix of IDNA encode with leading dots
o mvc: always use std_bootgrid_reload() for bootgrid reloads
o ui: sidebar menu support for optional themes (contributed by Team Rebellion)
o plugins: os-dyndns 1.8 fixes Eurodns support
o plugins: os-theme-rebellion 1.3 (contributed by Team Rebellion)
o plugins: os-relayd 2.2 (contributed by Frank Brendel)
o plugins: os-siproxd 1.3 (contributed by Michael Muenz)
o ports: dhcp6c v20180720 with fix for raw support (contributed by Team Rebellion)
o ports: php 7.1.20[2]

Migration notes and minor incomatibilities to look out for:

o SSH access is now bound to the “wheel” group which is automatically
added to “admins” group, which “root” is a member of. “root” is the
only user that has a default shell, namely opnsense-shell, which is the
root console menu.
o SSH access can be set for an arbitrary group as well under System:
Administration for non-members of “admins” group. However, in both
cases only SCP works due to a request in the forum to be more proactive
regarding yielding of shell access rights. If you want a user to gain
true SSH access you need to change their shell from “nologin” to an
installed shell in their respective settings.
o Web GUI HTTPS ciphers have been hardened. To gain access please use a
recent browser.
o The authentication fallback for the GUI/system has been removed in
favour of selecting multiple authentication servers at once. Reassign
your fallback as a primary authentication method or now use more than
two methods.
o It has been found that although WAN interfaces require gateways to
function, they do not necessarily have to be assigned in single-WAN
scenarios to avoid interfering with WAN reply behaviour. The “none”
selection was therefore changed to “auto-detect” to reflect this and
now is the recommended setting unless multi-WAN is used.
o In preparation for the firewall alias API the per-item descriptions have
been removed along with support for the deprecated types urltable_ports
and url_ports.
o OpenVPN /31 tunnel network calculation changed to use the first and last
address as network address and broadcast address do not exist. If you
are affected, adjust your clients or export their configuration again
which includes the configuration fix. Additionally, /32 tunnel networks
are now prohibited.

All images are provided with SHA-256 signatures, which can be verified
against the distributed public key:

# openssl base64 -d -in image.bz2.sig -out /tmp/image.sig
# openssl dgst -sha256 -verify rsa.pub -signature /tmp/image.sig image.bz2

The public key for the 18.7 series is:

—–BEGIN PUBLIC KEY—–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—–END PUBLIC KEY—–

Stay safe and happy,
Your OPNsense team

—
[1] https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/install.html
[2] http://php.net/ChangeLog-7.php#7.1.20

# SHA256 (OPNsense-18.7-OpenSSL-dvd-amd64.iso.bz2) = 6b3528f8dea8de5c96de5547636fd51c40382c245b30eb215608acbd04fb7e91
# SHA256 (OPNsense-18.7-OpenSSL-nano-amd64.img.bz2) = cb0272f0bd945ea8070d9a40af2cd47a3b68e9bd389395b285bb9ab4128d1f00
# SHA256 (OPNsense-18.7-OpenSSL-serial-amd64.img.bz2) = a4556080532d22e9ab296e2c6e163b3d65d5fe54a642253e1c01a22721afa850
# SHA256 (OPNsense-18.7-OpenSSL-vga-amd64.img.bz2) = 4408840fba4177d44503968fce44d8ca7180003728660fd9c0a2e6920346008c

# SHA256 (OPNsense-18.7-OpenSSL-dvd-i386.iso.bz2) = 8ea49dcb512365a1e92e94fb38f1b4a85463ffacfb98c055e84e6340a6321ecf
# SHA256 (OPNsense-18.7-OpenSSL-nano-i386.img.bz2) = bdd753a63367944452d2d5d1e73e4aa9f3d607012d10c4274420d23867a4fbad
# SHA256 (OPNsense-18.7-OpenSSL-serial-i386.img.bz2) = f74f5fd1c24cc54002fa9b99a0c10b4402b3f748a315ff302126acb154cd2633
# SHA256 (OPNsense-18.7-OpenSSL-vga-i386.img.bz2) = 52208b57f9e89d235411df33faac71b8d9872d50947ff4c0dca6f552424a4d95