/mandos/trunk

This NEWS file records noteworthy changes, very tersely.

See the manual for detailed information.

Version 1.8.19 (2025-06-27)

* No user-visible changes

Version 1.8.18 (2024-11-24)

* Client

** Detect GPGME version correctly when building initramfs.

* Server

** Only connect D-Bus when necessary.

** If a network socket is externally configured, avoid closing it, and

   also make it non-inheritable.

** mandos-keygen: Support ssh-keyscan from OpenSSH 9.8 or later.

** mandos-monitor: Avoid debug messages and deprecation warnings from

   Urwid.

Version 1.8.17 (2024-09-12)

* Improve documentation slightly, especially how to add extra options

  to mandos-client when using dracut with systemd.

* Make life easier for distribution packagers by making sure that

  "make install" creates all required directories.

* Server

** When seeing clients.conf entries lacking both fingerprint and

   key_id, show a warning and ignore them instead of crashing,

* Client

** Suppress most spurious compiler warnings.

** Use 64-bit time.

** In initramfs-tools-hook, be aware of new name of GPGME library,

   libgpgme11t64.

** In password-agent(8mandos), look for a Plymouth process in

   alphabetical order, not in reverse alphabetical order.  This is

   technically a user-visible change, but should never matter in

   practice.

Version 1.8.16 (2023-02-08)

* Server

** Bug fix: Start client checkers after a random delay

Version 1.8.15 (2022-04-25)

* Server

** Bug fix: When running "mandos-keygen --password" to read a password

   interactively (to save in a section in the clients.conf file),

   backslashes in the password are no longer interpreted as backslash

   escapes.

** GnuTLS debug output no longer has a "b'" prefix.

Version 1.8.14 (2021-02-03)

* Client

** Create /dev/fd symlink (if necessary) in plugin-runner(8mandos) and

   mandos-client(8mandos) (Workaround for Debian bug #981302)

Version 1.8.13 (2020-11-30)

* Client

** Fix unreliable test in password-agent(8mandos).

Version 1.8.12 (2020-07-04)

* Client

** Fix compatibility with the GNU C Library version 2.31.

** In initramfs-tools boots, only use setsid(1) when available.

Version 1.8.11 (2020-04-08)

* Client

** Fix file descriptor leak when adding or removing local routes to

   unreachable hosts on the local network.

Version 1.8.10 (2020-03-21)

* Server

** Fix bug when setting a client's D-Bus "Secret" property

** Start client checkers after a random delay

** When using systemd, allow easier modification of server options

** Better log messages in mandos-monitor

* Client

** When using dracut & systemd, allow easier modification of options

Version 1.8.9 (2019-09-03)

* No user-visible changes

Version 1.8.8 (2019-08-18)

* No user-visible changes

Version 1.8.7 (2019-08-05)

* Client:

** Always compile with LFS (Large File Support) enabled.

* Server

** Improve intro(8mandos) manual page to cover dracut(8) support.

Version 1.8.6 (2019-08-03)

* Client:

** dracut support: In password-agent, properly ignore deleted and

   renamed question files, and also fix memory alignment issue.

Version 1.8.5 (2019-07-30)

* Client

** Support dracut(8) as well as initramfs-tools(7).

** Minor bug fix: Allow the mandos-keygen --passfile option to use

   passfiles with names starting with "-".

** Document known limitation of mandos-keygen --password; it strips

   white space from start and end of the password.

* Server

** Bug fix: The server used to fail to restart if the "port" setting

   was used.  This has been fixed.

** Minor bug fix: Reap zombies left over from checker runs.  (Debian

   bug #933387)

Version 1.8.4 (2019-04-09)

* Client

** Fix minor memory leak in plugin-runner.

* Server

** mandos-ctl now has a --debug option to show D-Bus calls.

Version 1.8.3 (2019-02-11)

* No user-visible changes.

Version 1.8.2 (2019-02-10)

* Client

** In mandos-keygen, ignore failures to remove files in some cases.

Version 1.8.1 (2019-02-10)

* Client

** Only generate TLS keys using GnuTLS' certtool, of sufficient

   version.  Key generation of TLS keys will not happen until a

   version of GnuTLS is installed with support for raw public keys.

** Remove any bad keys created by 1.8.0 and openssl.

* Server

** On installation, edit clients.conf and remove the same bad key ID

   which was erroneously reported by all 1.8.0 clients.  Also do not

   trust this key ID in the server.

Version 1.8.0 (2019-02-10)

* Client

** Use new TLS keys for server communication and identification.

   With GnuTLS 3.6 or later, OpenPGP keys are no longer supported.

   The client can now use the new "raw public keys" (RFC 7250) API

   instead, using GnuTLS 3.6.6.  Please note: This *requires* new key

   IDs to be added to server's client.conf file.

** New --tls-privkey and --tls-pubkey options to load TLS key files.

   If GnuTLS is too old, these options do nothing.

* Server

** Supports either old or new GnuTLS.

   The server now supports using GnuTLS 3.6.6 and clients connecting

   with "raw public keys" as identification.  The server will read

   both fingerprints and key IDs from clients.conf file, and will use

   either one or the other, depending on what is supported by GnuTLS

   on the system.  Please note: both are *not* supported at once; if

   one type is supported by GnuTLS, all values of the other type from

   clients.conf are ignored.

Version 1.7.20 (2018-08-19)

* Client

** Fix: Adapt to the Debian cryptsetup package 2.0.3 or later.

   Important: in that version or later, the plugins "askpass-fifo",

   "password-prompt", and "plymouth" will no longer be run, since they

   would conflict with what cryptsetup is doing.  Other plugins, such

   as mandos-client and any user-supplied plugins, will still run.

** Better error message if failing to decrypt secret data

** Check for (and report) any key import failure from GPGME

** Better error message if self-signature verification fails

** Set system clock if not set; required by GnuPG for key import

** When debugging plugin-runner, it will now show starting plugins

Version 1.7.19 (2018-02-22)

* Client

** Do not print "unlink(...): No such file or directory".

** Bug fixes: Fix file descriptor leaks.

** Bug fix: Don't use leak sanitizer with leaking libraries.

Version 1.7.18 (2018-02-12)

* Client

** Bug fix: Revert faulty fix for a nonexistent bug in the

   plugin-runner

Version 1.7.17 (2018-02-10)

* Client

** Bug fix: Fix a memory leak in the plugin-runner

** Bug fix: Fix memory leaks in the plymouth plugin

Version 1.7.16 (2017-08-20)

* Client

** Bug fix: ignore "resumedev" entries in initramfs' cryptroot file

** Bug fix in plymouth plugin: fix memory leak, avoid warning output

Version 1.7.15 (2017-02-23)

* Server

** Bug fix: Respect the mandos.conf "zeroconf" and "restore" options

* Client

** Bug fix in mandos-keygen: Handle backslashes in passphrases

Version 1.7.14 (2017-01-25)

* Server

** Use "Requisite" instead of "RequisiteOverridable" in systemd

   service file.

Version 1.7.13 (2016-10-08)

* Client

** Minor bug fix: Don't ask for passphrase or fail when generating

   keys using GnuPG 2.1 in a chrooted environment.

Version 1.7.12 (2016-10-05)

* Client

** Bug fix: Don't crash after exit() when using DH parameters file

Version 1.7.11 (2016-10-01)

* Client

** Security fix: Don't compile with AddressSanitizer

* Server

** Bug fix: Find GnuTLS library when gnutls28-dev is not installed

** Bug fix: Include "Expires" and "Last Checker Status" in mandos-ctl

   verbose output

** New option for mandos-ctl: --dump-json

Version 1.7.10 (2016-06-23)

* Client

** Security fix: restrict permissions of /etc/mandos/plugin-helpers

* Server

** Bug fix: Make the --interface flag work with Python 2.7 when "cc"

   is not installed

Version 1.7.9 (2016-06-22)

* Client

** Do not include intro(8mandos) man page

Version 1.7.8 (2016-06-21)

* Client

** Include intro(8mandos) man page

** mandos-keygen: Use ECDSA SSH keys by default

** Bug fix: Work with GnuPG 2 when booting (Debian bug #819982)

   by copying /usr/bin/gpg-agent into initramfs

* Server

** Bug fix: Work with GnuPG 2 (don't use --no-use-agent option)

** Bug fix: Make the --interface option work when using Python 2.7

   by trying harder to find SO_BINDTODEVICE

Version 1.7.7 (2016-03-19)

* Client

** Fix bug in Plymouth client, broken since 1.7.2

Version 1.7.6 (2016-03-13)

* Server

** Fix bug where stopping server would time out

** Make server runnable with Python 3

Version 1.7.5 (2016-03-08)

* Server

** Fix security restrictions in systemd service file.

** Work around bug where stopping server would time out

Version 1.7.4 (2016-03-05)

* Client

** Bug fix: Tolerate errors from configure_networking (Debian Bug

   #816513)

** Compilation: Only use sanitizing options which work with the

   compiler used when building.  This should fix compilation with GCC

   4.9 on mips, mipsel, and s390x.

* Server

** Add extra security restrictions in systemd service file.

Version 1.7.3 (2016-02-29)

* Client

** Bug fix: Remove new type of keyring directory user by GnuPG 2.1.

** Bug fix: Remove "nonnull" attribute from a function argument, which

   would otherwise generate a spurious runtime warning.

Version 1.7.2 (2016-02-28)

* Server

** Stop using python-gnutls library; it was not updated to GnuTLS 3.3.

** Bug fix: Only send D-Bus signal ClientRemoved if using D-Bus.

** Use GnuPG 2 if available.

* Client

** Compile with various sanitizing flags.

Version 1.7.1 (2015-10-24)

* Client

** Bug fix: Can now really find Mandos server even if the server has

   an IPv6 address on a network other than the one which the Mandos

   server is on.

Version 1.7.0 (2015-08-10)

* Server

** Bug fix: Handle local Zeroconf service name collisions better.

** Bug fix: Finally fix "ERROR: Child process vanished" bug.

** Bug fix: Fix systemd service file to start server correctly.

** Bug fix: Be compatible with old 2048-bit DSA keys.

** The D-Bus API now provides the standard D-Bus ObjectManager

   interface, and deprecates older functionality.  See the DBUS-API

   file for the currently recommended API.  Note: the original API

   still works, but is deprecated.

* Client

** Can now find Mandos server even if the server has an IPv6 address

   on a network without IPv6 Router Advertisment (like if the Mandos

   client itself is the router, or there is an IPv6 router advertising

   a network other than the one which the Mandos server is on.)

** Use a better value than 1024 for the default number of DH bits.

   This better value is either provided by a DH parameters file (see

   below) or an appropriate number of DH bits is determined based on

   the PGP key.

** Bug fix: mandos-keygen now generates correct output for the

   "Checker" variable even if the SSH server on the Mandos client has

   multiple SSH key types.

** Can now use pre-generated Diffie-Hellman parameters from a file.

Version 1.6.9 (2014-10-05)

* Server

** Changed to emit standard D-Bus signal when D-Bus properties change.

   (The old signal is still emitted too, but marked as deprecated.)

Version 1.6.8 (2014-08-06)

* Client

** Bug fix: mandos-keygen now generates working SSH checker commands.

* Server

** Bug fix: "mandos-monitor" now really redraws screen on Ctrl-L.

** Now requires Python 2.7.

Version 1.6.7 (2014-07-17)

* Client

** Bug fix: Now compatible with GPGME 1.5.0.

** Bug fix: Fixed minor memory leaks.

* Server

** "mandos-monitor" now has verbose logging, toggleable with "v".

Version 1.6.6 (2014-07-13)

* Client

** If client host has an SSH server, "mandos-keygen --password" now

   outputs "checker" option which uses "ssh-keyscan"; this is more

   secure than the default "fping" checker.

** Bug fix: allow "." in network hook names, to match documentation.

** Better error messages.

* Server

** New --no-zeroconf option.

** Bug fix: Fix --servicename option, broken since 1.6.4.

** Bug fix: Fix --socket option work for --socket=0.

Version 1.6.5 (2014-05-11)

* Client

** Work around bug in GnuPG <http://bugs.g10code.com/gnupg/issue1622>

** Give better error messages when run without sufficient privileges

** Only warn if workaround for Debian bug #633582 was necessary and

   failed, not if it failed and was unnecessary.

Version 1.6.4 (2014-02-16)

* Server

** Very minor fix to self-test code.

Version 1.6.3 (2014-01-21)

* Server

** Add systemd support.

** For PID file, fall back to /var/run if /run does not exist.

* Client

** Moved files from /usr/lib/mandos to whatever the architecture

   specifies, like /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mandos or

   /usr/lib64/mandos.

Version 1.6.2 (2013-10-24)

* Server

** PID file moved from /var/run to /run.

** Bug fix: Handle long secrets when saving client state.

** Bug fix: Use more magic in the GnuTLS priority string to handle

   both old DSA/ELG 2048-bit keys and new RSA/RSA 4096-bit keys.

* Client

** mandos-keygen: Bug fix: now generate RSA keys which GnuTLS can use.

   		  Bug fix: Output passphrase prompts even when

   		  redirecting standard output.

Version 1.6.1 (2013-10-13)

* Server

** All client options for time intervals now also take an RFC 3339

   duration.  The same for all options to mandos-ctl.

** Bug fix: Handle fast checkers (like ":") correctly.

** Bug fix: Don't print output from checkers when running in

   foreground.

** Bug fix: Do not fail when client is removed from clients.conf but

   saved settings remain.

** Bug fix: mandos-monitor now displays standout (reverse video) again

   using new version of Urwid.

** Bug fix: Make boolean options work from the config file again.

** Bug fix: Make --no-ipv6 work again.

** New default priority string to be slightly more compatible with

   older versions of GnuTLS.

* Client

** Bug fix: Fix bashism in mandos-keygen.

** Default key and subkey types are now RSA and RSA, respectively.

   Also, new default key size is 4096 bits.

Version 1.6.0 (2012-06-18)

* Server

** Takes new --foreground option

** Init script supports new "status" action.

* Client

** Now uses all interfaces by default; the --interface option can

   still be used to restrict it, and the argument to --interface (as

   well as the $DEVICE environment variable for the network hooks) is

   now a comma-separated list of interfaces to use.

Version 1.5.5 (2012-06-01)

* Server

** Server takes new --socket option

Version 1.5.4 (2012-05-20)

* Server

** Bug fix: Regression fix: Make non-zero approval timeout values work.

** Bug fix: Regression fix: Allow changing the Timeout D-Bus property.

** Fall back to not bind to an interface if an invalid interface name

   is given.

** Removed support for undocumented feature of using plain "%%s" in

   "checker" client option.

** Old D-Bus interface are now marked as deprecated.

** mandos-monitor: Bug fix: show approval timers correctly.

** mandos-ctl: Show "Extended Timeout" correctly, not as milliseconds.

Version 1.5.3 (2012-01-15)

* Server

** Add D-Bus property se.recompile.Client.LastCheckerStatus and use it

   in mandos-monitor.

* Client

** Fix bugs in the example "bridge" network hook.

Version 1.5.2 (2012-01-08)

* Server

** Removed D-Bus signal se.recompile.Mandos.NewRequest() added in

   1.5.0.  It was buggy and was of questionable utility.

Version 1.5.1 (2012-01-01)

* Server

** Include intro(8mandos) manual page, missing since migration from

   README file in version 1.4.0.

Version 1.5.0 (2012-01-01)

* Client

** Network hooks.  The Mandos client can now run custom scripts to take

   up a network interface before the client is run.  Three example

   scripts are provided: "wireless", "openvpn", and "bridge".

   To facilitate this, the client now prefers network interfaces which

   are up (if any) over all other interfaces.

* Server

** Persistent state.  Client state is now saved between server

   restarts.

** clients.conf file can now contain "enabled" setting for clients.

** Bug fix: Fix rare crash bug.

** Bug fix: Send corrent D-Bus type in PropertyChanged for

   "ApprovalDelay", "ApprovalDuration", "Timeout", and

   "ExtendedTimeout".

** mandos-ctl: Bare numbers as arguments are taken to be milliseconds.

** Bug fix: mandos-ctl --secret option now works.

** New D-Bus signal: se.recompile.Mandos.NewRequest(s).

Version 1.4.1 (2011-10-15)

* Server

** Make D-Bus properties settable again, and handle checkers

   for disabled clients correctly.

* Miscellaneous fixes to "pedantic" Lintian warnings

Version 1.4.0 (2011-10-09)

* README file migrated to manual page intro(8mandos).

* Client:

** Fixed warning about "rmdir: Directory not empty".

* Server:

** Default values changed: timeout 5 minutes, interval 2 minutes.

** Clients gets an expiration extension when receiving a password,

   controlled by new "extended_timeout" setting.

** New domain name: "fukt.bsnet.se" changes to "recompile.se".  This

   also affects the D-Bus bus and interface names (old names still

   work).  Users should start using the new names immediately.

** New D-Bus Client object properties "Expires" and "ExtendedTimeout";

   see DBUS-API for details.

Version 1.3.1 (2011-07-27)

* Client:

** Client now retries all Mandos servers periodically.

** Work around Debian bug #633582 - fixes "Permission denied" problem.

Version 1.3.0 (2011-03-08)

* Server:

** Updated for Python 2.6.

* Client:

** Bug fix: Make the password-prompt plugin not conflict with

   Plymouth.

** Bug fix: Bug fix: update initramfs also when purging package.

Version 1.2.3 (2010-10-11)

* Server:

** Bug fix: Expose D-Bus API also in non-debug mode.

Version 1.2.2 (2010-10-07)

* Client:

** splashy: Minor fix to compile with non-Linux kernels.

Version 1.2.1 (2010-10-02)

* Server:

** mandos-monitor(8): Documentation bug fix: Key for removing client

   is "R", not "r".

Version 1.2 (2010-09-28)

* Client:

** New "plymouth" plugin to ask for a password using the Plymouth

   graphical boot system.

** The Mandos client now automatically chooses a network interface if

   the DEVICE setting in /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf is set to

   the empty string.  This is also the new default instead of "eth0".

** The Mandos client --connect option now loops indefinitely until a

   password is received from the specified server.

** Bug fix: Quote directory correctly in mandos-keygen with --password

** Bug fix: don't use "echo -e" in mandos-keygen; unsupported by dash.

* Server:

** Terminology change: clients are now "ENABLED" or "DISABLED", not

   "valid" or "invalid".

** New D-Bus API; see the file "DBUS-API".

** New control utilities using the new D-Bus API:

   + mandos-ctl		       A command-line based utility

   + mandos-monitor	       A text-based GUI interface

** New feature: manual interactive approval or denying of clients on a

   case-by-case basis.

** New --debuglevel option to control logging

** Will not write PID file if --debug is passed

** Bug fix: Avoid race conditions with short "interval" values or

   fast checkers.

** Bug fix: Don't try to bind to a network interface when none is

   specified

Version 1.0.14 (2009-10-25)

Enable building without -pie and -fPIE if BROKEN_PIE is set.

Version 1.0.13 (2009-10-22)

* Client

** Security bug fix: If Mandos server is also installed, do not copy

   its config files (with encrypted passwords) into the initrd.img-*

   files.

Version 1.0.12 (2009-09-17)

* Client

** Bug fix: Allow network interface renaming by "udev" by taking down

   the network interface after using it.

** Bug fix: User-supplied plugins are now installed correctly.

** Bug fix: If usplash was used but the password was instead provided

   by the Mandos server, the usplash daemon used to ignore the first

   command passed to it.  This has been fixed.

** Bug fix: Make the "--userid" and "--groupid" options in

   "plugin-runner.conf" work.

* Server

** Bug fix: Fix the LSB header in the init.d script to make dependency

   based booting work.

** A client receiving its password now also counts as if a checker was

   run successfully (i.e. the timeout timer is reset).

Version 1.0.11 (2009-05-23)

* Client

** Bug fix: Use "pkg-config" instead of old "libgnutls-config".

Version 1.0.10 (2009-05-17)

* Client

** Security bug fix: Fix permissions on initrd.img-*.bak files when

   upgrading from older versions.

Version 1.0.9 (2009-05-17)

* Client

** Security bug fix: Fix permissions on initrd.img file when

   installing new linux-image-* packages calling mkinitramfs-kpkg (all

   version lower than 2.6.28-1-* does this).

Version 1.0.8 (2009-02-25)

* Client

** Bug fix: Fix missing quote characters in initramfs-tools-hook.

Version 1.0.7 (2009-02-24)

* Client

** Bug fix: Do not depend on GNU awk.

Version 1.0.6 (2009-02-13)

* Server

** Fix bug where server would stop responding, with a zombie checker

** Support for disabling IPv6 (only for advanced users)

** Fix bug which made server not change group ID

* Client

** Bug fix: Fix permission for /lib64 (on relevant architechtures).

** Add support for IPv4 addresses.

** Add support in mandos-client for not bringing up a network

   interface by specifying an empty string to "--interface".

** Make password prompt on boot not be mangled by kernel log messages

   about network interface.

** Get network interface from initramfs.conf and/or from kernel

   command line.

** If set by "ip=" kernel command line, configure network on boot.

** Support connecting directly using "mandos=connect" kernel command.

   line option, provided network is configured using "ip=".

** Fix bug which made plugin-runner and mandos-client not change group

   ID.

** Fix bug where the "--options-for" option of plugin-runner would

   truncate the value at the first colon character.

** Fix bug where plugin-runner would not go to fallback if all plugins

   failed.

** Fix bug where mandos-client would not clean temporary directory on

   a signal or on certain file systems.

** Bug fix: remove bashism in /bin/sh script "mandos-keygen".

Version 1.0.5 (2009-01-17)

* Client

** Fix small memory leak in plugin-runner.

Version 1.0.4 (2009-01-15)

* Server

** Only find matched user/group pairs when searching for suitable

   nonprivileged user/group to switch to.

* Client

** New kernel parameter "mandos=off" makes client not run at boot.

** Fix linking errors and compilation warnings on AMD64.

** Parse numbers in command line options better.

** The splashy and usplash plugins are more robust while traversing

   /proc, and will not abort if a process suddenly disappears.

Version 1.0.3 (2009-01-06)

* Server

** Now tries to change to user and group "_mandos" before falling back

   to trying the old values "mandos", "nobody:nogroup", and "65534".

** Now does not abort on startup even if no clients are defined in

   clients.conf.

* Client

** Plugins named "*.dpkg-bak" are now ignored.

** Hopefully fixed compilation failure on some architectures where the

   C compiler does not recognize the "-z" option as a linker option.

Version 1.0.2 (2008-10-17)

* mandos-keygen now signs the encrypted key blobs.  This signature is

  not currently verified by mandos-client, but this may change in the

  future.

Version 1.0.1 (2008-10-07)

* Server

** Expand environment variables and ~user in clients.conf's "secfile"

   The "secfile" option in /etc/mandos/clients.conf now expands

   "~user/foo" and "$ENVVAR" strings.

* Client (plugin-runner, plugins, etc.)

** Manual pages for the usplash, splashy, and askpass-fifo plugins.

   All plugins now have man pages.

** More secure compilation and linking flags.

   All programs are now compiled with "-fstack-protector-all -fPIE

   -pie", and linked using "-z relro -pie" for additional security.

* There is now a "NEWS" file (this one), giving a history of

  noteworthy changes.