FreeBSD 3.4-RELEASE Announced

The FreeBSD Team announced today (12/20/99) that version 3.4-RELEASE of their BSD-UNIX is now available
for download. On the heels of 3.3-RELEASE which was shipped in October, 3.4 seeks to fix up some
bugs and improve the overall OS.

Support has been added for many new hardware components, including ISDN modems, and support for Adaptec 152x/151x/AIC-6360 SCSI controllers (previously removed).

The 3.4-RELEASE kernel features a new program called Netgraph, which provides a “uniform and modular system for the implementation of kernel objects which perform various networking functions.” This will help simplify and unify networking in FreeBSD. To enable it, “options NETGRAPH” must be added to the kernel.

3.4-RELEASE incorporates “blocking [of] incoming ICMP redirects, outgoing RST frames and incoming SYN|FIN frames” which will help to counteract certain kinds of Denial of Service attacks, which slow down servers by overloading them with fake packets of information over the Internet. Support has also been added for
forwarding IP ‘datagrams’ without “inspecting or decreasing the TTL.” This will make network gateways and firewalls harder for intruders to locate, and therefore less exposed to attacks.

Furthermore, FreeBSD’s PPP (Point to Point Protocol; used by analog modems), will now support PPPoE (PPP over Ethernet), as well as PPP over ISDN.

FreeBSD 3.4-RELEASE is free for download at ftp.freebsd.org and many other FTP mirror sites. The CD image is 660MB and can be downloaded via the FTP.

CD copies can be ordered from The FreeBSD Mall, on a 4 CD set including installation files for the x86 architecture, as well as “a lot of other material of general interest to programmers and end-users alike.” 3.4-RELEASE for Alpha is now available from the main FTP site and will also be made available on CD in a few weeks.