# Kea 2.5.6 Release Notes, February 28, 2024 Welcome to Kea 2.5.6, the seventh monthly release of the 2.5 development series. As with any other development release, use this with caution: development releases are not recommended for production use. Kea is a DHCP implementation developed by Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) that features DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 servers with DNS update and a REST API; optional database support (MySQL and PostgreSQL); optional RADIUS, Kerberos, YANG/NETCONF, and GSS-TSIG support; and much more. Kea provides extensive management capabilities, including but not limited to: TLS support, Role-Based Access Control, run-time configuration monitoring and updates via a REST API, host reservations, and client classification. The text below references issue numbers. For more details, visit the Kea GitLab page at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/issues. For details about Docker issues, visit the page at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea-docker/-/issues/. For details about packaging, visit the page at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea-packaging/-/issues/. The following bug fixes and features have been implemented since the previous release, version 2.5.5: 1. **DNR options**: The implementation of the Discovery of Network-designated Resolvers (DNR) option has been changed to respect the encoding of service parameters updated in RFC9463, RFC9461, and RFC9460. To facilitate the configuration of these service parameters, a convenient notation was introduced [#3141]. 2. **Database improvements**: The database schema is now initialized on startup if the configured database is empty [#3025]. 3. **perfmon hook library**: Building blocks have been placed for a new open source hook library, libdhcp_perfmon.so, meant to track server performance and report on performance-impacting events [#3230, #3231, #3242, #3245]. 4. **RADIUS**: RADIUS packets are now sent asynchronously, allowing other DHCP packets to be processed until a RADIUS response is received [#2022]. The RADIUS hook library, libdhcp_radius.so, is still single-threaded at this time. 5. **Code maintenance**: An iterator is now properly checked in perfdhcp [#3185]. A potential use-after-free on server exit was fixed when Botan is used [#3193]. ## Incompatible Changes None. ## Other We are initiating a clean-up of older repositories on Cloudsmith. The repositories hosting development branches 1.9 and 2.1 will be decommissioned on February 29, 2024. The repository for the 2.3 releases is scheduled for removal on March 29, 2024. Moreover, the repository for the 2.5 releases will be phased out following the public availability of the stable 2.6.0 release. Additionally, beginning with the 2.7.X release series, we will be launching a new repository on Cloudsmith, named kea-dev, which will host the 2.7.X release alongside all future development releases. Repositories for stable releases will remain unaffected. Should you require packages from the 1.9, 2.1, or 2.3 releases, we strongly recommend creating a backup copy. It's possible to use the wget tool to download specific packages, e.g: wget https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/isc/kea-2-1/deb/debian/pool/stretch/main/ p/py/python3-isc-kea-connector_2.1.7-isc20220627172414/python3-isc-kea-co nnector_2.1.7-isc20220627172414_all.deb Or use a package manager: `apt-get download <package-name>`; `dnf download <package-name>`; The source code for each release can always be accessed and will continue to be available on our downloads site at https://downloads.isc.org/isc/kea/. ## License This version of Kea is released under the Mozilla Public License, version 2.0. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0 Some Kea hook libraries are provided under the MPL 2.0; others are licensed with the [Kea Hooks Basic Commercial End User License](https://www.isc.org/kea-premium-license/). The source for each hook library includes the applicable license. ## Download Pre-built ISC packages for current versions of the most popular Linux operating systems are available at: https://cloudsmith.io/~isc/repos/ Pre-built Docker images as well as Docker files are available. For details, see: https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea-docker The Kea source and PGP signature for this release may be downloaded from: https://www.isc.org/download The signature was generated with the ISC code-signing key, which is available at: https://www.isc.org/pgpkey ISC provides detailed documentation, including installation instructions and usage tutorials, in the Kea Administrator Reference Manual. Documentation is included with the installation or at https://kea.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html in HTML, PDF, or EPUB formats. ISC maintains a public open source code tree, wiki, issue tracking system, milestone planner, and roadmap at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea. Limitations and known issues with this release can be found at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/wikis/known-issues-list. We ask users of this software to please let us know how it worked for you and what operating system you tested on. Feel free to share your feedback on the Kea Users mailing list (https://lists.isc.org/mailman/listinfo/kea-users). We would also like to hear whether the documentation is adequate and accurate. Please open tickets in the Kea GitLab project for bugs, documentation omissions and errors, and enhancement requests. We want to hear from you even if everything worked. ## Support Professional support for Kea is available from ISC. We encourage all professional users to consider this option; Kea maintenance is funded with support subscriptions. For more information on ISC's Kea software support, see https://www.isc.org/support/. Free best-effort support is provided by our user community via a mailing list. Information on all public email lists is available at https://www.isc.org/community/mailing-list. If you have any comments or questions about working with Kea, please share them to the Kea Users list (https://lists.isc.org/mailman/listinfo/kea-users). Bugs and feature requests may be submitted via GitLab at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/issues. ## Changes The following summarizes changes and important upgrades since the 2.5.5 release. 2208. [build] razvan The library version numbers have been bumped up for the Kea 2.5.6 development release. (Gitlab #3261) 2207. [func] piotrek Kea now supports DNR options as specified in RFC9463, RFC9461, RFC9460. The option may be configured using convenient notation, where Kea takes care of complex option encoding to be inline with RFCs. (Gitlab #3141) 2206. [func] andrei DHCP servers now initialize the database schema automatically on startup or on reconfiguration if there is at least one database backend configured and if the configured database is empty. (Gitlab #3025) 2205. [func] tmark Perfmon hook library now dumps the packet event stack of query packets to debug logging after they have been processed. (Gitlab #3231) 2204. [func] tmark The skeleton of a new open source hook library, libdhcp_perfmon.so, has been added. The library is still in development and does not yet provide any functionality. (Gitlab #3242) And for Kea premium: 192. [doc] fdupont, andrei Radius access exchange is now performed asynchronously. (Gitlab #2022) Thank you again to everyone who assisted us in making this release possible. We look forward to receiving your feedback.