FreeBSD 13.5 Overcomes UFS Y2038 Problem To Push It Out To Year 2106
Following last week's FreeBSD 13.5 Beta 1 release to kick off this next FreeBSD 13 point release that will also end the series, FreeBSD 13.5 Beta 2 is out this weekend for testing.
FreeBSD 13.5 continues working its way toward a stable release around mid-March and will then be supported until April 2026 before users should then move to FreeBSD 14 or FreeBSD 15.
While FreeBSD 13 will be end-of-life in just over one year's time, FreeBSD 13.5 Beta 2 does extend the UFS1 file-system to now supporting dates through the year 2106. FreeBSD 13's UFS file-system support had been plagued by the "Y2038" problem where it wouldn't be able to properly account for dates after 19 January 2038. But now with the newest code for FreeBSD 13.5, the date handling within this file-system has been reworked to now support file dates up through 7 February 2106. Details in this commit for those interested.
The Year 2106 problem in turn is when an unsigned 32-bit binary integer will roll over with the time since the Unix Epoch, compared to the Year 2038 problem with being a signed 32-bit integer.
FreeBSD 13.5 Beta 2 also now updates the pkg repository database so it's not out-of-date for newly-spun cloud images, "make delete-old" will now remove obsolete Clang/AArch64 files, rate limits on ICMP responses are now individually jittered, and various other bug fixes.
Downloads and more details on this weekend's FreeBSD 13.5 Beta 2 release via FreeBSD.org.
FreeBSD 13.5 continues working its way toward a stable release around mid-March and will then be supported until April 2026 before users should then move to FreeBSD 14 or FreeBSD 15.
While FreeBSD 13 will be end-of-life in just over one year's time, FreeBSD 13.5 Beta 2 does extend the UFS1 file-system to now supporting dates through the year 2106. FreeBSD 13's UFS file-system support had been plagued by the "Y2038" problem where it wouldn't be able to properly account for dates after 19 January 2038. But now with the newest code for FreeBSD 13.5, the date handling within this file-system has been reworked to now support file dates up through 7 February 2106. Details in this commit for those interested.
The Year 2106 problem in turn is when an unsigned 32-bit binary integer will roll over with the time since the Unix Epoch, compared to the Year 2038 problem with being a signed 32-bit integer.
FreeBSD 13.5 Beta 2 also now updates the pkg repository database so it's not out-of-date for newly-spun cloud images, "make delete-old" will now remove obsolete Clang/AArch64 files, rate limits on ICMP responses are now individually jittered, and various other bug fixes.
Downloads and more details on this weekend's FreeBSD 13.5 Beta 2 release via FreeBSD.org.