Michael Tremer, the developer of IPFire, has announced the release of IPFire 2.27 Core Update 182. This marks the first update of 2024 for this hardened, flexible, and modern open-source Linux firewall distribution designed for routers and firewalls.
The IPFire 2.27 Core Update 182 release features an updated version of the GRUB bootloader (version 2.12 RC1) and an updated CA certificate bundle. A significant change introduced with this update is a shift in the default firewall policy to block outbound SMTP traffic from internal networks.
Essentially, this modification will block all email spammers. This could potentially lead to IPFire installations getting blacklisted, causing complications for users trying to log into online banking. However, this modification will only apply to new IPFire installations. Existing installations will remain susceptible to this issue unless outgoing connections on port 25 (TCP) are manually blocked.
Michael Tremer explains the rationale behind this change, “We believe that this change that blocks any outgoing connections on port 25 (TCP) will stop this problem, as that port is only used for mailserver-to-mailserver communication. Client system will use Submission on port 578 or 465 instead and therefore this change should not cause any problems for almost all users, but block spam on the Internet.”
The IPFire 2.27 Core Update 182 release also updates a deprecated Tor directive that used to log a warning message and the Tor client/server packages to version 0.4.8.9 for all your anonymous surfing needs.
Many other packages have been updated as well, including dhcpcd 10.0.4, elfutils 0.190, gawk 5.3.0, harfbuzz 8.2.2, iproute2 6.6.0, libsodium 1.0.19, jq 1.7, linux-firmware 20231114, Lua 5.4.6, man 2.12.0, mcelog 196, mdns-repeater 1.11, Meson 1.2.3, OpenSSH 9.5p1, QPDF 11.6.1, SDL2 2.18.5, shadow 4.14.2, SQLite 3.44.1, Squid 6.5, strongSwan 5.9.12, sudo 1.9.15p2, Texinfo 7.1, unbound 1.19.0, usbutils 017, xfsprogs 6.5.0, and XZ Utils 5.4.5.
In addition, several add-ons received updated versions in IPFire 2.27 Core Update 182. These include ALSA 1.2.10, ClamAV 1.2.1, D-Bus 1.14.10, Git 2.42.1, Ghostscript 10.02.1, minicom 2.9, minidlna 1.3.3, MPD 0.23.14, nut 2.8.1, P11-Kit 0.25.2, Postfix 3.8.3, QEMU 8.1.2, spectre-meltdown-checker 0.46, and strace 6.6.
IPFire 2.27 Core Update 182 is available for download right now from the official website as an ISO image or as a USB image. More details about the changes included in the first update of the IPFire firewall distribution in 2024 can be found on the release announcement page.
Image credits: IPFire Project (edited by Marius Nestor)