Welcome to the Circle Linux. We are excited to announce the general availability of the Circle Linux 8.3 for x86_64 and aarch64 architectures. This release is the culmination of months of hard work from every corner of the community.
The Circle Linux distribution is a dependable, smooth and safe platform building from the downstream of upstream vendor (acting as the previous CentOS role). Circle Linux conforms fully with redistribution policy and aims to have full functional compatibility with the upstream product.
Download
To download the release of Circle Linux, visit https://www.cclinux.org/download.
Major Changes
Security
Cyrus SASL now supports channel bindings with the SASL/GSSAPI and SASL/GSS-SPNEGO plug-ins. As a result, when used in the openldap libraries, this feature enables Cyrus SASL to maintain compatibility with and access to Microsoft Active Directory and Microsoft Windows systems which are introducing mandatory channel binding for LDAP connections.
Libreswan has been rebased to upstream version 3.32. Libreswan now implements the cryptographic recommendations of RFC 8247, and changes the preference from SHA-1 and RSA-PKCS v1.5 to SHA-2 and RSA-PSS. Libreswan supports XFRMi virtual ipsecXX interfaces that simplify writing firewall rules.
The libssh library has been rebased to version 0.9.4. This update adds support for Ed25519 keys in PEM files, diffie-hellman-group14-sha256 key exchange algorithm, and localuser in Match keyword in the libssh client configuration file.
The gnutls packages have been rebased to upstream version 3.6.14. gnutls now rejects certificates with Time fields that contain invalid characters or formatting. gnutls now checks trusted CA certificates for minimum key sizes.
The openscap packages have been upgraded to upstream version 1.3.3. This update adds the autotailor script that enables you to generate tailoring files using a command-line interface (CLI).
Networking
The IPv4 and IPv6 connection tracking modules have been merged into the nf_conntrack module.
NetworkManager resets the auto-negotiation, speed, and duplex setting to their original value when deactivating a device.
XDP is conditionally supported. xdp-tools is partially supported.
The dracut utility by default now uses NetworkManager in initial RAM disk.
Network configuration in the kernel command line has been consolidated under the ip parameter.
Kernel
Circle Linux 8.3 now supports the page owner tracking feature. The page owner tracker will track the kernel memory consumption, which helps to debug kernel memory leaks and detect the drivers that use a lot of memory.
Flamegraph is now supported with perf tool. The perf command line tool supports flamegraphs to create a graphical representation of the system’s performance. The perf data is grouped together into samples with similar stack backtraces. As a result, this data is converted into a visual representation to allow easier identification of computationally intensive areas of code.
The libbpf package, crucial for bpf related applications like bpftrace and bpf/xdp development, is now fully supported.
lshw utility now provides additional CPU information.
The Mellanox ConnectX-6 Dx network adapter is now fully supported.
High Availability and Clusters
Pacemaker now supports the new priority-fencing-delay cluster property, which allows you to configure a two-node cluster so that in a split-brain situation the node with the fewest resources running is the node that gets fenced.
Pacemaker now supports recovery by demoting a promoted resource rather than fully stopping it.
The /etc/sysconfig/sbd file now supports the SBD_SYNC_RESOURCE_STARTUP parameter to better control synchronization between SBD and Pacemaker.
Dynamic programming languages, web and database servers
Later versions of the following components are now available as new module streams:
- nginx 1.18
- Node.js 14
- Perl 5.30
- PHP 7.4
- Ruby 2.7
The following components have been updated in Circle Linux 8.3:
- Git to version 2.27
- Squid to version 4.4
The following compilers and development tools have been updated:
- GCC Toolset 10
- LLVM Toolset 10.0.0
- Rust Toolset 1.47.0
- Go Toolset 1.14.12
Known Issues
Since Circle Linux is based on RHEL source code, the known issues in RHEL release notes are likely to appear in Circle Linux. We will be updating this section with new items or bugs as they are discovered.
Sources
All Circle Linux 8 sources are hosted at https://git.cclinux.org.
Getting Help
The Circle Linux is sustained by community driven help and guidance. If you are new to Circle Linux, the best place to start is at https://wiki.cclinux.org/en/home.
Thanks
We thank everyone involved for helping us produce this product. Without them working lots and lots of hours in evenings, nights, weekends and holidays, we couldn’t have released this Release in the time we did, and we couldn’t witness the great changes in the community.
Copyright (C) 2021 The Circle Linux Project