# Kea 2.5.7 Release Notes, March 27, 2024 Welcome to Kea 2.5.7, the eighth 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 2.5.6: 1. **Multi-threaded RADIUS**: The RADIUS hook library is now multi-threaded; this is the last hook library that was missing multi-threading compatibility. A thread pool now helps process RADIUS exchanges, and a configuration entry, thread-pool-size, can limit the maximum number of spawned threads. The RADIUS hook library is available only to ISC paid support subscribers [#3262]. 2. **Legacy code removal**: A substantial amount of old legacy code that Kea inherited from the BIND 10 days was removed. There should be no user-visible changes; however, much of the old generic code was removed, so the build process should be faster and the binaries should be a bit smaller [#3208, #3210, #3211, #3212, #3285]. 3. **Performance monitor hook**: The work continues on performance monitor, a new hook useful for identifying bottlenecks in Kea performance. While the hook is not yet functional, it now has the ability to store the duration of monitored events and alarms. Those features will be used by the code expected in the coming releases [#3253]. A test that was failing on MacOS was fixed [#3270]. 4. **Bug fixes**: Some hooks using multi-threading postpone their startup until after the configuration has been completed. If the hook subsequently failed the startup, the error would not have been properly propagated. The fix ensures that the errors are reported during the configuration stage [#2692]. The code is now more defensive when going through a shutdown procedure. This addresses some of the issues reported for an unclean Kea shutdown [#3190] A problem with database reconnection after a failure was fixed and Kea no longer attempts rapid reconnects [#3300]. 5. **Build improvements**: Several previously missing headers are now installed [#3267]. Several dependencies in documentation building environments were updated [#3079]. The hammer tool now prints the list of supported systems correctly [#3249]. Several Doxygen errors were corrected [#3280]. ## Incompatible Changes None. ## Other We are continuing to clean up older repositories on Cloudsmith. The repository for the 2.3 releases is scheduled for removal on March 29, 2024. The repository for the 2.5 releases will be phased out following the public availability of the stable 2.6.0 release. 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 is 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 `; `dnf download `; 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 2.5.6 release. 2213. [build] razvan The library version numbers have been bumped up for the Kea 2.5.7 development release. (Gitlab #3304) 2212. [build] tomek The jinja dependency, used in building documentation, was updated. (Gitlab #3079) 2211. [bug] razvan, tmark Corrected an issue in kea-dhcp4 and kea-dhcp6 that causes an infinite loop when database does not exist at startup introduced by #2692. (Gitlab #3300) 2210. [func] piotrek Added libkea-dhcp++, libkea-cfgclient, libkea-d2srv, libkea-dhcpsrv, libkea-util and libkea-util-io headers that were missing after Kea install. Now all needed headers are installed. (Gitlab #3267) 2209. [func] fdupont Some hooks using multi-threading postpone their startup until after the configuration has been completed. If the hook subsequently failed the startup, the error would not have been properly propagated. The fix ensures that the errors are reported during the configuration stage. (Gitlab #2692) And for Kea premium: 193. [func] andrei, fdupont The RADIUS hook library is now multi-threaded. This is the last hook library that was missing multi-threading compatibility. A thread pool helps process RADIUS responses. A configuration entry, thread-pool-size, can limit the maximum number of spawned threads. (Gitlab #3262) Thank you again to everyone who assisted us in making this release possible. We look forward to receiving your feedback.