-rc6 tldr:

Updated kernel and Intel microcode for yet another hardware vulnerability.

Update to latest qemu stable patch release: 4.1.1

Support UD passphrase-encrypted volumes.

Misc. webGUI fixes.

Other package updates.

Specific changes in [-rcN] are indicated in bold below.

New in Unraid OS 6.8 release:

The unRAIDServer.plg file (update OS) still downloads the new release zip file to RAM but then extracts directly to USB flash boot device. You will probably notice a slight difference in speed of extract messages. [-rc2] The 'sync' command at the end has been replaced with 'sync -f /boot'.

Forms based authentication

If you have set a root password for your server, upon boot you'll now see a nice login form. There still is only one user for Unraid so for username enter root. This form should be compatible with all major password managers out there. We always recommend using a strong password. [-rc2] There is no auto-logout implemented yet, please click Logout on menu bar or completely close your browser to logout.

Linux kernel 5.3

default scheduler now 'mq-deadline' [-rc2] but this can be changed via Settings/Disk Settings/Scheduler setting.

enabled Huge Page support, though no UI control yet

binfmt_misc support

added "Vega 10 Reset bug" [-rc2] and 'navi-reset' patches removed [-rc5]

removed [-rc2] added oot: Realtek r8125: version 9.002.02

[-rc3] additional md/unraid changes and instrumentation

[-rc6] fix chelsio missing firmware

more device drivers

Some out-of-tree (oot) drivers are currently omitted either because the source code doesn't compile or driver doesn't work with the 5.3 kernel:

Intel ixgbe [does not build] (using in-tree driver)

Highpoint r750 [does not work]

Highpoint rr3740a [does not build]

This is always the risk with including vendor-supplied drivers. Until the vendor fixes their code we must omit their driver.

md/unraid driver

Introduced "multi-stream" support:

Reads on devices which are not being written should run at full speed. In addition, if you have set the md_write_method tunable to "reconstruct write", then while writing, if any read streams are detected, the write method is switched to "read/modifywrite".

Parity sync/check should run at full speed by default.

Parity sync/check is throttled back in presence of other active streams.

The "stripe pool" resource is automatically shared evenly between all active streams.

As a result got rid of some Tunables:

md_sync_window

md_sync_thresh

and added some tunables:

md_queue_limit

md_sync_limit

[-rc2] md_scheduler

Please refer to Settings/Disk Settings help text for description of these settings.



WireGuard support - available as a plugin via Community Apps. Our WireGuard implementation and UI is still a work-in-process; for this reason we have made this available as a plugin, though the latest WireGuard module is included in our Linux kernel. Full WireGuard implementation will be merged into Unraid OS itself in a future release. I want to give special thanks to @bonienl who wrote the plugin with lots of guidance from @ljm42 - thank you! I also should give a shout out to @NAS who got us rolling on this. If you don't know about WireGuard it's something to look into!

Guide here:



WS-Discovery support - Finally you can get rid of SMBv1 and get reliable Windows network discovery. This feature is configured on the Settings/SMB Settings page and enabled by default.

Also on same settings page is Enable NetBIOS setting. This is enabled by default, however if you no longer have need for NetBIOS discovery you can turn it off. When turned off, Samba is configured to accept only SMBv2 protocol and higher.

setting. This is enabled by default, however if you no longer have need for NetBIOS discovery you can turn it off. When turned off, Samba is configured to accept only SMBv2 protocol and higher. Added mDNS client support in Unraid OS. This means, for example, from an Unraid OS terminal session to ping another Unraid OS server on your network you can use (e.g., 'tower'): ping tower.local instead of ping tower Note the latter will still work if you have NetBIOS enabled.

User Share File System (shfs) changes:

Integrated FUSE-3 - This should increase performance of User Share File System.

Fixed bug with hard link support. Previously a 'stat' on two directory entries referring to same file would return different i-node numbers, thus making it look like two independent files. This has been fixed however there is a config setting on Settings/Global Share Settings called "Tunable (support hard links)". [-rc2 ] Fixed the default value Yes, but with certain very old media and DVD players which access shares via NFS, you may need to set this to No.

[-rc5] Fixed not accounting for devices not mounted yet.

Yes, but with certain very old media and DVD players which access shares via NFS, you may need to set this to No. Fixed not accounting for devices not mounted yet. Note: if you have custom config/extra.cfg file, get rid of it.



Other improvements/bug fixes:

Format - during Format any running parity sync/check is automatically Paused and then resumed upon Format completion.

Encryption - an entered passphrase is not saved to any file.

Fixed bug where multi-device btrfs pool was leaving metadata set to dup instead of raid1.

Several other small bug fixes and improvements.

[-rc5] Fixed bug where quotes were not handled properly in passwords.

Fixed bug where quotes were not handled properly in passwords. Numerous base package updates [-rc2] including updating PHP to version 7.3.x, Samba to version 4.11.x.

Known Issues and Other Errata

Some users have reported slower parity sync/check rates for very wide arrays (20+ devices) vs. 6.7 and earlier releases - we are still studying this problem.

[-rc6] this is fixed: If you are using Unassigned Devices plugin with encrypted volumes, you must use the file method of specifying the encryption passphrase. Note that a file containing your passphrase must consist of a single null-terminated string with no other line ending characters such as LF or CR/LF.

In another step toward better security, the USB flash boot device is configured so that programs and scripts residing there cannot be directly executed (this is because the 'x' bit is set now only for directories). Commands placed in the 'go' file still execute because during startup, that file is copied to /tmp first and then executed from there. If you have created custom scripts you may need to take a similar approach.

AFP is now deprecated and we plan to remove support in Unraid 6.9 release.

and we plan to remove support in Unraid 6.9 release. The /mnt/user0 mount point is now deprecated and we plan to remove in Unraid 6.9 release.

A note on password strings

Password strings can contain any character however white space (space and tab characters) is handled specially:

all leading and trailing white space is discarded

multiple embedded white space is collapsed to a single space character.

By contrast, encryption passphrase is used exactly as-is.

Version 6.8.0-rc6 2019-11-15

Base distro:

aaa_elflibs: version 15.0

adwaita-icon-theme: version 3.34.3

cpio: version 2.13

cryptsetup: version 2.2.2

curl: version 7.67.0

docker: version 19.03.5

git: version 2.24.0

harfbuzz: version 2.6.4

hostname: version 3.23

intel-microcode: version 20191113

kernel-firmware: version 20191108_f1100d

libvirt: version 5.9.0

libxml2: version 2.9.10

libxslt: version 1.1.34

lvm2: version 2.03.06

mkfontscale: version 1.2.1

mozilla-firefox: version 70.0.1

ncurses: version 6.1_20191026

qemu: version 4.1.1 (CVE-2019-14378, CVE-2018-12126, CVE-2018-12127, CVE-2018-12130, CVE-2019-12068, CVE-2019-11091)

shared-mime-info: version 1.15

sudo: version 1.8.29

ttyd: version 20191025

xorg-server: version 1.20.5

xterm: version 350

zstd: version 1.4.4

Linux kernel:

version 5.3.11

Management: