4 This is mostly a bugfix release. Two of the bugs fixed are security
5 sensitive: a remote denial-of-service vulnerability and a buffer
6 overflow that can allow local users to become the 'avahi' user. We do
7 not consider either of them major security threats.
9 The DoS vulnerability can be exploited from a local network only. It
10 is not worth much, though, since mDNS can easily be flooded with
11 nonsense anyway. It is easy to kick remote mDNS/DNS-SD services by
12 provoking a name conflict in perfect accordance with the specs.
14 The buffer overflow is hard to exploit remotely, only local users can
15 become the 'avahi' user. In addition the user is trapped inside a
16 chroot() environment (at least on Linux).
18 Anyhow, our security assessments are possibly as buggy as our
21 *** PLEASE UPDATE YOUR INSTALLATION ASAP! ***
24 * Fix a buffer overflow in avahi-core
25 * Refuse to process invalid UTF8 data
26 * Automatically reconnect to the DBUS if we're kicked. (Works only if
28 * Don't hit an assert() in the client libs when the Avahi daemon is
30 * Enumerate all service types in the database in the Service
31 Discovery Applet for Gnome
32 * Improve the Bonjour compatibility layer to make it survive
33 GnomeMeeting's broken usage
34 * Deal properly with local non-ASCII hostnames
35 * AMD64 and FreeBSD portability fixes
36 * Filter double DNS server entries in avahi-dnsconfd
37 * Fix a locking bug in avahi-sharp's EntryGroup.AddService()
38 * Ported to Solaris (incomplete)
39 * Add _airport._tcp to our service type database
41 This release is backwards compatible with Avahi 0.6, 0.6.1, 0.6.2,
42 0.6.3, 0.6.4, 0.6.5, 0.6.6, 0.6.7, 0.6.8 and 0.6.9.
47 This release fixes some bugs and includes minor enhancements.
49 * Don't allow registration of address records with invalid host names
50 * Clean up argument validity checking for AvahiHostNameResolver and
52 * Fix Avahi builds without DBUS
54 This release is backwards compatible with Avahi 0.6, 0.6.1, 0.6.2,
55 0.6.3, 0.6.4, 0.6.5, 0.6.6, 0.6.7 and 0.6.8.
60 This release fixes some bugs and adds a few new features. Users of 0.6.7,
63 * Fix broken parsing of static hosts file
64 * Improve out-of-the-box Debian support
65 * Add configuration option to allow mDNS over POINTOPOINT links.
66 This is a potential security hole and YMMV. See man page for details.
67 * Create $(localstatedir)/run on installation
69 This release is backwards compatible with Avahi 0.6, 0.6.1, 0.6.2,
70 0.6.3, 0.6.4, 0.6.5, 0.6.6 and 0.6.7.
75 This release fixes some bugs and adds a few new features
77 * Add static hosts name mappings
78 * Work around kernel bugs regarding multicast group membership
79 * ia64 portability fixes
80 * Don't require X11 to run avahi-bookmarks
81 * API: Return AVAHI_ERR_IS_EMPTY when the user tries to commit an
83 * Improved Slackware and Fedora suppport
85 This release is backwards compatible with Avahi 0.6, 0.6.1, 0.6.2,
86 0.6.3, 0.6.4, 0.6.5 and 0.6.6.
91 This release fixes some bugs and includes some documentation updates
93 * Add a bunch of new types to the service type database
94 * Return errors of avahi_entry_group_commit() properly
95 * Many doxygen documentation improvements
96 * Fix destruction of AvahiEntryGroup objects using
97 avahi_entry_group_free().
98 * Don't allow commiting of empty entry groups
99 * Use a little less memory in avahi-qt
100 * Don't accept empty TXT strings
101 * Update example "client-publish-service.c" to show how to modify an
104 This release is backwards compatible with Avahi 0.6, 0.6.1, 0.6.2,
105 0.6.3, 0.6.4 and 0.6.5.
110 This release fixes some bugs and adds a new API function.
112 * avahi-browse: properly show services that are removed from the
114 * fix build on bi-arch platforms, on GNU/kFreeBSD, on MIPS and
116 * add new API function avahi_nss_support() and DBUS function
117 IsNSSSupportAvailable() which may be used to detect whether
118 libc's gethostbyname() supports mDNS domain names.
119 * patch avahi-bookmarks to make use of
120 IsNSSSupportAvailable(). avahi-bookmarks will now generate links
121 with real hostnames instead of numeric IP addresses if mDNS support
122 is detected for gethostbyname().
123 * add init script for Mandriva Linux
124 * speed up avahi_client_free()
126 * install missing header thread-watch.h
127 * fix avahi-bookmarks to work with certain twisted versions
128 * fix record updating
129 * Use pkg-config's Requires.private directive where it makes sense
131 This release is backwards compatible with Avahi 0.6, 0.6.1, 0.6.2,
137 This is a bugfix release and adds a new event loop implementation to
138 avahi-common's public interface.
140 * avahi-common: add new AvahiThreadedPool event loop implementation
141 * avahi-sharp: compatibility with newer mono versions
142 * avahi-publish-service: don't ignore the port number specified
143 * avahi-sharp: correct some flags definitions
145 This release is backwards compatible with Avahi 0.6, 0.6.1, 0.6.2 and
148 A quick introduction how to use the new AvahiThreadedPool interface is
149 available in our Wiki:
151 http://avahi.org/wiki/RunningAvahiClientAsThread
156 This is a bugfix release. Everyone should update ASAP!
158 * avahi-sharp: make sure to append a trailing NUL byte to all C strings
159 * avahi-core: fix a double free() which occurs when wide area lookups timeout
161 This release is fully compatible with Avahi 0.6, 0.6.1 and 0.6.2.
166 This is mostly a bugfix release.
168 * Compatibility with DBUS 0.60 (Full compatibility with DBUS 0.3x and
170 * Fix introspection for some auxiliary DBUS objects
171 * Miscellaneous documentation updates
172 * Improve Autoconf support for detecting PTHREADS library
173 * Fix avahi-publish --help
174 * Workaround a DBUS limitation which might cause Avahi to die when a
175 user sends an empty TXT entry over DBUS
176 * Increase number of resolver/browser objects a DBUS client may create
177 * Remove fprintf() call in avahi_client_new()
180 This release is both up and downwards compatible with Avahi 0.6 and 0.6.1.
182 Avahi now has its own Domain (http://avahi.org) and a new Website!
184 And, most importantly, we now have a Logo:
185 http://avahi.org/chrome/site/avahi-trac.png
190 This is mostly a bugfix release.
192 * Fix a segfault when shutting down the daemon. Please note that this
193 issue was not security sensitive in any way but had the ugly side
194 effect that the daemon's PID file was not removed properly.
195 * Added init scripts for ArchLinux and FreeBSD
196 * Add DBUS API versioning through the new method GetAPIVersion()
197 * Build the HOWL compatibility library as "libhowl.so", instead of
198 "libavahi-compat-howl.so". This will help distributors to ensure
199 full API/ABI compatibility with HOWL out-of-the-box.
200 * Same for the Bonjour compatibility library
203 We encourage Linux users to update to libdaemon 0.10 since logging
204 does not work from a chroot() environment with older versions.
206 This release is fully API and ABI compatible with Avahi 0.6. This is
207 true for both the C libraries and the DBUS interface.
209 Packagers should read the new documentation file doc/COMPAT-LAYERS
210 which contains some information about maintaining full build system
211 compatibility in addition to ABI/API compatibility.
213 Avahi 0.6, the "Goddag" release
214 ===============================
216 * Support for (read-only) wide area support. (i.e. DNS-SD over unicast DNS)
217 * Ported to FreeBSD, NetBSD, Darwin/MacOSX and to some extent OpenBSD
218 * Portability fixes for ARM CPUs
219 * Compatibility layers for the HOWL and Bonjour APIs
220 * Support for registering/browsing arbitrary records
221 * Proper support for DNS-SD service subtypes
222 * Native C implementations of the client utilities
223 * Now passes the Bonjour conformance test suite without any exceptions
224 * "Passive observation of failures"
226 * Many traffic reduction improvements
229 This release is not API/ABI compatible with Avahi 0.5. Please see
230 docs/API-CHANGES-0.6 for a rough overview over the changes.
236 * Fix browing in QT applications (was totally broken)
237 * Minor documentation update.
242 * This is a bug fix release, before the big changes coming in 0.6
243 * Fix reporting of the NO_DAEMON error
244 * Fix commit throttling algorithm for entry groups
245 * Fix counting of the number of resources in an entry group
247 Avahi 0.5, the 'Bom Dia' release
248 ================================
250 * New Mono bindings, allowing you to use Avahi from
251 any CLI language such as C#
252 * Attempt auto-detection of the D-BUS system bus address
253 * Include a 'cookie' in all published records which allows us
254 to reliably determine if a service is the same as another.
255 * Add API to determine if services are local
256 * Better support for threading with AvahiSimplePoll
257 * Add some new StringList functions to help binding to it in
259 * Various build and run-time bug fixes
261 Avahi 0.4, the 'Hyvää päivää' release
262 =====================================
264 * Renamed the include dirs for the Qt bindings to include the
265 version number, as they may diverge in future.
266 * Fix a critical bug in avahi-daemon triggered by configuring an interface
267 with various DHCP clients when you have no other active addresses which
268 caused avahi-daemon to abort.
269 * Move to using python-gdbm exclusivly for the service type database.
270 * Add support for SUSE
271 * Various fixes to the build system
273 Avahi 0.3, the 'Buenos Días' release
274 ====================================
276 * New integration library for QT main-loop applications.
277 * Fix a crash in avahi-dnsconfd
278 * Documentation Updates
279 * Fix building when you don't want Python DBUS or GTK
281 - Add new help option
282 - Fix handling of paths not starting with a /
283 - You can now specify the port and IP to bind to
284 - Add option to generate links with hostnames instead of IPs
286 Avahi 0.2, the 'Dzień Dobry' release
287 ====================================
289 * Unfortunately this release broke the API/ABI of libavahi-client
290 with the following function removals
292 Removal of these functions may affect users of the 0.1 API
293 - avahi_service_resolver_block()
295 The following functions were simply for debugging information
296 and their removal should not affect anyone
297 - avahi_entry_group_get_dbus_path()
298 - avahi_domain_browser_get_dbus_path()
299 - avahi_service_type_browser_get_dbus_path()
300 - avahi_service_browser_get_dbus_path()
302 Note that while the libavahi-client API changed slightly, the DBUS
303 API itself has only had additions and no existing definitions
306 * avahi-daemon will now ignore local IP addresses with the "link" scope
307 unless it is the only IP address on the interface.
308 * avahi-daemon will no longer fail to start if D-BUS is not
309 available (if configured with enable-dbus=warn)
310 * Fixed a potential crasher when resolving things in libavahi-core.
311 * New example demonstrating integration into glib applications
312 * Addtion of a set of convenience functions for AvahiStringList
313 avahi_string_list_find()
314 avahi_string_list_get_pair()
315 avahi_string_list_add_pair()
316 avahi_string_list_add_pair_arbitrary()
317 * Fixed a typo in avahi-glib.pc that stopped programs using
318 the GLIB api from compiling correctly
319 * A critical bug in the reflector was fixed where it may go into a
320 state of constantly flooding queries out to the network.
321 * Introduced new asynchronous resolver API
322 * libavahi-client gained an API for resolving HostNames and Addresses
323 in addition to the ServiceResolver provided in 0.1
324 * Added support for Arch and Gentoo linux distributions.
325 * Allowed configuration on non-supported distributions
326 * Fixed a critical bug where you cannot use more than one AvahiClient
327 or use it in an application already using D-BUS
328 * Fixed assembly of empty string lists to RFC compliant TXT records
329 * Added a new service type description database with human
330 understandable descriptions of services with translations.
331 * Fixed various minor memory corruption bugs
332 * Fixed an issue where Avahi might think it encountered a conflict
333 if the process or machine has been suspended
334 * Fixed compilation and runtime issues on 64-bit distributions
338 Avahi 0.1, the "Guten Tag" release
339 ==================================
341 The Avahi team would like to announce the immediate availability of
342 Avahi 0.1 "Guten Tag".
344 Avahi is a fully LGPL framework for Multicast DNS Service Discovery.
345 It allows programs to publish and discover services and hosts
346 running on a local network with no specific configuration. For
347 example you can plug into a network and instantly find printers to
348 print to, files to look at and people to talk to.
350 Avahi is designed to be compatible with the mDNS/DNS-SD specification
351 and boasts the following features
353 * Fully open source and freely available under the LGPL
354 * Full IPv4 and IPv6 support
355 * An embeddable mDNS stack
356 * Dynamic adjustment to network reconfiguration
357 * Daemon with DBUS API for desktop applications
358 * C library to interface with the DBUS API
359 * Compatible with other mDNS/DNS-SD implementations such as
360 Howl and Apple Bonjour (previously Rendezvous)
361 * Ability to correctly "reflect" mDNS between two or more LAN segments
362 * Ability to configure DNS servers based on mDNS/DNS-SD published
363 information, a feature that is very usefull on IPv6
364 which has no other mechanism for this.
365 * Combined with nss-mdns, allows hostname lookup such as
366 'laptop.local' without the configuration of a DNS server.
367 http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/nss-mdns/
368 * Easy integration into GLIB, GTK other mainloop applications.
369 * Documentation and examples of both developer APIs and utilities.
371 mDNS/DNS-SD is part of a larger set of specifications for easy
372 configuration of networking known as "ZeroConf"
373 (http://www.zeroconf.org/), with the aim of allowing you to plug into
374 a network and instantly be able to interact with it's services.
376 Avahi was designed to be a fully free implementation, and is
377 available under the LGPL. Many other implementations of the mDNS/DNS-SD
378 specification were previously non-free, restricting their use in many
379 platforms such as the GNOME desktop and many distributions.
381 While Avahi is a 0.1 release, we feel it is feature complete and
382 available for immediate use, developers can make use of the Avahi
383 client library to provide above mentioned functionality in their
386 We unfortunately do not have a logo yet! We would love if someone
387 could suggest ideas for a logo or even design us one. If you think
388 you can help us out, you can contact us on our mailing list or by
389 emailing Trent Lloyd on lathiat@bur.st.
391 If you would like more information or help, you can subscribe
392 to our mailinglist, goto
393 http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/avahi
395 You can download Avahi 0.1 here
396 http://www.freedesktop.org/~lennart/avahi-0.1.tar.gz
398 You can also find out more information from our homepage
399 http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/Avahi
401 We would like to thank the following people for their
402 contribution to Avahi 0.1.