IPFire Linux Firewall Distro Kicks Off 2024 by Blocking Email Spammers by Default

This update also includes updates to GRUB bootloader, CA certificate bundle, add-ons, and other packages.
Marius Nestorby Marius Nestor0
IPFire 2024

IPFire developer Michael Tremer announced today the release of IPFire 2.27 Core Update 182 as the first update in 2024 for this hardened, versatile, and state-of-the-art open-source firewall Linux distribution developed for routers and firewalls.

Featuring an updated GRUB bootloader to version 2.12 RC1 and an updated CA certificate bundle, the IPFire 2.27 Core Update 182 release is here to introduce a new change in the default firewall policy to block outgoing SMTP traffic from internal networks by default.

In other words, this change will block all email spammers, which could cause IPFire installations to be blacklisted and cause issues for users when attempting to log into online banking. However, this change will only be applied on new installations of IPFire while existing installations will continue to be affected by this issue unless you manually block any outgoing connections on port 25 (TCP).

“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,” explains Michael Tremer. “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)

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