---
title: "FreeBSD 3.1 Release Notes"
sidenav: download
---

= FreeBSD 3.1 Release Notes

....
                                 RELEASE NOTES
                           FreeBSD Release 3.1-RELEASE

Welcome to 3.1-RELEASE, a full follow-on to the 3.0-RELEASE
released November 1998 and which marked the beginning of the
3.0-STABLE branch.  In the 4 months since 3.0 was released, many
hundreds of bug fixes and general enhancements were made to the
system.  Please see relevant details below.

Any installation failures or crashes should be reported by using the
send-pr command (those preferring a WEB based interface can also see
this page).

For information about FreeBSD and the layout of the 3.1-RELEASE
directory (especially if you're installing from floppies!), see
ABOUT.TXT.  For installation instructions, see the INSTALL.TXT and
HARDWARE.TXT files.

Table of contents:
------------------
1. What's new since 3.0-RELEASE
   1.1 KERNEL CHANGES
   1.2 SECURITY FIXES
   1.3 USERLAND CHANGES

2. Supported Configurations
   2.1 Disk Controllers
   2.2 Ethernet cards
   2.3 ATM
   2.4 Misc

3. Obtaining FreeBSD
   3.1 FTP/Mail
   3.2 CDROM

4. Upgrading from previous releases of FreeBSD

5. Reporting problems, making suggestions, submitting code
6. Acknowledgements


1. What's new since 3.0-RELEASE
---------------------------------

1.1. KERNEL CHANGES
-------------------

Added driver support for fast ethernet adapters based on the
RealTek 8129/8139 and Accton MPX 5030/5038 chips, including the
SMC EZ Card 10/100 PCI 1211-TX.

Added driver support for Lite-On PNIC-based fast ethernet cards
including the LinkSys LNE100TX, NetGear FA310TX Rev. D1 and
Matrox FastNIC 10/100.

Added driver support for fast ethernet adapters based on the
Macronix 98713, 98713A, 98715, 98715A and 98725 chips.

Added driver support for fast ethernet adapters based on the
Winbond W89C840F chip.

Added driver support for fast ethernet adapters based on the
VIA Technologies VT3043 "Rhine I" and VT86C100A "Rhine II" chips.

Added driver support for pocket ethernet adapters based on the
RealTek RTL 8002 chip.

Added driver support for fast ethernet adapters based on the
ASIX Electronics AX88140A chip.

Integrated isdn4bsd from the isdn4bsd project group into the
regular system.

System console driver (sc0) now broken into individual stand-alone
modules, partly in preparation for USB keyboards, mice, etc.

Phillips I2C/SMBUS support.

Initial support for USB devices (some keyboards, mice).

The lpt driver is now deprecated. Please use ppbus with the ppc driver
instead (see the ppc(4) and ppbus(4) man pages for details). At some
point before the next release, the old lpt driver will be removed and
the nlpt driver will be renamed to lpt.


1.2. SECURITY FIXES
-------------------
See ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/CERT/ for details:
  CERT Advisory CA-98-13-tcp-denial-of-service closed.
  FreeBSD-SA-98:08 (IP fragmentation denial of service) closed.

KerberosIV more fully supported.


1.3. USERLAND CHANGES
---------------------
When using ipfw(8) with the syntax of the first synopsis line from the
man page (i. e., with a rules file), it can now optionally be run through
a preprocessor (m4, cpp) so it's possible to use symbolic names and other
constructs that make maintenance easier.

Support for PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) including
modules for radius, TACACS, S/Key, Kerberos, Unix (passwd) and
other authentication methods.

Sendmail upgraded to version 8.9.2.

AMD, texinfo, global and many other various utilities updated.


2. Supported Configurations
---------------------------
FreeBSD currently runs on a wide variety of ISA, VLB, EISA and PCI bus
based PC's, ranging from 386sx to Pentium class machines (though the
386sx is not recommended).  Support for generic IDE or ESDI drive
configurations, various SCSI controller, network and serial cards is
also provided.

What follows is a list of all peripherals currently known to work with
FreeBSD.  Other configurations may also work, we have simply not as yet
received confirmation of this.


2.1. Disk Controllers
---------------------
WD1003 (any generic MFM/RLL)
WD1007 (any generic IDE/ESDI)
IDE
ATA

Adaptec 1535 ISA SCSI controllers
Adaptec 154x series ISA SCSI controllers
Adaptec 174x series EISA SCSI controller in standard and enhanced mode.
Adaptec 274X/284X/2920C/294x/2950/3940/3950 (Narrow/Wide/Twin) series
EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI controllers.
Adaptec AIC7850, AIC7860, AIC7880, AIC789x, on-board SCSI controllers.

AdvanSys SCSI controllers (all models).

BusLogic MultiMaster controllers:

[ Please note that BusLogic/Mylex "Flashpoint" adapters are NOT yet supported ]

BusLogic MultiMaster "W" Series Host Adapters:
    BT-948, BT-958, BT-958D
BusLogic MultiMaster "C" Series Host Adapters:
    BT-946C, BT-956C, BT-956CD, BT-445C, BT-747C, BT-757C, BT-757CD, BT-545C,
    BT-540CF
BusLogic MultiMaster "S" Series Host Adapters:
    BT-445S, BT-747S, BT-747D, BT-757S, BT-757D, BT-545S, BT-542D, BT-742A,
    BT-542B
BusLogic MultiMaster "A" Series Host Adapters:
    BT-742A, BT-542B

AMI FastDisk controllers that are true BusLogic MultiMaster clones are also
supported.

DPT SmartCACHE Plus, SmartCACHE III, SmartRAID III, SmartCACHE IV and
SmartRAID IV SCSI/RAID controllers are supported.  The DPT SmartRAID/CACHE V
is not yet supported.

SymBios (formerly NCR) 53C810, 53C810a, 53C815, 53C820, 53C825a,
53C860, 53C875, 53C875j, 53C885, 53C895 and 53C896 PCI SCSI controllers:
        ASUS SC-200
        Data Technology DTC3130 (all variants)
    Diamond FirePort (all)
        NCR cards (all)
        Symbios cards (all)
        Tekram DC390W, 390U and 390F
        Tyan S1365

QLogic 1020, 1040, 1040B and 2100 SCSI and Fibre Channel Adapters

DTC 3290 EISA SCSI controller in 1542 emulation mode.

With all supported SCSI controllers, full support is provided for
SCSI-I & SCSI-II peripherals, including hard disks, optical disks,
tape drives (including DAT and 8mm Exabyte), medium changers, processor
target devices and CDROM drives.  WORM devices that support CDROM commands
are supported for read-only access by the CDROM driver.  WORM/CD-R/CD-RW
writing support is provided by cdrecord, which is in the ports tree.

The following CD-ROM type systems are supported at this time:
(cd)    SCSI interface (also includes ProAudio Spectrum and
        SoundBlaster SCSI)
(matcd) Matsushita/Panasonic (Creative SoundBlaster) proprietary
        interface (562/563 models)
(scd)   Sony proprietary interface (all models)
(wcd)   ATAPI IDE interface

The following drivers were supported under the old SCSI subsystem, but are
NOT YET supported under the new CAM SCSI subsystem:

  Tekram DC390 and DC390T controllers (maybe other cards based on the
  AMD 53c974 as well).

  NCR5380/NCR53400 ("ProAudio Spectrum") SCSI controller.

  UltraStor 14F, 24F and 34F SCSI controllers.

  Seagate ST01/02 SCSI controllers.

  Future Domain 8xx/950 series SCSI controllers.

  WD7000 SCSI controller.

  Adaptec 1510 series ISA SCSI controllers (not for bootable devices)
  Adaptec 152x series ISA SCSI controllers
  Adaptec AIC-6260 and AIC-6360 based boards, which includes the AHA-152x
  and SoundBlaster SCSI cards.

  [ Note:  There is work-in-progress to port the AIC-6260/6360 and
    UltraStor drivers to the new CAM SCSI framework, but no estimates on
    when or if they will be completed. ]

Unmaintained drivers, they might or might not work for your hardware:

  Floppy tape interface (Colorado/Mountain/Insight)

  (mcd)   Mitsumi proprietary CD-ROM interface (all models)

2.2. Ethernet cards
-------------------
Allied-Telesis AT1700 and RE2000 cards

AMD PCnet/PCI (79c970 & 53c974 or 79c974)

SMC Elite 16 WD8013 ethernet interface, and most other WD8003E,
WD8003EBT, WD8003W, WD8013W, WD8003S, WD8003SBT and WD8013EBT
based clones.  SMC Elite Ultra.  SMC Etherpower II.

RealTek 8129/8139 fast ethernet NICs including the following:
  Allied Telesyn AT2550
  Allied Telesyn AT2500TX
  Genius GF100TXR (RTL8139)
  NDC Communications NE100TX-E
  OvisLink LEF-8129TX
  OvisLink LEF-8139TX
  Netronix Inc. EA-1210 NetEther 10/100
  KTX-9130TX 10/100 Fast Ethernet
  Accton "Cheetah" EN1027D (MPX 5030/5038; RealTek 8139 clone?)
  SMC EZ Card 10/100 PCI 1211-TX

Lite-On 82c168/82c169 PNIC fast ethernet NICs including the following:
  LinkSys EtherFast LNE100TX
  NetGear FA310-TX Rev. D1
  Matrox FastNIC 10/100

Macronix 98713, 98713A, 98715, 98715A and 98725 fast ethernet NICs
  NDC Communications SFA100A (98713A)
  CNet Pro120A (98713 or 98713A)
  CNet Pro120B (98715)
  SVEC PN102TX (98713)

Winbond W89C840F fast ethernet NICs including the following:
  Trendware TE100-PCIE

VIA Technologies VT3043 "Rhine I" and VT86C100A "Rhine II" fast ethernet
NICs including the following:
  Hawking Technologies PN102TX
  D-Link DFE530TX

Texas Instruments ThunderLAN PCI NICs, including the following:
  Compaq Netelligent 10, 10/100, 10/100 Proliant, 10/100 Dual-Port
  Compaq Netelligent 10/100 TX Embedded UTP, 10 T PCI UTP/Coax, 10/100 TX UTP
  Compaq NetFlex 3P, 3P Integrated, 3P w/ BNC
  Olicom OC-2135/2138, OC-2325, OC-2326 10/100 TX UTP
  Racore 8165 10/100baseTX
  Racore 8148 10baseT/100baseTX/100baseFX multi-personality

ASIX Electronics AX88140A PCI NICs, including the following:
  Alfa Inc. GFC2204
  CNet Pro110B

DEC EtherWORKS III NICs (DE203, DE204, and DE205)
DEC EtherWORKS II NICs (DE200, DE201, DE202, and DE422)
DEC DC21040, DC21041, or DC21140 based NICs (SMC Etherpower 8432T, DE245, etc)
DEC FDDI (DEFPA/DEFEA) NICs

Fujitsu MB86960A/MB86965A

HP PC Lan+ cards (model numbers: 27247B and 27252A).

Intel EtherExpress 16
Intel EtherExpress Pro/10
Intel EtherExpress Pro/100B PCI Fast Ethernet

Isolan AT 4141-0 (16 bit)
Isolink 4110     (8 bit)

Novell NE1000, NE2000, and NE2100 ethernet interface.

3Com 3C501 cards

3Com 3C503 Etherlink II

3Com 3c505 Etherlink/+

3Com 3C507 Etherlink 16/TP

3Com 3C509, 3C579, 3C589 (PCMCIA), 3C590/592/595/900/905/905B PCI and EISA
(Fast) Etherlink III / (Fast) Etherlink XL

3Com 3c980 Fast Etherlink XL server adapter

Toshiba ethernet cards

Crystal Semiconductor CS89x0-based NICs, including:
  IBM Etherjet ISA

PCMCIA ethernet cards from IBM and National Semiconductor are also
supported.

Note that NO token ring cards are supported at this time as we're
still waiting for someone to donate a driver for one of them.  Any
takers?

2.3 ATM
-------

   o ATM Host Interfaces
        - FORE Systems, Inc. PCA-200E ATM PCI Adapters
        - Efficient Networks, Inc. ENI-155p ATM PCI Adapters

   o ATM Signalling Protocols
        - The ATM Forum UNI 3.1 signalling protocol
        - The ATM Forum UNI 3.0 signalling protocol
        - The ATM Forum ILMI address registration
        - FORE Systems's proprietary SPANS signalling protocol
        - Permanent Virtual Channels (PVCs)

   o IETF "Classical IP and ARP over ATM" model
        - RFC 1483, "Multiprotocol Encapsulation over ATM Adaptation Layer 5"
        - RFC 1577, "Classical IP and ARP over ATM"
        - RFC 1626, "Default IP MTU for use over ATM AAL5"
        - RFC 1755, "ATM Signaling Support for IP over ATM"
        - RFC 2225, "Classical IP and ARP over ATM"
        - RFC 2334, "Server Cache Synchronization Protocol (SCSP)"
        - Internet Draft draft-ietf-ion-scsp-atmarp-00.txt,
                "A Distributed ATMARP Service Using SCSP"

   o ATM Sockets interface

2.4. Misc
---------

AST 4 port serial card using shared IRQ.

ARNET 8 port serial card using shared IRQ.
ARNET (now Digiboard) Sync 570/i high-speed serial.

Boca BB1004 4-Port serial card (Modems NOT supported)
Boca IOAT66 6-Port serial card (Modems supported)
Boca BB1008 8-Port serial card (Modems NOT supported)
Boca BB2016 16-Port serial card (Modems supported)

Comtrol Rocketport card.

Cyclades Cyclom-y Serial Board.

STB 4 port card using shared IRQ.

SDL Communications Riscom/8 Serial Board.
SDL Communications RISCom/N2 and N2pci high-speed sync serial boards.

Stallion multiport serial boards: EasyIO, EasyConnection 8/32 & 8/64,
ONboard 4/16 and Brumby.

Adlib, SoundBlaster, SoundBlaster Pro, ProAudioSpectrum, Gravis UltraSound
and Roland MPU-401 sound cards. (snd driver)

Most ISA audio codecs manufactured by Crystal Semiconductors, OPTi, Creative
Labs, Avance, Yamaha and ENSONIQ. (pcm driver)

Connectix QuickCam
Matrox Meteor Video frame grabber
Creative Labs Video Spigot frame grabber
Cortex1 frame grabber
Hauppauge Wincast/TV boards (PCI)
STB TV PCI
Intel Smart Video Recorder III
Various Frame grabbers based on Brooktree Bt848 chip.

HP4020, HP6020, Philips CDD2000/CDD2660 and Plasmon CD-R drives.

PS/2 mice

Standard PC Joystick

X-10 power controllers

GPIB and Transputer drivers.

Genius and Mustek hand scanners.

Xilinx XC6200 based reconfigurable hardware cards compatible with
the HOT1 from Virtual Computers (www.vcc.com)

Support for Dave Mills experimental Loran-C receiver.

FreeBSD currently does NOT support IBM's microchannel (MCA) bus.

3. Obtaining FreeBSD
--------------------

You may obtain FreeBSD in a variety of ways:

3.1. FTP/Mail
-------------

You can ftp FreeBSD and any or all of its optional packages from
`ftp.FreeBSD.org' - the official FreeBSD release site.

For other locations that mirror the FreeBSD software see the file
MIRROR.SITES.  Please ftp the distribution from the site closest (in
networking terms) to you.  Additional mirror sites are always welcome!
Contact freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org for more details if you'd like to
become an official mirror site.

If you do not have access to the Internet and electronic mail is your
only recourse, then you may still fetch the files by sending mail to
`ftpmail@ftpmail.vix.com' - putting the keyword "help" in your message
to get more information on how to fetch files using this mechanism.
Please do note, however, that this will end up sending many *tens of
megabytes* through the mail and should only be employed as an absolute
LAST resort!


3.2. CDROM
----------

FreeBSD 3.1-RELEASE CDs may be ordered on CDROM from:

        Walnut Creek CDROM
        4041 Pike Lane, Suite F
        Concord CA  94520
        1-800-786-9907, +1-925-674-0783, +1-925-674-0821 (FAX)

Or via the Internet from orders@cdrom.com or http://www.cdrom.com.
Their current catalog can be obtained via ftp from:

        ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/cdrom/catalog

Cost per -RELEASE CD is $39.95 or $24.95 with a FreeBSD subscription.
FreeBSD SNAPshot CDs, when available, are $39.95 or $14.95 with a
FreeBSD-SNAP subscription (-RELEASE and -SNAP subscriptions are entirely
separate).  With a subscription, you will automatically receive updates as
they are released.  Your credit card will be billed when each disk is
shipped and you may cancel your subscription at any time without further
obligation.

Shipping (per order not per disc) is $5 in the US, Canada or Mexico
and $9.00 overseas.  They accept Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American
Express or checks in U.S. Dollars and ship COD within the United
States.  California residents please add 8.25% sales tax.

Should you be dissatisfied for any reason, the CD comes with an
unconditional return policy.


4. Upgrading from previous releases of FreeBSD
----------------------------------------------

If you're upgrading from a previous release of FreeBSD, most likely
it's 2.2.x or 2.1.x (in some lesser number of cases) and some of the
following issues may affect you, depending of course on your chosen
method of upgrading.  There are two popular ways of upgrading
FreeBSD distributions:

        o Using sources, via /usr/src
        o Using sysinstall's (binary) upgrade option.

In the case of using sources, there are simply two targets you need to
be aware of: The standard ``upgrade'' target, which will upgrade a 2.x
or 3.0 system to 3.1 and the ``world'' target, which will take an
already upgraded system and keep it in sync with whatever changes have
happened since the initial upgrade.

In the case of using the binary upgrade option, the system will go
straight to 3.1/ELF but also populate the /<basepath>/lib/aout
directories for backwards compatibility with older binaries.

In either case, going to ELF will mean that you'll have somewhat
smaller binaries and access to a lot more compiler goodies which have
been already been ported to other ELF environments (our older and
somewhat crufty a.out format being largely unsupported by most other
software projects).  Those who wish to retain access to the older
a.out dynamic executables should be sure and install the compat22
distribution.

[ other important upgrading notes should go here]


5. Reporting problems, making suggestions, submitting code.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Your suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are always
valued - please do not hesitate to report any problems you may find
(preferably with a fix attached, if you can!).

The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine with
Internet mail connectivity is to use the send-pr command or use the CGI
script at http://www.FreeBSD.org/send-pr.html.  Bug reports
will be dutifully filed by our faithful bugfiler program and you can
be sure that we'll do our best to respond to all reported bugs as soon
as possible.  Bugs filed in this way are also visible on our WEB site
in the support section and are therefore valuable both as bug reports
and as "signposts" for other users concerning potential problems to
watch out for.

If, for some reason, you are unable to use the send-pr command to
submit a bug report, you can try to send it to:

                freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org

Note that send-pr itself is a shell script that should be easy to move
even onto a totally different system.  We much prefer if you could use
this interface, since it make it easier to keep track of the problem
reports.  However, before submitting, please try to make sure whether
the problem might have already been fixed since.


Otherwise, for any questions or tech support issues, please send mail to:

                freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org


Additionally, being a volunteer effort, we are always happy to have
extra hands willing to help - there are already far more desired
enhancements than we'll ever be able to manage by ourselves!  To
contact us on technical matters, or with offers of help, please send
mail to:

                freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org


Please note that these mailing lists can experience *significant*
amounts of traffic and if you have slow or expensive mail access and
are only interested in keeping up with significant FreeBSD events, you
may find it preferable to subscribe instead to:

                freebsd-announce@FreeBSD.org


All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone wishing
to do so.  Send mail to MajorDomo@FreeBSD.org and include the keyword
`help' on a line by itself somewhere in the body of the message.  This
will give you more information on joining the various lists, accessing
archives, etc.  There are a number of mailing lists targeted at
special interest groups not mentioned here, so send mail to majordomo
and ask about them!


6. Acknowledgements
-------------------

FreeBSD represents the cumulative work of many dozens, if not
hundreds, of individuals from around the world who have worked very
hard to bring you this release.  For a complete list of FreeBSD
project staffers, please see:

        http://www.FreeBSD.org/handbook/staff.html

or, if you've loaded the doc distribution:

        file:/usr/share/doc/handbook/staff.html


Special mention to:

        The donors listed at http://www.FreeBSD.org/handbook/donors.html

        Steve Price for his work
        in building and organizing the packages and, as always,
        Satoshi Asami for his
        work on the ports collection.

        Doug Rabson and
        John Birrell
        for making FreeBSD/alpha happen and to the NetBSD project for
        substantial indirect aid.

        Peter Wemm for the new kernel
        module system (with substantial aid from Doug Rabson).

        And to the many thousands of FreeBSD users and testers all over the
        world, without whom this release simply would not have been possible.

We sincerely hope you enjoy this release of FreeBSD!

                        The FreeBSD Project
....

link:../../[Release Home]
