Finnix 103 release notes

Finnix 103

Release date	2011-10-23
Based on	Debian testing (2011-10-11)
Kernel	Linux 3.0
Packages	x86 (378), PowerPC (372)
Development codename	Peshtigo
Build number	2673 (x86), 244 (PowerPC)

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Major new features

Forensic mode

Finnix 103 includes a new forensic mode. When booted with the "forensic" or "forensics" boot flags, Finnix changes its behavior to minimize the chance of loading suspect code or writing to suspect media. These changes include cryptographic hash verification of discovered Finnix CD media, locking block devices, and avoiding swap, LVM, RAID, crypt and network autodetection. For more information, see the Forensics page.

Entropy generation added

Modern Linux distributions add to their random number generator (RNG) entropy pool by saving some random data before shutdown, and adding it back into the pool during startup. A LiveCD cannot normally do this, so Finnix includes a new feature to generate random data to be fed into the pool via a method that relies on the separation of a computer's CPU and RTC. By default 8 bytes are generated during each Finnix startup (due to the time it takes to generate data via this method), but a new utility wrapper, "finnix-generate-entropy" is included to generate a full pool's worth of entropy (currently 4096 bytes). For more information, see this blog post on finnie.org.

Fixes and new features

Finnix 103 includes a large number of bug fixes, new packages and new minor features.

Known issues

• Booting from a Firewire CDROM drive is currently broken, and the only workaround is to use another method (USB, ATA, etc).

MD5 checksums

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f103ff59e120c7eb473ecd202576bb1d  finnix-ppc-103.iso

GPG signatures

finnix-103.iso

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finnix-ppc-103.iso

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Changes

102 -> 103

• dist-upgrade
• Upgraded kernels to Linux 3.0.6
• Added: htop, iotop, emad, oui, vanityhash, uuid-runtime, twuewand
• Added boot message to non-menu isolinux (hold shift during boot to non-menu)
• Added ability for the initrd to check for the proper CD build before selecting it as valid (distro UUID support)
• Added forensic mode
• Added better filesystem detection support for /etc/fstab generation
• Added random entropy seed generation during bootup (default 8 bytes, configurable via noseed/seedpool/seedbytes=)
• Added finnix-generate-entropy, a curses wrapper around twuewand
• Removed: opie-client (not supported upstream), console-common (unused), hello (known security/license issues, unstable, superseded by emad)
• Removed empty finnix.iso file from x86 CD root
• Fixed location of checking for architecture-independent CD RC files
• Fixed linefeed and warnings from finnix-strace-reorder
• Changed initrd logic after CD not found to allow for a full scan if the user did not mount the CD, but loaded modules manually
• Changed single user mode (not normally used) to use bashlogin instead of sulogin
• Greatly sped up calculations of net module dependencies in finnix-netboot-server