---
title: "FreeBSD 7.3-RELEASE Release Notes"
sidenav: download
---

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  <h2>Release Highlights</h2>

  <p>The highlights in the 7.3-RELEASE are the following:</p>

  <ul>
    <li><p>The <b class="APPLICATION">ZFS</b> file system has been
	updated to version 13. The changes include ZFS operations by a regular
	user, L2ARC, ZFS Intent Log on separated disks (slog), sparse volumes,
	and so on.</p></li>

    <li><p>A lock handling error has been fixed in interaction between
	  <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=malloc&amp;sektion=3&amp;manpath=FreeBSD+7.3-stable" shape="rect">
	  <span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">malloc</span>(3)</span></a>
	  implementation and threading library. </p></li>

    <li><p>A deadlock in the <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sched_ule&amp;sektion=4&amp;manpath=FreeBSD+7.3-stable" shape="rect">
	  <span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">sched_ule</span>(4)</span></a>
	scheduler has been fixed. </p></li>

    <li><p>A new sysctl variable <code class="VARNAME">security.bsd.map_at_zero</code> has been added
	and set to <tt class="LITERAL">1</tt> (allow) by default. This
	controls whether FreeBSD allows to map an object at the
	address <tt class="LITERAL">0</tt>, which is part of the
	user-controlled portion of the virtual address
	space. Disabling this has some effect on preventing an attack
	which injects malicious code into that location and triggers a
	NULL pointer dereference in the kernel.</p></li>

    <li><p>A new boot loader <tt class="LITERAL">gptzfsboot</tt>,
	which supports GPT and ZFS has been added.  <tt class="LITERAL">zfsloader</tt>, the final boot loader similar
	to <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=loader&amp;sektion=8&amp;manpath=FreeBSD+7.3-stable" shape="rect">
	  <span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">loader</span>(8)</span></a> which
	supports ZFS has been added.</p></li>

    <li><p>[amd64, i386] CPU cache flushing has been optimized when
	changing caching attributes of pages by doing nothing for CPUs that
	support self-snooping and using <tt class="LITERAL">CLFLUSH</tt>
	instead of a full cache invalidate when possible.</p></li>

    <li><p>The <b class="APPLICATION">amdsbwd(4)</b> driver for AMD
	SB600/SB7xx watchdog timer has been added.</p></li>

    <li><p>[amd64, i386] The <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=hwpmc&amp;sektion=4&amp;manpath=FreeBSD+7.3-stable" shape="rect">
	  <span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">hwpmc</span>(4)</span></a> driver for
	Hardware Performance Monitoring Counter support has been
	added. </p></li>

    <li><p><b class="APPLICATION">DRM</b> now supports Radeon HD 4200 (RS880), 4770 (RV740), and
      R6/7xx 3D, and Intel G41 chips.</p></li>

    <li><p>The <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=alc&amp;sektion=4&amp;manpath=FreeBSD+7.3-stable" shape="rect"><span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">alc</span>(4)</span></a> driver for
      Atheros AR8131/AR8132 PCIe Ethernet controller has been
	added.</p></li>

    <li><p>[sparc64] The <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=cas&amp;sektion=4&amp;manpath=FreeBSD+7.3-stable" shape="rect"><span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">cas</span>(4)</span></a> driver has been
      added to provide support for Sun Cassini/Cassini+ and National
      Semiconductor DP83065 Saturn Gigabit Ethernet devices.</p></li>

    <li><p>A userland utility <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mfiutil&amp;sektion=8&amp;manpath=FreeBSD+7.3-stable" shape="rect">
	  <span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">mfiutil</span>(8)</span></a> for the <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mfi&amp;sektion=4&amp;manpath=FreeBSD+7.3-stable" shape="rect"><span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">mfi</span>(4)</span></a> devices has
	been added.</p></li>

    <li><p>A userland utility <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mptutil&amp;sektion=8&amp;manpath=FreeBSD+7.3-stable" shape="rect">
	  <span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">mptutil</span>(8)</span></a> for the
	<a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mpt&amp;sektion=4&amp;manpath=FreeBSD+7.3-stable" shape="rect"><span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">mpt</span>(4)</span></a> devices has
	  been added.</p></li>

    <li><p>The <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=yp&amp;sektion=8&amp;manpath=FreeBSD+7.3-stable" shape="rect"><span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">yp</span>(8)</span></a> utilities now
	support <tt class="FILENAME">shadow.byname</tt> and <tt class="FILENAME">shadow.byuid</tt> maps. These requires
	privileged port access.</p></li>

    <li><p>The <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=service&amp;sektion=8&amp;manpath=FreeBSD+7.3-stable" shape="rect">
	  <span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">service</span>(8)</span></a> command
	as an easy interface for the rc.d scripts has been
	added.</p></li>

    <li><p><b class="APPLICATION">ISC BIND</b> has been updated to
	version 9.4-ESV.</p></li>

    <li><p><b class="APPLICATION">sendmail</b> has been updated from
	version 8.14.3 to version 8.14.4.</p></li>

    <li><p>The supported version of the <b class="APPLICATION">GNOME</b> desktop environment (<a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/url.cgi?ports/x11/gnome2/pkg-descr" shape="rect"><tt class="FILENAME">x11/gnome2</tt></a>) has been updated to
	2.28.2.</p></li>

    <li><p>The supported version of the <b class="APPLICATION">KDE</b>
	desktop environment (<a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/url.cgi?ports/x11/kde4/pkg-descr" shape="rect"><tt class="FILENAME">x11/kde4</tt></a>) has been updated to 4.3.5.</p></li>

    <li><p>FreeBSD release ISO images now have &#8220;FreeBSD-&#8221;
	at the beginning of the filenames.</p></li>
  </ul>

  <p>For more details, please see <a href="../relnotes-detailed/" shape="rect">the
    Detailed Release Notes</a>.</p>

  <p>A list of all platforms currently under development can be found
    on the <a href="../../../platforms/index.html" shape="rect">Supported
      Platforms</a> page.</p>

  </div>
          <br class="clearboth" />
        </div>
        
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