[[!meta title="Call for testing: 2.4~rc1"]]

[[!meta date="2016-05-26 18:00:00"]]

[[!tag announce]]

You can help Tails! The first release candidate for the upcoming version 2.4 is
out. Please test it and report any issue. We are in particular interested in
feedback and problems relating to:

* Icedove's automatic configuration wizard. Using it to set up a new
  account is (most of the time) as easy as entering your email address
  (and password), and Icedove will configure your account for you.

* Graphics-related regressions, e.g. if the graphical user interface
  doesn't seem to start at all (i.e. you cannot reach Tails Greeter).

[[!toc levels=1]]

How to test Tails 2.4~rc1?
==========================

**Keep in mind that this is a test image.** We tested
that it is not broken in obvious ways, but it might still contain
undiscovered issues.

But test wildly!

If you find anything that is not working as it should, please [[report to
us|doc/first_steps/bug_reporting]]! Bonus points if you first check if it is a
<a href="#known_issues">known issue of this release</a> or a
[[longstanding known issue|support/known_issues]].

Download and install
--------------------

<a class="download-file" href="https://tails.boum.org/torrents/files/tails-i386-2.4~rc1.torrent" >Tails 2.4~rc1 torrent</a>

<a class="download-file use-mirror-pool" href="http://dl.amnesia.boum.org/tails/alpha/tails-i386-2.4~rc1/tails-i386-2.4~rc1.iso" >Tails 2.4~rc1 ISO image</a>
<span class="openpgp-small-link">[[OpenPGP signature|torrents/files/tails-i386-2.4~rc1.iso.sig]]</span>

To install 2.4~rc1, follow our usual [[installation instructions|install]],
skipping the **Download and verify** step.

Upgrade from 2.3
------------------

1. Start Tails 2.3 on a USB stick installed using *Tails Installer* and
   [[set an administration password|doc/first_steps/startup_options/administration_password]].

1. Run this command in a <span class="application">Root
   Terminal</span> to select the "alpha" upgrade channel
   and start the upgrade:

       echo TAILS_CHANNEL=\"alpha\" >> /etc/os-release && \
            tails-upgrade-frontend-wrapper

1. After the upgrade is installed, restart Tails and choose
   <span class="menuchoice">
     <span class="guimenu">Applications</span>&nbsp;▸
     <span class="guisubmenu">Tails</span>&nbsp;▸
     <span class="guimenuitem">About Tails</span>
   </span>
   to verify that you are running Tails 2.4~rc1.

What's new since 2.3?
=======================

Changes since Tails 2.3 are:

  * Major new features and changes
    - Upgrade Tor Browser to 6.0 based on Firefox 45.2. (Closes:
      [[!tails_ticket 11403]]).
    - Enable Icedove's automatic configuration wizard. We patch the
      wizard to only use secure protocols when probing, and only
      accept secure protocols, while keeping the improvements done by
      TorBirdy in its own non-automatic configuration wizard. (Closes:
      [[!tails_ticket 6158]], [[!tails_ticket 11204]])

  * Bugfixes
    - Enable Packetization Layer Path MTU Discovery for IPv4. If any
      system on the path to the remote host has a MTU smaller than the
      standard Ethernet one, then Tails will receive an ICMP packet
      asking it to send smaller packets. Our firewall will drop such
      ICMP packets to the floor, and then the TCP connection won't
      work properly. This can happen to any TCP connection, but so far
      it's been reported as breaking obfs4 for actual users. Thanks to
      Yawning for the help! (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 9268]])
    - Make Tails Upgrader ship other locales than English. (Closes:
      [[!tails_ticket 10221]])

  * Minor improvements
    - Icedove improvements:
      * Stop patching in our default into Torbirdy. We've upstreamed
        some parts, and the rest we set with pref branch overrides in
        /etc/xul-ext/torbirdy.js. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 10905]])
      * Use hkps keyserver in Engimail. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 10906]])
      * Default to POP if persistence is enabled, IMAP if
        not. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 10574]])
      * Disable remote email account creation in Icedove. (Closes:
        [[!tails_ticket 10464]])
    - Firewall hardening (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11391]]):
      * Don't accept RELATED packets. This enables quite a lot of code
        in the kernel that we don't need. Let's reduce the attack
        surface a bit.
      * Restrict debian-tor user to NEW TCP syn packets. It doesn't
        need to do more, so let's do a little bit of security in
        depth.
      * Disable netfilter's nf_conntrack_helper.
      * Fix disabling of automatic conntrack helper assignment.
    - Kernel hardening:
      * Set various kernel boot options: slab_nomerge slub_debug=FZ
        mce=0 vsyscall=none. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11143]])
      * Remove the kernel .map files. These are only useful for kernel
        debugging and slightly make things easier for malware, perhaps
        and otherwise just occupy disk space. Also stop exposing
        kernel memory addresses through /proc etc. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 10951]])
    - Drop zenity hacks to "focus" the negative answer. Jessie's
      zenity introduced the --default-cancel option, finally!
      (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11229]])
    - Drop useless APT pinning for Linux.
    - Remove gnome-tweak-tool. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11237]])
    - Install python-dogtail, to enable accessibility technologies in
      our automated test suite. (Part of: [[!tails_ticket 10721]])
    - Install libdrm and mesa from jessie-backports. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11303]])
    - Remove hledger. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11346]])
    - Don't pre-configure the #tails chan on the default OFTC account.
      (Part of: [[!tails_ticket 11306]])
    - Install onioncircuits from jessie-backports. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11443]])
    - Remove nmh. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 10477]])
    - Drop Debian experimental APT source: we don't use it.
    - Use APT codenames (e.g. "stretch") instead of suites, to be
      compatible with our tagged APT snapshots.
    - Drop module-assistant hook and its cleanup. We've not been using
      it since 2010.
    - Remove 'Reboot' and 'Power Off' entries from Applications →
      System Tools. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11075]])
    - Pin our custom APT repo to the same level as Debian ones, and
      explicitly pin higher the packages we want to pull from our custom
      APT repo, when needed.
    - config/chroot_local-hooks/59-libdvd-pkg: verify libdvdcss
      package installation. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11420]])
    - Make Tails Upgrader use our new mirror pool design. (Closes:
      [[!tails_ticket 11123]])

For more details, see also our [changelog](https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/plain/debian/changelog?h=testing).

<a id="known_issues"></a>

# Known issues in 2.4~rc1

* [[Longstanding known issues|support/known_issues]]

* The new version of `mesa` ([[!tails_ticket 11303]]) improves the
  situation on some hardware, but introduces regressions at least on:
  - AMD HD 7770
  - nVidia GT 930M

* Icedove's autoconfig wizard stalls when probing some domains
  ([[!tails_ticket 11486]]) but not all.
