Ubuntu Server 18.04.5 LTS - USB

Version 18.04.5 Release Date: August 13, 2020

NOTE: This distro comes on a USB 2.0/3.0 flash drive. This version of Ubuntu is only available as a 64 bit version.

18.04 reaches the End of Standard Support in May of 2023, companies that have deployed devices with this LTS need to take action. Staying on 18.04 EOL distribution is a security risk that companies can’t afford.

We suggest upgrading to 20.04 or 22.04 as soon as possible.

About Ubuntu

Codenamed "Bionic Beaver", 18.04 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs.

Under the hood, there have been updates to many core packages, including a new 4.15-based kernel.

Support lifespan

The 'main' archive of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will be supported for 5 years until April 2023. 

New features in 18.04 LTS

Linux kernel 4.15

Ubuntu 18.04 ships with a v4.15 based Linux kernel, enabling the latest hardware and peripherals available from IBM, Intel, and others. The 18.04 kernel delivers new features inherited from upstream, including:

• CPU controller for the cgroup v2 interface
• AMD secure memory encryption support
• The latest MD driver with software RAID enhancements
• Improved power management for systems with SATA Link Power Management

We also see notable Ubuntu specific achievements with:

• Linux security module stacking support
• Support for signing of POWER host and NV kernels
• Backport improved support for IBM and Intel hardware from Linux 4.16

OpenJDK

As of 18.04 release, OpenJDK 10 is the default JRE/JDK. Once OpenJDK 11 reaches GA in September 2018, it will become the default in 18.04.

OpenJDK 8 has moved to universe and will remain available there for the life of 18.04, to provide migration time for packages, custom applications, or scripts that can't be build with OpenJDK 10 or 11. OpenJDK 8 will be updated in 18.04 until Ubuntu 16.04 LTS reaches EOL in April 2021.

Security Improvements

In Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, gcc is now set to default to compile applications as position independent executables (PIE) as well as with immediate binding, to make more effective use of Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR). All packages in main have been rebuilt to take advantage of this, with a few exceptions.

Updates and fixes in 18.04.2

• Only "main" component enabled after install

• /etc/default/grub.d/50-curtin-settings.cfg overwrites GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT

• Install failed on disk previously used for ZFS

New since 17.10

Server installer

The next generation Subiquity server installer, brings the comfortable live session and speedy install of Ubuntu Desktop to server users at last.

N.B., If you require multipath, full-disk encryption, or the ability to re-using existing partitions, you will want to continue to use the alternate installer which can be downloaded from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/18.04/release/ As of 18.04.1, the Subiquity server installer now supports LVM, RAID, vlans, and bonds.

netplan.io

ifupdown has been deprecated in favor of netplan.io and is no longer present on new installs. Backend configuration on Ubuntu Server by default is provided by systemd-networkd.

LXD 3.0

LXD is the system container manager that ships with all Ubuntu servers.

Ubuntu 18.04 includes the all new LXD 3.0 release, some of the highlights include:

• Clustering of LXD servers (one big virtual LXD)
• Support for NVIDIA runtime passthrough
• Remote transfer of custom storage volumes
• Extended /dev/lxd API inside the containers
• Support for port redirection
• Numerous improvements to the command line tools

A new external tool called lxd-p2c is also available to turn existing systems into LXD containers.

QEMU 2.11.1

QEMU has been updated to the 2.11.1 release.

Among many other changes, fixes around Meltdown/Spectre are included. Since fully utilizing these mitigations needs more than just an upgrade, it is recommended to read details at the qemu.org blog post.

QEMU in Ubuntu 18.04 now has rdma support enabled as over the past year much unification in the rdma-core project has occured.

Migrations from former versions are supported just as usual. When upgrading it is always recommended to upgrade the machine types allowing guests to fully benefit from all the improvements and fixes of the most recent version.

libvirt 4.0

libvirt has been updated to version 4.0. See the upstream Changelogs for details since version 3.6 that was in Artful.

The packaging now builds libvirt storage drivers as pluggable libraries. This slims down the installation requirements but some drivers of less general interest will now be found in universe. (ex: gluster, sheepdog, zfs). On the other hand that means that a few formerly integrated features like rbd or zfs now might require you to install the package after upgrade e.g. in this case libvirt-daemon-driver-storage-zfs.

DPDK 17.11.x

Ubuntu includes 17.11.x the latest stable release branch of DPDK.

By the new Stable Release exception for DPDK future stable updates to 17.11.x will be made available to Ubuntu 18.04

Open vSwitch 2.9

Open vSwitch has been updated to 2.9.

Chrony

In Ubuntu 18.04 chrony will replace ntpd as the recommended server for the NTP protocol. 

The comparison among ntp servers by the chrony maintainers may interest some users looking to see a high level reason why this change was made. It does lack the rather new and not yet completely ready ntpsec, but otherwise is a fair analysis.

For simple time sync needs the base system already comes with systemd-timesyncd. Chrony is only needed to act as a time server or if you want the advertised more accurate and efficient syncing.

Going along with this change, ntpd has been demoted from main to universe. ntpd will continue to work but will only receive best-effort security maintenance. When upgrading to Ubuntu 18.04 it is highly recommended to migrate to chrony if you had set up ntpd before.

cloud-init

The version was updated to 18.2. Notable new features include:

• VMware: support for 64-bit platforms and identifying OVF datasource provided
• GCE: Improvements and changes to ssh key behavior for default user.
• Azure pre-provisioning speed improvements
• NoCloudKVM and EC2 tests now run in continuous integration.

• New cloud support: IBMCloud and HetznerCloud now have official datasources and OpenTelekom is now recognized by cloud-id

• OpenNebula: Improve network configuration support.

• New cloud-init command-line tools available: status, analyze and clean
• New ubuntu cloud-config modules for managing snaps and ubuntu-advantage services

curtin

The version was updated to 18.1. Notable features include:

• Add experimental zpool and zfs filesystem support, including ZFS on root.

• Add support for installing remote sources that are a filesystem image

• Add pollinate user-agent configuration support.

• Improved device teardown of dirty devices to support re-deployment 

• Default config now automatically tars curtin logs upon error using new curtin collect-logs command.

• storage: accept filesystem mount options

• Extensive integration test coverage and improvements.

MAAS

The version was updated to 2.4b2. Notable features include:

• Add audit logging
• Add KVM pod support to create tags, select the storage pool, and compose machines with multiple storage pools.
• Add UI for DNS management
• Add the commissioning template framework for HBA management.
• Add the commissioning template framework for Firmware Upgrades.
• Improve UI performance by performance.
• Improve MAAS' backend performance and
• Improve the UI for the Settings.
• Add experimental support to configure zfs as the root filesystem.
• Switch to use Chrony instead of ntp.

SSSD

SSSD was updated to version 1.16.x and its secrets service is now enabled. Previously it was disabled because it required the http-parser library which lived in Universe, but a successful MIR brought it to main so SSSD could link with it.

The defaults for autofs related configuration settings changed in SSSD 1.14.0 (see https://pagure.io/SSSD/sssd/issue/2858). If you are upgrading from SSSD 1.13 in Xenial, you might have to explicitly specify all ldap_autofs_* settings in your sssd.conf to match your data in LDAP.

These are the defaults, based on the setting of ldap_schema:

Samba

The vfs module aio_linux was removed from the samba-vfs-modules package 

Nginx

nginx was updated to version 1.14.0. New features include the mirror module, HTTP/2 push, and the gRPC proxy module.

PHP

PHP was updated to version 7.2.x. 

Apache

Apache was updated to version 2.4.29. Additionally, HTTP/2 support is now enabled in 18.04.

landscape-client

landscape-client has been ported to Python 3 and is now available to install on the default image.

ubuntu-advantage-tools

• New dynamic MOTD support for Canonical Livepatch. This indicates, at a glance, the status of livepatches when logging in on a console.

• New enable-fips-updates command to enable a special FIPS repository with non-certified updates for FIPS enabled systems.

s390x-specific enhancements (since 17.10)

• improvements for IBM z14,z14 ZR1,LinuxONE Rockhopper II and LinuxONE Emporer II

• s390-tools major version upgrade to v2.3.0

• cryptsetup rebase and enhancements in support of dm-cryp

• protected key support for dm-crypt

• TLB enhancements

• TOD-Clock Epoch Extension Support

• DASD multi-queue support and block layer discard support

• Improved memory handling

• support for new crypto hardware CEX6S

• AP bus kernel API for KVM

• CPACF enhancements and acceleration for AES GCM

• HiperSocket connections enhacements

• parted update for fdasd/vtoc

• openssl-ibmca rebase

• opencryptoki rebase for EP11 and ECC enhancement 

• lock optimization enhancement

• libica upgrade for z14 and ECC support and to use PRNO-TRNG to seed SHA512-DRBG

• auto detect layer2 setting in qeth driver 

• Kernel support for STHYI/LPAR 

• rebase libpfm4 for z13/z13s CPU-MF hardware counters

OpenStack Queens

Ubuntu 18.04 includes the latest OpenStack release, Queens, including the following components:

• OpenStack Identity - Keystone

• OpenStack Imaging - Glance

• OpenStack Block Storage - Cinder

• OpenStack Compute - Nova

• OpenStack Networking - Neutron

• OpenStack Telemetry - Ceilometer, Aodh, Gnocchi, and Panko

• OpenStack Orchestration - Heat

• OpenStack Dashboard - Horizon

• OpenStack Object Storage - Swift

• OpenStack Database as a Service - Trove

• OpenStack DNS - Designate

• OpenStack Bare-metal - Ironic

• OpenStack Filesystem - Manila

• OpenStack Key Manager - Barbican