--- title: release notes 2.6.2 --- # Kea 2.6.2 Release Notes, March 26th 2025 Welcome to Kea 2.6.2, a maintenance release of the stable 2.6 series. Kea is a DHCP implementation developed by Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) that features DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 servers with DNS update and a REST API; optional database support (MySQL/MariaDB and PostgreSQL); optional RADIUS, Kerberos, YANG/NETCONF, and GSS-TSIG support; and much more. Kea provides extensive management capabilities, including but not limited to: TLS support, Role-Based Access Control, run-time configuration monitoring and updates via a REST API, host reservations, and client classification. The text below references issue numbers. For more details, visit the Kea GitLab page at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/issues. For details about Docker issues, visit the page at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea-docker/-/issues/. For details about packaging, visit the page at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea-packaging/-/issues/. The following bug fixes have been implemented since the previous stable release, version 2.6.1: 1. **Fix for inaccurate statistics**: Kea was miscalculating declined and assigned leases. [#3758, a backport of #3565] 2. **Fix for lease conflicts and NAK**: Conflicting entries were created when two relayed HA instances tried to update a shared lease DB at the same time. [#3798, a backport of #3648] 3. **Fix for `subnetX-del` not removing subnets completely**: `subnetX-del` was not correctly deleting the subnet declaration from the shared network configuration section. [#3756, a backport of #3455] 4. **Fix for `config-write` and `retry-on-startup` parameter**: `config-write` was improperly storing the `retry-on-startup` parameter in the config file, causing Kea to fail when restarting. [#3755, a backport of #3578] 5. **Fix for incorrect DB schema entry**: A typo prevented the upgrade script from working in certain circumstances. [#3753, a backport of #3631] 6. **Fix for mishandling malformed DISCOVER packets**: [#3750, a backport of #3712]. 7. **Fix for excessive memory utilization when receiving frequent SIGHUP**: Kea was storing a history of configs in memory with each restart. [#3757, a backport of #3652]. 8. **Fix for `config-set` with `output_options`**: `config-set` was omitting the `output_options` section when spelled with "_". [#3754, a backport of #3594] 9. **Fix for store-extended-info breaking lease limits**: A specific combination of vendor classes and storing extended info caused limits to not be applied. [#3760, a backport of #3702] 10. **Fix for DB connection recovery**: [#3751, a backport of #3727] 11. **Fix for build system**: [#3752, a backport of #3697] 12. **DB upgrade scripts**: DB upgrade could fail on some distributions. [#3794] For details, see the changelog below. ## Incompatible Changes None, although a DB schema update is necessary if PostgreSQL or MySQL is used, even if the Configuration Backend (CB) itself is not used. ## Packaging 1. **Native packages**: For convenient installation, Kea is available as native (deb, RPM, and APK) packages for the following systems on Intel/AMD x64 (amd64) and ARM (aarch64) architecture: Alpine 3.18 (amd64), 3.19 (amd64, aarch64), 3.20 (amd64, aarch64), 3.21 (amd64, aarch64); RHEL 8 (amd64), 9 (amd64, aarch64); Debian 11 (amd64, aarch64), 12 (amd64, aarch64); Fedora 40 (amd64), 41 (amd64); and Ubuntu 20.04 (amd64), 22.04 (amd64, aarch64), 24.04 (amd64, aarch64). The images are available on Cloudsmith (https://cloudsmith.io/~isc/repos/). 2. **Docker**: Both pre-built Docker images and Docker files are available. Users can install a single container with a specific service, such as `kea-dhcp4`, or use the `kea-compose` script that makes deployment of a cluster of containers (kea-dhcp4, kea-dhcp6, and a PostgreSQL database) much easier. Running a DHCP server in a Docker container is a bit more complicated than a typical service, as a DHCPv4 server needs to be able to receive traffic from clients that do not yet have an IP address assigned; simple port forwarding is not sufficient. Users should read about ipvlans before deploying Docker containers. Please use caution and share your feedback. For details, see the README file in https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea-docker/. The images are available on Cloudsmith (at https://cloudsmith.io/~isc/repos/docker/packages/) and the Docker files are on GitLab. 3. **Sources**: The source code is available as a tarball from Cloudsmith, on the ISC downloads site (https://downloads.isc.org/isc/kea/), or directly from the Kea repository on GitLab (https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea). ## License This version of Kea is released under the Mozilla Public License, version 2.0. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0 Some Kea hook libraries are provided under the MPL 2.0; others are licensed with the [Kea Hooks Basic Commercial End User License](https://www.isc.org/kea-premium-license/). The source for each hook library includes the applicable license. ## Download Pre-built ISC packages for current versions of the most popular Linux operating systems are available at: https://cloudsmith.io/~isc/repos/ Pre-built Docker images as well as Docker files are available. For details, see: https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea-docker The Kea source and PGP signature for this release may be downloaded from: https://www.isc.org/download The signature was generated with the ISC code-signing key, which is available at: https://www.isc.org/pgpkey ISC provides detailed documentation, including installation instructions and usage tutorials, in the Kea Administrator Reference Manual. Documentation is included with the installation or at https://kea.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html in HTML, PDF, or EPUB formats. ISC maintains a public open source code tree, wiki, issue tracking system, milestone planner, and roadmap at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea. Limitations and known issues with this release can be found at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/wikis/known-issues-list. We ask users of this software to please let us know how it worked for you and what operating system you tested on. Feel free to share your feedback on the Kea Users mailing list (https://lists.isc.org/mailman/listinfo/kea-users). We would also like to hear whether the documentation is adequate and accurate. Please open tickets in the Kea GitLab project for bugs, documentation omissions and errors, and enhancement requests. We want to hear from you even if everything worked. ## Support Professional support for Kea is available from ISC. We encourage all professional users to consider this option; Kea maintenance is funded with support subscriptions. For more information on ISC's Kea software support, see https://www.isc.org/support/. Free best-effort support is provided by our user community via a mailing list. Information on all public email lists is available at https://www.isc.org/community/mailing-list. If you have any comments or questions about working with Kea, please share them to the Kea Users list (https://lists.isc.org/mailman/listinfo/kea-users). Bugs and feature requests may be submitted via GitLab at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/issues. ## Changes The following summarizes changes and important upgrades since the 2.6.1 release. 2261. [build] mgodzina The library version numbers have been bumped up for the Kea 2.6.2 stable release. (Gitlab #3804) 2260. [bug] razvan Fixed a bug which was causing the allocation engine to reject the lease if a data race caused by a different server updating the shared database entries was detected. The entire packet is now dropped in this particular case. This applies to both kea-dhp4 and kea-dhcp6 servers. (Gitlab #3798, #3648) 2259. [bug] marcin Prevent the clients from declining expired or released leases. Only a valid lease assigned to the declining client can now be declined. When a misbehaving client declined a lease it did not own it often led to inconsistent statistics of assigned and declined leases. (Gitlab #3758, #3565) 2258. [bug] razvan Fixed the serialization of 'retry-on-startup' database configuration parameter as boolean instead of string. (Gitlab #3755, #3578) 2257. [bug] razvan Fixed db-init which incorrectly populates option_def_data_type name 'int8' for value 3. (Gitlab #3753, #3631) 2256. [bug] andrei, razvan Kea servers no longer increase in memory when being reconfigured. (Gitlab #3757, #3652) 2255. [bug] razvan Fixed applying 'output_options' when using the 'config-set' command. Deprecated 'output_options' which will be removed in future versions. Configurations should be updated by switching to using 'output-options' instead. (Gitlab #3754, #3594) 2254. [bug] razvan Fixed a bug related to database connection recovery which was preventing the server to resume processing packets because the dhcp state was never re-enabled. (Gitlab #3751, #3727) 2253. [bug] razvan Reset the local and remote disabled state when applying configuration. The dhcp-state is now included in the 'status-get' command. It indicates if the dhcp service is enabled or the reason why it is disabled (user command, HA command or database connection failure). (Gitlab #3751, #3446) And for Kea premium: 203. [bug]* tmark Corrected subnet4-del and subnet6-del commands. The commands were deleting subnets but not removing them from their shared-networks. (Gitlab #3756, #3455) 202. [bug] andrei, razvan An issue was fixed where limits set at the client class level would not have any effect if store-extended-info was enabled. (Gitlab #3760, #3702) 201. [bug] razvan Fixed a bug related to database connection recovery which was preventing the server to resume processing packets because the dhcp state was never re-enabled. (Gitlab #3751, #3727) Thank you again to everyone who assisted us in making this release possible. We look forward to receiving your feedback.