OpenWrt 22.03.0 first stable release

[Hauke Mehrtens]

Hi,

The OpenWrt community is proud to announce the first stable release of 
the OpenWrt 22.03 stable version series. It incorporates over 3800 
commits since branching the previous OpenWrt 21.02 release and has been 
under development for about one year.

Download firmware image for your device (firmware selector):
  * https://firmware-selector.openwrt.org/?version=22.03.0
Download firmware images directly from OpenWrt download servers:
  * https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03.0/targets/


Highlights in OpenWrt 22.03.0
=============================

Firewall4 based on nftables
===========================
Firewall4 is used by default, superseding the iptables-based firewall3 
implementation in the OpenWrt default images. Firewall4 uses nftables 
instead of iptables to configure the Linux netfilter ruleset.

Firewall4 keeps the same UCI firewall configuration syntax and should 
work as a drop-in replacement for fw3 with most common setups, emitting 
nftables rules instead of iptables ones.

Including custom firewall rules through /etc/firewall.user still works, 
but requires marking the file as compatible first, otherwise it is 
ignored. Firewall4 additionally allows to include nftables snippets. The 
firewall documentation 
https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/firewall/firewall_configuration 
explains how to include custom firewall rules with firewall4. Some 
community packages that add firewall rules might not work for now, and 
will need to be adapted to fw4: this will happen gradually throughout 
the lifetime of the 22.03 release series.

The legacy iptables utilities are not included in the default images 
anymore, but can be added back using opkg or the Image Builder if 
needed. The transitional packages iptables-nft, arptables-nft, 
ebtables-nft and xtables-nft can be used to create nftables rules using 
the old iptables command line syntax.

Many new devices added
======================
OpenWrt 22.03 supports over 1580 devices. Support for over 180 new 
devices was added in addition to the device support by OpenWrt 21.02. 
OpenWrt 22.03 supports more than 15 devices capable of Wifi 6 (IEEE 
802.11ax) using the MediaTek MT7915 wifi chip.

More targets converted to DSA
=============================
The following targets or boards were migrated from swconfig to DSA with 
OpenWrt 22.03 in addition to the systems already migrated with OpenWrt 
21.02:

  * bcm53xx: All board using this target were converted to DSA
  * lantiq: All boards using the xrx200 / vr9 SoC
  * sunxi: Bananapi Lamobo R1 (only sunxi board with switch)

Dark mode in LuCI
=================
The LuCI bootstrap design supports a dark mode. The default design 
activates dark mode depending on the browser settings. Change it 
manually at “System” -> “System” -> “Language and Style”.

Year 2038 problem handled
=========================
OpenWrt 22.03 uses musl 1.2.x, which changed the time_t type from 32 bit 
to 64 bit on 32 bit systems, on 64 bit system it was always 64 bit long. 
When a Unix time stamp is stored in a signed 32 bit integer it will 
overflow on 19 January 2038. With the change to 64 bit this will happen 
292 billion years later. This is a change of the musl libc ABI and needs 
a recompilation of all user space applications linked against musl libc. 
For 64 bit systems this was done when the ABI was defined many years 
ago, the glibc ARC ABI already has a 64 bit time_t.

Core components update
======================
Core components have the following versions in 22.03.0:

  * Updated toolchain:
    * musl libc 1.2.3
    * glibc 2.34
    * gcc 11.2.0
    * binutils 2.37
  * Updated Linux kernel
    * 5.10.138 for all targets
  * Network:
    * hostapd 2.10, dnsmasq 2.86, dropbear 2022.82
    * cfg80211/mac80211 from kernel 5.15.58
  * System userland:
    * busybox 1.35.0

In addition to the listed applications, many others were also updated 
see the detailed Changelog for more information.
https://openwrt.org/releases/22.03/changelog-22.03.0


Upgrading to 22.03.0
====================
Sysupgrade can be used to upgrade a device from OpenWrt 21.02 to 22.03, 
and configuration will be preserved in most cases. Upgrades from a 
previous 22.03.0 release candidate are also supported.

  * Sysupgrade from 19.07 to 22.03 is not supported.
  * There is no migration path for targets that switched from swconfig to
    DSA. In that case, sysupgrade will refuse to proceed with an
    appropriate error message:
      Image version mismatch. image 1.1 device 1.0 Please wipe config
      during upgrade (force required) or reinstall. Config cannot be
      migrated from swconfig to DSA Image check failed

-----------------


Full release notes and upgrade instructions are available at
https://openwrt.org/releases/22.03/notes-22.03.0

In particular, make sure to read the regressions and known issues before 
upgrading:
https://openwrt.org/releases/22.03/notes-22.03.0#known_issues

For a detailed list of all changes since 21.02, refer to
https://openwrt.org/releases/22.03/changelog-22.03.0

To download the 22.03.0 images, navigate to:
https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03.0/
Use OpenWrt Firmware Selector to download:
https://firmware-selector.openwrt.org/?version=22.03.0

As always, a big thank you goes to all our active package maintainers, 
testers, documenters, and supporters.

Have fun!

The OpenWrt Community

---

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