You can help Tails! The first (and hopefully only) release candidate for the upcoming version 0.23 is out. Please test it and see if all works for you.

  1. How to test Tails 0.23~rc1?
  2. How to automatically upgrade from 0.22.1?
  3. What's new since 0.22.1?
  4. Known issues in 0.23~rc1

How to test Tails 0.23~rc1?

  1. Keep in mind that this is a test image. We have made sure that it is not broken in an obvious way, but it might still contain undiscovered issues.

  2. Download the ISO image and its signature:

    Tails 0.23~rc1 ISO image

    Tails 0.23~rc1 signature

  3. Verify the ISO image.

  4. Have a look at the list of known issues of this release and the list of longstanding known issues.

  5. Test wildly!

If you find anything that is not working as it should, please report to us! Bonus points if you check that it is not a known issue of this release or a longstanding known issue.

How to automatically upgrade from 0.22.1?

These steps allow you to automatically upgrade a device installed with Tails Installer from Tails 0.22.1 to Tails 0.23~rc1 using the Tails Upgrader:

  • Start Tails 0.22.1 and set an administration password.

  • Run this command in a Terminal to select the "alpha" upgrade channel and start the upgrade: 

    echo 'TAILS_CHANNEL="alpha"' | sudo tee --append /etc/os-release && \
tails-upgrade-frontend-wrapper

What's new since 0.22.1?

  • Major improvements

    • Spoof the network interfaces' MAC address by default (Closes: #5421), as specified in our on design document .

    • Rework the way to configure how Tor connects to the network (bridges, proxies, restrictive firewalls): add an option to Tails Greeter, start Tor Launcher when needed (Closes: #5920, #5343).

  • Bugfixes

    • Additional software: do not crash when persistence is disabled (Closes: #6440).

    • Upgrade Pidgin to 2.10.9, that fixes some regressions introduced in the 2.10.8 security update (Closes: #6661).

    • Wait for Tor to have fully bootstrapped, plus a bit more time, before checking for upgrades (Closes: #6728) and unfixed known security issues.

    • Disable the Intel Management Engine Interface driver (Closes: #6460). We don't need it in Tails, it might be dangerous, and it causes bugs on various hardware such as systems that reboot when asked to shut down.

    • Add a launcher for the Tails documentation. This makes it available in Windows Camouflage mode (Closes: #5374, #6767).

    • Remove the obsolete wikileaks.de account from Pidgin (Closes: #6807).

  • Minor improvements

    • Upgrade Tor to 0.2.4.21-1~d60.squeeze+1.

    • Upgrade obfsproxy to 0.2.6-2~~squeeze+1.

    • Upgrade I2P to 0.9.11-1deb6u1.

    • Install 64-bit kernel instead of the 686-pae one (Closes: #5456). This is a necessary first step towards UEFI boot support.

    • Install Monkeysign (in a not-so-functional shape yet).

    • Disable the autologin text consoles (Closes: #5588). This was one of the blockers before a screen saver can be installed in a meaningful way (#5684).

    • Don't localize the text consoles anymore: it is broken on Wheezy, the intended users can as well use loadkeys, and we now do not have to trust setupcon to be safe for being run as root by the desktop user.

    • Make it possible to manually start IBus.

    • Reintroduce the possibility to switch identities in the Tor Browser, using a filtering proxy in front of the Tor ControlPort to avoid giving full control over Tor to the desktop user (Closes: #6383).

    • Incremental upgrades improvements:

      • Drop the Tails Upgrader launcher, to limit users' confusion (Closes: #6513).

      • Lock down sudo credentials a bit.

      • Hide debugging information (Closes: #6505).

      • Include ~/.xsession-errors in WhisperBack bug reports. This captures the Tails Upgrader errors and debugging information.

      • Report more precisely why an incremental upgrade cannot be done (Closes: #6575).

      • Various user interface and phrasing improvements.

    • Don't install the Cookie Monster browser extension (Closes: #6790).

    • Add a browser bookmark pointing to Tor's Stack Exchange (Closes: #6632).

    • Remove the preconfigured #tor channel from Pidgin: apparently, too many Tails users go ask Tails questions there, without making it clear that they are running Tails, hence creating a user-support nightmare (Closes: #6679).

    • Use (most of) Tor Browser's mozconfig (Closes: #6474).

    • Rebase the browser on top of iceweasel 24.3.0esr-1, to get the certificate authorities added by Debian back (Closes: #6704).

    • Give access to the relevant documentation pages from Tails Greeter.

    • Hide Tails Greeter's password mismatch warning when entry is changed.

    • Persistent Volume Assistant:

      • Take into account our installer is now called Tails Installer.

      • Optimize window height (Closes: #5458).

      • Display device paths in a more user-friendly way (Closes: #5311).

  • Build system

    • Ease updating POT and PO files at release time, and importing translations from Transifex (Closes: #6288, #6207).

    • Drop custom poedit backport, install it from squeeze-backports-sloppy.

    • Make ISO and IUK smaller (Closes: #6390, #6425):

      • Exclude more files from being included in the ISO.

      • Remove *.pyc later so that they are not recreated.

      • Truncate log files later so that they are not filled again.

      • At ISO build time, set mtime to the epoch for large files whose content generally does not change between releases. This forces rsync to compare the actual content of these files, when preparing an IUK, instead of blindly adding it to the IUK merely because the mtime has changed, while the content is the same.

      • Make local hooks logging consistent.

  • Test suite

    • Migrate from JRuby to native Ruby + rjb.

    • The test suite can now be run on Debian Wheezy + backports.

    • Fix buggy "persistence is not enabled" step (Closes: #5465).

    • Use IPv6 private address as of RFC 4193 for the test suite's virtual network. Otherwise dnsmasq from Wheezy complains, as it is not capable of handling public IPv6 addresses.

    • Delete volumes after each scenario unless tagged @keep_volumes.

    • Add an anti-test to make sure the memory erasure test works fine.

    • A *lot* of bugfixes, simplifications and robustness improvements.

Known issues in 0.23~rc1

All these issues are being worked on and will hopefully be fixed in Tails 0.23.