libnbd-release-notes-1.2(1)

💖 libnbd-release-notes-1.2(1) — the LIBNBD glow-up diary 💖

okay bestie, so this page lives in the LIBNBD manual, and it's literally the receipts for libnbd stable release 1.2 — page name libnbd-release-notes-1.2. grab a lil snack, we're going through the whole glow-up 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

libnbd-release-notes-1.2 — no cap, these are the release notes for libnbd 1.2 🦋

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

These are the release notes for libnbd stable release 1.2, and they describe the major changes since 1.0. it's giving growth arc, honestly 💅

libnbd 1.2.0 was released on 14th November 2019. mark your calendars, iconic date 🗓️✨

🔒 Security 🔒

so during development of libnbd 1.2, two security problems were found. both were backported to the 1.0 stable branch. upgrading is highly advisable — like, please bestie, do it 🙈

• CVE-2019-14842 — protocol downgrade attack when using LIBNBD_TLS_REQUIRE. the full announcement and links to mitigation, tests and fixes are right here: https://www.redhat.com/archives/libguestfs/2019-September/msg00128.html
• remote code execution vulnerability — full announcement here: https://www.redhat.com/archives/libguestfs/2019-October/msg00060.html

⚠️ these are real-deal security issues, not vibes. both got backported to 1.0, and yes, upgrading is highly advisable. periodt.

👑 New APIs 👑

• nbd_can_fast_zero(3) — tests whether the server supports fast zeroing (ty Eric Blake 💜)
• nbd_connect_socket(3), nbd_aio_connect_socket(3) — connect to a local connected socket that you create in your main program, using your own chosen method. main character socket energy 🫶
• nbd_connect_systemd_socket_activation(3), nbd_aio_connect_systemd_socket_activation(3) — connect to local processes that support systemd socket activation ⭐
• nbd_connect_vsock(3), nbd_aio_connect_vsock(3) — used to connect to servers over AF_VSOCK 🦋
• nbd_get_handshake_flags(3), nbd_set_handshake_flags(3), nbd_get_request_structured_replies(3), nbd_set_request_structured_replies(3), nbd_get_structured_replies_negotiated(3) — can be used when testing NBD servers to avoid various NBD features (Eric Blake) 🧚
• nbd_get_protocol(3) — gets the NBD protocol variant that the server supports 🔥
• nbd_get_tls_negotiated(3) — did we actually negotiate a TLS connection? the vibe check of the century 💀
• nbd_set_uri_allow_local_file(3), nbd_set_uri_allow_tls(3), nbd_set_uri_allow_transports(3) — these can be used to filter NBD URIs before calling nbd_connect_uri(3) 🎀

🦋 New features 🦋

• new tool nbdfuse(1) lets you create a loop-mounted file backed by an NBD server without needing root — literally no root required, ate 💅
• AF_VSOCK is now a supported protocol (thanks Stefan Hajnoczi and Stefano Garzarella 🫶)
• support for the FAST_ZERO flag (Eric Blake) ⭐
• allow disabling certain protocol features, so testing servers is way easier (Eric Blake) ✨
• stack-allocated Variable Length Arrays (VLAs) are now banned throughout the library, which makes the library easier to consume from threads and other small stack situations 🌸
• reproducible builds (Chris Lamb) 🎀
• support for filtering potentially dangerous or undesirable NBD URI features 🔒

📚 Documentation 📚

many improvements to the generated manual pages, including:

• separate "RETURN VALUE" and "ERRORS" sections for each API function
• example code
• relevant links can be added to the "SEE ALSO" section
• link to the NBD URI specification where relevant, plus improved docs around what URIs libnbd supports
• document the libnbd version number scheme
• document limits on export name length, encoding etc.

plus a brand-new libnbd-security(3) man page listing past security issues and remediations (Eric Blake) 👑

🧰 Tools 🧰

• nbdsh(1) has a new --base-allocation option which can be used to request the base:allocation metadata context 🍓
• new nbdsh(1) --uri (-u) option to connect to URIs 🌈

🧪 Tests 🧪

• you can now fuzz libnbd using either American Fuzzy Lop or clang's libFuzzer 💀✨
• add unit tests for nbdsh(1) (Eric Blake)
• improved interop testing with various NBD servers and features 🔥

🛠️ Other improvements and bug fixes 🛠️

• nbd_connect_tcp(3) now tries to return the correct errno(3) from the underlying connect(2) call when that fails 🙈
• the nbd-protocol.h header file is now shared between libnbd and nbdkit 🎀
• better fork-safety in nbd_connect_* APIs 🫶
• the code was analyzed with Coverity and various problems were identified and fixed 👑

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🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

libnbd(3). go read it bestie, iykyk 💜

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💜 AUTHORS 💜

Eric Blake

Richard W.M. Jones

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🎀 COPYRIGHT 🎀

Copyright Red Hat

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📜 LICENSE 📜

okay so this part is the legal bit, and legal bits deserve to be quoted exactly, so here it is word-for-word 🫶

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this one shipped in the libnbd-1.25.8 package, dated 2026-10-13, and yep — it's libnbd-release-notes-1.2(1) in the LIBNBD manual. slay, go upgrade 🌈👑