Tails 5.17 is out! (2023-09-05)

General Discussion
1

Tails 5.17 Announcement

Changes and updates

  • Rename Tails Installer as Tails Cloner. (#16907)
  • Install more printer drivers and enable all printers automatically. (#18254)
  • Update Tor Browser to 12.5.3.
  • Update Thunderbird to 102.15.0.

Fixed problems

  • Fix some failures while unlocking the Persistent Storage. (#19728)Sometimes, upgrading the cryptographic parameters of the Persistent Storage was taking too long and made unlocking the Persistent Storage fail. We allowed the upgrade to take more time before reporting a failure.Please keep reporting errors using WhisperBack if you have problems unlocking your Persistent Storage.

For more details, read our changelog.

Known issues

None specific to this release.

See the list of long-standing issues.

Get Tails 5.17

To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your persistent storage

  • Automatic upgrades are available from Tails 5.0 or later to 5.17.You can reduce the size of the download of future automatic upgrades by doing a manual upgrade to the latest version.
  • If you cannot do an automatic upgrade or if Tails fails to start after an automatic upgrade, please try to do a manual upgrade.

To install Tails on a new USB stick

Follow our installation instructions:

The Persistent Storage on the USB stick will be lost if you install instead of upgrading.

To download only

If you don’t need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 5.17 directly:

Posted 2023-09-05

Direct Downloads

Changelog

tails (5.17) unstable; urgency=medium

  • Upgrade Thunderbird to 1:102.15.0-1~deb11u1

  • tps: make is_upgraded() require a single upgraded keyslot (tails/tails!1209)

    Closes issues:

    • Upgrading Persistent Storage times out on some systems and displays an error in
      the Welcome Screen but succeeds in the background (tails/tails#19728)

    Commits:

    • tps: revert commented out code that was committed by mistake
    • Enable the 19728-tps-upgrade-check-vs-corrupt-keys APT overlay (refs:
      tails/tails#19728).
    • tps: drop parsing of luksDump and use JSON instead
    • Avoid variables named “match” which is a Python >= 3.10 keyword
    • tps: assign variable to regexp for readability
    • Update comment.
    • Welcome screen: bump timeout for activating persistence from 2m to 5m
    • Welcome Screen: drop timeout for upgrading the persistent storage
    • tps: redact sensitive information from luksDump in the logs
    • tps: use more redable re.MULTILINE instead of re.M alias
    • tps: make is_upgraded() require a single upgraded keyslot

  • Upgrade Tor Browser to 12.5.3 (tails/tails!1238)

    Closes issues:

    • Remove obsolete config/chroot_local-includes/usr/share/live/config/xserver-
      xorg/*.ids (tails/tails#19330)

    Commits:

    • Fetch Tor Browser from our own archive
    • Upgrade Tor Browser to 12.5.3-build1

  • Test suite: capture needed-package-updates’s output by on failure
    (tails/tails!1236)

    Commits:

    • Tets suite: capture needed-package-updates’s output by on failure

  • Enable all available printers. (tails/tails!1234)

    Commits:

    • Enable all available printers.

  • Test suite: make changing Persistent Storage passphrase, and deleting
    Persistent Storage, more robust (tails/tails!1231)

    Closes issues:

    • Flaky tests: Changing the Persistent Storage passphrase, deleting Persistent
      Storage (tails/tails#19950)

    Commits:

    • Add comment
    • Test suite: make deleting the Persistent Storage more robust
    • Test suite: make changing Persistent Storage passphrase more robust

  • Remove manual manipulation of env of start-systemd-desktop-target
    (tails/tails!1229)

    Closes issues:

    • Simplify start-systemd-desktop-target (tails/tails#16968)

    Commits:

    • Remove manual manipulation of env of start-systemd-desktop-target

  • Install printer-driver-brlaser (tails/tails!1228)

    Closes issues:

    • Install printer-driver-brlaser (tails/tails#18254)

    Commits:

    • Install printer-driver-brlaser

  • Remove the plymouth.ignore-udev hack (tails/tails!1224)

    Closes issues:

    • Check if we can get rid of the plymouth.ignore-udev hack in tails-gdm-failed-
      to-start.service (tails/tails#16964)

    Commits:

    • Remove the plymouth.ignore-udev hack.

  • Resolve “Document how to deal with virt-viewer’s CSD” (tails/tails!1223)

    Closes issues:

    • Document how to deal with virt-viewer’s CSD (tails/tails#19941)

    Commits:

    • Make sure Tails APT signing key is trusted
    • Update apt to ensure that apt-cache policy will present a candidate
    • Test suite: check that virt-viewer is not affected by tails/tails#19064
    • Set up automated test suite so it is not affected by tails/tails#19064

  • Display binary package names if not everything needs an update
    (tails/tails!1220)

    Closes issues:

    • Prevent version mismatches among binary packages from src:linux
      (tails/tails#16375)

    Commits:

    • fix loop over issues
    • Reformat with black
    • Display binary package names· if not everything needs an update tails#16375

  • Misc post-release fixes (tails/tails!1219)

    Closes issues:

    • Lack of regex support in Dogtail’s child method breaks Thunderbird tests
      (tails/tails#19928)

    Commits:

    • Add comment
    • Rewrite regexp to fit in Dogtail syntax
    • test suite supports regexp
    • workaround test hidden in test suite
    • locale-independent output for date

  • RM doc updates (tails/tails!1218)

    Commits:

    • Apply 1 suggestion(s) to 1 file(s)
    • twitter credentials explained
    • expected timing updated
    • follow links!
    • list possible stages in rm-config help
    • explicitly say which stage we’re in now
    • fix python strings
    • black reformatting
    • standardize locale

  • GitLab CI: allow forcing to run a pipeline by setting $CI_FORCE_RUN
    (tails/tails!1214)

    Commits:

    • GitLab CI: allow forcing to run a pipeline by setting $CI_FORCE_RUN

  • Rename Tails Installer as Tails Cloner (tails/tails!1200)

    Closes issues:

    • Rename Tails Installer as Tails Cloner (tails/tails#16907)

    Commits:

    • Rename Tails Installer as Tails Cloner

  • Add script to detect needed package updates from Debian (tails/tails!1155)

    Closes issues:

    • Prevent version mismatches among binary packages from src:linux
      (tails/tails#16375)
    • Track security updates during the Tails code freeze (tails/tails#14728)

    Commits:

    • Release process: add special mention for the needed package update test
    • Print error instead of trigger an exception.
    • Use highest package version if multiple are available.
    • Reformat with black
    • Test suite setup doc: update dependencies
    • Fix typo
    • Use the Ultimate Debian Database (UDD) directly.
    • Lint
    • Test suite: document new dependencies
    • Test suite: ensure frozen packages are up-to-date
    • Needed package update: add exception
    • APT: switch to pinning via source package when relevant
    • Fix logic to detect an issue correctly.
    • Reformat with black
    • Lint
    • make mypy happy again.
    • Fix logic to return errcode 0 if no issue is shown.
    • move SUITES into part of Madison.
    • make madison a local variable
    • More linting
    • Preserve type
    • Have default value be the correct type
    • Reformat with black
    • Use consistent terminology
    • Start linting new script
    • Sort imports
    • Remove unused import
    • Fix typo
    • Update comments
    • use qa.debian.org Madison API
    • restructure the config file to handle also distribution.
    • Simplify logic.
    • Fix type annotations.
    • Always query stable-security’s version to and request update…
    • Query also stable-secuirty for updates.
    • We should first look for the source, as we have only query source package
      names.
    • Only add metadata, when available.
    • Add script to detect needed package updates from Debian

– Tails developers tails@boum.org Mon, 04 Sep 2023 09:10:16 +0000

1 Like
2

The release key has been expired for a few years now… maybe …maybe you can fix this problem. Everybody knows it by now!

3

Hello, for official Tails support please see:

I am not a part of the Tails team. I am simply a user who enjoys posting about these releases.

I will try and make this more clear in future releases.

1 Like