HardenedBSD 14-STABLE Deprecation Notice: March 2026

[Shawn Webb]

Hey all,

With FreeBSD slated to release 15.0 in December 2025, I plan to
delegate support of the 14-STABLE branch to the HardenedBSD community
on 31 March 2026.

Now that we have quarterly releases for HardenedBSD 15-STABLE, I would
encourage folks to start testing it out. The only caveat: we haven't
published a new package repo that matches the quarterly release. So,
the one requirement for testing is that you also build your own
packages.

We do currently have a 15-STABLE package repo, but FreeBSD made some
late changes to some of the core system libraries, so the current
state of the 15-STABLE package repo is: you might see some level of
success.

If you're able to test HardenedBSD 15-STABLE, please let me know how
it goes. Success stories are just as important as failures.

And for anyone curious about the state of the current package build:
https://hbsd-pkg-15-stable-01.hardenedbsd.org/build.html?mastername=hbsd15-default&build=2025-10-04_21h27m42s

Thanks,

--
Shawn Webb
Cofounder / Security Engineer
HardenedBSD

Signal Username: shawn_webb.74
Tor-ified Signal: +1 303-901-1600 / shawn_webb_opsec.50
https://git.hardenedbsd.org/hardenedbsd/pubkeys/-/raw/master/Shawn_Webb/03A4CBEBB82EA5A67D9F3853FF2E67A277F8E1FA.pub.asc

[Shawn Webb]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2025 at 07:13:08PM +0000, Shawn Webb wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> With FreeBSD slated to release 15.0 in December 2025, I plan to
> delegate support of the 14-STABLE branch to the HardenedBSD community
> on 31 March 2026.
>
> Now that we have quarterly releases for HardenedBSD 15-STABLE, I would
> encourage folks to start testing it out. The only caveat: we haven't
> published a new package repo that matches the quarterly release. So,
> the one requirement for testing is that you also build your own
> packages.
>
> We do currently have a 15-STABLE package repo, but FreeBSD made some
> late changes to some of the core system libraries, so the current
> state of the 15-STABLE package repo is: you might see some level of
> success.
>
> If you're able to test HardenedBSD 15-STABLE, please let me know how
> it goes. Success stories are just as important as failures.
>
> And for anyone curious about the state of the current package build:
> https://hbsd-pkg-15-stable-01.hardenedbsd.org/build.html?mastername=hbsd15-default&build=2025-10-04_21h27m42s

1632-ish hours into the build, and we're not even half way through the
package build.

The existing 15-stable build server can still build installer/update
artifacts, but it certainly is showing it cannot handle building
36,000+ packages.

It doesn't make sense to support 14-stable and 16-current better than
we support 15-stable.

So, once the current 14-stable package build[1] is completed, I plan
to migrate that to the new 15-stable package builder.

So, this means that 14-STABLE support will be delegated to the
community at the end of 2025Q4.

Thank you for understanding. We're trying to make due with what we
have, but I suspect we'll be sending out an official "call for
donations" for a new (or refurbished) build server. Please do reach
out if you have a server or two to donate. The main pain point is the
RAM requirements: 768GB at a minimum. The more CPUs/cores, the better.