FreeCORE 15.1-RC2

Applications read the Daemonless organisation directly, Convert & Import, emulated guests, Bastille as a console, and the fixes of 15.0-U1.5 in the second 15.1 release candidate.

FreeCORE 15.1-RC2 is the second release candidate on the 15.1 line. It changes how Applications reads its catalog, adds an experimental lane for moving jails into Applications, runs emulated guests beside bhyve, and makes the Bastille web interface a console over the CLI. It includes every fix in 15.0-U1.5.

Release date: 15 September 2026

RC2 is for evaluation, not production. Test it on a system you can restore or reinstall. The published CORE compatibility results do not establish that every catalog application or migrated workload works correctly.

Applications

• Applications reads the Daemonless organisation directly. The catalog is the provider's own index; a reviewed entry is bound to the SHA-256 of the compose file that was reviewed, and updates follow the provider's package versions. Any other image installs only through the second, acknowledged unreviewed tier. The FreeCORE-signed catalog snapshot of RC1 is retired. Applications installed on RC1 keep running unchanged.
• Convert & Import (experimental) is a guided lane that lifts an iocage or Bastille jail into a native application, offers recipe-based migrations for known workloads, and imports a compose file. See Plugins, Jails and Applications.
• Linux images (experimental, off by default) is an opt-in compatibility tier that runs Linux container images through FreeBSD's Linux binary compatibility. Enabling it loads the Linux modules; disabling it leaves them loaded until a reboot.
• Applications can be unconfigured: the store and its runtime are removed, and a cascading export or destroy of the pool that holds the store does the same.
• The Applications page inspects every container in two calls instead of two per application; a crash-looping application reads RESTARTING; the last application on an image takes the image with it and a prune removes the rest; a catalog entry whose image tag or compose file is missing upstream shows that condition instead of AVAILABLE.
• Once Applications is configured, the Storage page, the dashboard and middleware start no longer walk the application image layers; each is several times faster. iocage sees its activated pool and its jails again while Applications is configured.
• A volume created for an application is owned by it, a failed install keeps its traceback, installing scrolls the review into view, and the application row says which health it reports.

Jails and Guests

• Bastille: the web interface observes jails and the bastille CLI manages them. Creating, configuring and deleting jails, templates and releases return to the CLI; the Bastille management API introduced in RC1 is retired. The CLI finds the pool selected in the web interface, including after a reboot. The releases on disk are listed in the web interface.
• Jails is one sidebar entry again; Bastille is reached from the Jails page. Deleting an iocage jail that is still held reports what holds it.
• Emulated aarch64 and riscv64 virtual machines run on QEMU beside the native bhyve ones. They use TCG without acceleration: usable, and slow. The Virtual Machines page gains an Architecture field. The matching user-mode emulators are installed and registered with the kernel's image activator.
• The QEMU Guest Agent is a managed service. It refuses to start where the host offers no guest channel.
• The Guests dashboard card reports Bastille jails as their own family, with the addresses they hold and their disk usage, and names the applications it counts.

Networking, Sharing and System

• WireGuard peers report their last handshake and per-peer transfer counters.
• SMB shares whose VFS objects include noacl accept client connections again. The noacl module no longer fails to load.
• The web interface's Shell and jail consoles no longer clip the bottom of each line, so underscores and descenders are visible, and the terminal opens once its font has loaded. The web interface no longer hangs on a sidebar submenu click.
• UEFI virtual machines boot to the display again instead of the serial console, VIRTIO virtual machines with more than one disk start again, the VM web console works when VNC is bound to all addresses, and bhyve no longer forces a VM exit on every guest PAUSE instruction.
• rar2fs starts after the pools are imported. iocage basejail upgrades across major releases work again.
• The API documentation is served from the system itself and describes API-key authentication.
• arcstat and arc_summary are back in the base system. The kernel reports the FreeCORE 15.1 build it was made from (uname -v), and the source manifest the image was built from is readable at /etc/repo-manifest.
• The Memory dashboard card states its ECC status as text, the Update card sizes to its content, and alert severity labels no longer crowd their icon.
• ACME certificate issuance works with an ACME server that returns no account contact, as Let's Encrypt now does; a registration stranded by that failure is repaired in place, and the certificate request is handed to the order in the form the ACME client requires. This shipped in 15.1-RC1 and was not listed there.

VM Compatibility

15.1 supports UEFI VMs. Existing GRUB and UEFI-CSM definitions remain visible, but cannot run or be edited. Their disks are not converted. Prepare and test UEFI boot while still on 15.0; see VM Firmware in FreeCORE 15.1.

Install or Update

RC1 systems receive this candidate on the FreeCORE-15.1-STABLE train. Bastille jails created through the RC1 web interface keep running and are managed with the bastille CLI from here on.

From 15.0, the notes for RC1 still apply: update to 15.0-U1.3 or later first, and the move to FreeCORE-15.1-STABLE is one-way. Staying on FreeCORE-15.0-STABLE keeps a system on the maintained 15.0 line. Back up the system configuration and workload data before choosing 15.1.

The exact installer is FreeCORE-15.1-RC2.iso, with a detached signature and SHA-256 file. Use the installation guide's verification procedure with this exact filename and digest:

970eea70d84f46c1e9f51c1891aeef3a59e2b00c6b28bc166bdb0dfad3de7c19

See the published test evidence, website changelog and Getting Help when evaluating or reporting a problem.