The deaddrop 4.10.0 release

Branding is the process of customizing Deaddrop with customer-specific images, text, colors, and other elements provided by the organization operating it. We have supported branding for many years, but the current implementation is cumbersome to maintain and may be affected when new versions of Deaddrop are released.

The main new feature in this release is a branding editor within the admin interface (ddadm). Custom branding no longer requires files on the server to be edited manually. Instead, brands can be created, edited, duplicated, activated, uploaded, and downloaded directly in ddadm. A new branding role provides access to the branding editor only, allowing graphic designers to work on branding without having access to unrelated administrative functions. Custom brands are also included in scheduled backups.

Customers with an existing legacy brand are encouraged to create a new brand under Branding in ddadm and re-create their legacy branding using the branding editor. Legacy brands will continue to work as before but cannot be edited in the branding editor. They will no longer be supported after 1 March 2027. All customers with branded Deaddrop installations must migrate to the branding editor before that date.

Bug fixes

  • The send_password_insecure setting could not be set through ddadm.
  • Saving the NTP configuration in ddadm would be denied by SELinux.
  • Time synchronisation would sometimes not start after an ISO install. deaddrop-chronyd is replaced by the standard chronyd service.
  • The mail relay address in ddadm was not validated.
  • Uploading a file of exactly 1 byte would put the web frontend in an infinite loop.
  • Dispatch jobs that could not be deserialized would remain in the queue. They are now moved to FAILED.
  • On a fresh install, chronyd would be left disabled.
  • On shutdown, dispatchd, smsd and notifyhookd would not wait for requests already in progress to finish. Fixed.

Documentation

  • Online documentation updated with information about the new branding editor of ddadm.

Features

  • Brand editor in ddadm. Brands can be created, edited, activated, duplicated, versioned, uploaded and downloaded, covering SCSS variables, colour palette, logos, mail styling and language string overrides. Changes can be applied to a preview before they are saved permanently.
  • Custom brands are now included in the scheduled backup.
  • New ddadm role: branding, giving access to /branding only.
  • Changes to email domain mapping, log rotation and search engine settings are written to the audit log.
  • The dispatch UUID is propagated between newer deaddrop services, so a dispatch can be followed across the logs, smsd included.
  • New repairmcs.py flag --fix-mod-selinux-map-duplicates, removing duplicate entries in mod_selinux.map.
  • repairmcs.py repairs mislabeled files, not only unlabeled ones.
  • The user list in ddadm is now paginated and can be searched.

Security Hardening

  • Hostnames are now validated in ddadm before being set.
  • Input validation hardening in ddadm, including a path-traversal flaw when reading logs.
  • CBC ciphers removed from the httpd TLS configuration.
  • The setuid bit is removed on install and upgrade from binaries deaddrop does not need it on: pkexec, polkit-agent-helper-1, chage, gpasswd, newgrp, passwd, mount, umount, chsh, chfn, unix_chkpwd and pam_timestamp_check.
  • Smsd Landlock sandbox updated from V8 to V9.
  • Deaddrop certificates would be labeled etc_t instead of deaddrop_cert_t. Fixed. The pregenerated key and certificate are also group-owned by ddadm (0660), so certificates can be managed from ddadm.
  • New kernel settings in /etc/sysctl.d/99-deaddrop.conf: user namespaces, io_uring and unprivileged BPF disabled, ptrace restricted to administrators, and BPF JIT hardening enabled.

Additional Information

Operating system packages

All system components have been updated to their latest respective version.

Update Instructions

If you have default update configuration, Deaddrop releases will be automatically installed as part of the regular update process. No manual steps are required from administrators or users. The system will apply the update seamlessly in the background, ensuring that the latest fixes are in place without any interruption to normal operations.

Documentation

Further details and configuration guidance are available in the official documentation:

https://sysctl.se/deaddrop/documentation/

SBOM

Each ISO and VHD release has a software bill of materials (SBOM) to make introspection of the release easy to integrate with a number of security tools. Current and historical SBOMs are available for download at the customer portal.

Sysctl web page

https://www.sysctl.se

Sysctl page for Deaddrop releases

https://sysctl.se/deaddrop/releases/

Sysctl documentation for Deaddrop

https://sysctl.se/deaddrop/documentation/

Sysctl customer portal

https://portal.sysctl.se/

Sysctl rss/atom

https://sysctl.se/feed.xml