Ubuntu Server For Linux

Ubuntu Server has always been a very good value when it comes to powering datacenters all over the world. The latest version of Ubuntu Server is 23.04 (codenamed Lunar Lobster) brings, as expected, various under-the-hood changes and improvements.

Being an interim release (short-term release), the Ubuntu Server 23.04 is probably one of the most underrated versions of Ubuntu and, while it might not impress when it comes to adoption rates, it hints at what's to come next year (namely the Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS).

Ubuntu Server 23.04 features a new version of Apache2 with the mod_http2 having a partial rewrite, and the resource handling for misbehaving clients being improved. In the AppArmor updates section, two more packages, namely rsyslog and isc-kea, now include AppArmor profile defaulting to enforce mode.

Cloud images have been updated to default to fstab entry for ext4 root fylesystem (to use commit=30 seconds option). This has various beneficial effects on performance and power efficiency.

Cloud-init was also updated to 23.1 and it has a plethora of highlights including a new data source support (NWCS), Azure device driver fixes, as well as various other improvements for LXD, OpenStack, Netplan, Ansible, ssh, cloud-config schema, and documentation, just to name a few.

For starters, Docker has been updated to version 20.10.21. The new version boasts various library updates, as well as security and bug fixes. Containerd has also been upgraded to version 1.6.12, and Runc to version 1.1.4.

Dnsmasq now has various new option options included and has been updated to version 2.89, Dpdk has new device drivers, fixes and optimizations, and Frr was updated to version 8.4.2.

There are lot of HA/Clustering changes also. Corosyn is now available in version 3.1.7, Fence Agents updated to version 4.12.1, haproxy updated to the new LTS series 2.6, Heimdal updated to 7.8, and Libvirt is now available in version 9.0.0.

Other changes include nice improvements and security fixes for Net SNMP, Open vSwitch (now at version 3.1.0), as well as OpenStack (Antelope).

For a full list of changes, please refer to the official Release Notes section on the Ubuntu website.

As mentioned before, Ubuntu Server 23.04 (Lunar Lobster) is probably the most underrated release since it only features support until January 2024. Nevertheless, the list of changes is impressive, to say the least, and we can get a fairly accurate idea in regards to what we can expect in April 2024 when the new LTS version will be released (24.04 LTS).