Contribute to the DSpace Development Fund

The newly established DSpace Development Fund supports the development of new features prioritized by DSpace Governance. For a list of planned features see the fund wiki page.

Version 4.5

DSpace 4.5 was officially released to the public on March 21, 2016.

DSpace 4.5 can be downloaded immediately from:

More information on the 4.5 release (and the 4.x platform in general) can be found in the 4.x Release Notes.

Upgrade instructions can be found at Upgrading DSpace

We highly recommend ALL users of DSpace 4.x upgrade to 4.5

DSpace 4.5 contains security fixes for both the XMLUI and JSPUI. To ensure your 4.x site is secure, we highly recommend ALL DSpace 4.x users upgrade to DSpace 4.5.

As noted in the 4.3 release notes, we also highly recommend removing any  "allowLinking=true" settings from your Tomcat's <Context> configuration. Previously our installation documentation erroneously listed examples which included "allowLinking=true", while the Tomcat documentation lists it as a possible security concern.

We highly recommend DSpace 1.x.x users upgrade to DSpace 3.6, 4.5 or 5.5

If you are running an older, unsupported version of DSpace (1.x.x), we highly recommend upgrading to DSpace 3.6, DSpace 4.5 or DSpace 5.5 to ensure your site is secure. Per our DSpace Software Support Policy, all DSpace 1.x.x versions are now End-Of-Life.

If you are considering an upgrade from DSpace 1.x.x, note that, as of DSpace 5, your existing data (i.e. database contents, search/browse indexes) will now be automatically upgraded from ANY prior version of DSpace. Therefore, you may wish to consider upgrading directly to DSpace 5.x, as the 5.x upgrade process is simplified.

Summary

DSpace 4.5 is a security fix release to resolve several issues located in previous 4.x releases. As it only provides only security fixes, DSpace 4.5 should constitute an easy upgrade from DSpace 45.x for most users. No database changes or additional configuration changes should be necessary when upgrading from DSpace 4.x to 4.5.

This release addresses the following security issues discovered in DSpace 4.x and below:

  • XMLUI security fixes:
    • [HIGH SEVERITY] The XMLUI "themes/" path is vulnerable to a full directory traversal. (DS-3094 - requires a JIRA account to access.) This means that ANY files on your system which are readable to the Tomcat user account may be publicly accessed via your DSpace website.
      • Reported by Virginia Tech
  • JSPUI security fixes: 
    • [MEDIUM SEVERITY] The JSPUI "Edit News" feature (accessible to Administrators) can be used to view/edit ANY files which are readable to the Tomcat user account (DS-3063 - requires a JIRA account to access.)
      • Reported by CINECA

Upgrade Instructions

No new features in DSpace 4.5

4.5 is a security-fix release. This means it includes no new features and only includes the above listed security fixes

For a list of all new 4.x Features, please visit the 4.x Release Notes.

Organizational Details

Release Coordination

  • Release Coordinator: Committers Team (shared coordination)

Timeline and Proceeding

Release Timeline:

  • Release Date: March 21, 2016

 

Release Process will proceed according to the following Maven release process: Release Procedure

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