Netgate® is pleased to announce the release of TNSR® software version 25.06. This regularly scheduled release includes additional hardware support, new capabilities, updates, and bug fixes. The Release Notes are available for review.

Overview

Netgate TNSR is a high-performance software router that can run on Netgate systems, bare-metal commodity hardware, in virtualized environments within your data center or on AWS and Azure cloud platforms. It achieves speeds and performance that would otherwise be reserved for traditional ASIC-based hardware routers, but at a fraction of the cost. TNSR is the answer for businesses, governments, and xSPs looking for scalable routing without the six-figure price tag.

TNSR combines the FD.io Vector Packet Processor (VPP), a fast, scalable layer 2-7 network stack, including NETCONF and RESTCONF APIs, with a control plane combining FRR and Strongswan, as well as an intuitive CLI for configuration and monitoring. 

The result is a product that delivers high performance in mission-critical site-to-site, edge-to-cloud, data center, and VPN scenarios. This product is complemented by Netgate's 24x365 Technical Assistance Center, and we stand ready to support your critical business requirements every day.

In this release, we have implemented the following exciting new features and improvements: 

Feature Highlights

IS-IS Routing Protocol

TNSR now supports dynamic routing with the Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) interior gateway protocol (IGP). Used extensively by Tier-1 ISPs, IS-IS is the IGP running on countless internet backbone networks. One of the advantages of IS-IS is its modular approach to the protocol information it carries. One IS-IS instance can carry routing information for both IPv4 and IPv6, eliminating the need for a separate instance for each. This is an efficient approach to interior routing that greatly simplifies network design.

VPF State Synchronization

The VPF Firewall is a stateful firewall and NAT solution that is built into TNSR. It can now synchronize its states between two TNSR routers. This enables seamless VRRP failover between two TNSR routers configured in a High-Availability cluster.

Snort 3.0 Performance

TNSR includes Snort 3.0, which now supports assigning multiple instances and worker threads, allowing Snort 3.0 to scale across more CPU cores. Users can experience dramatic performance increases when using Snort3 in TNSR for IDS/IPS capabilities.

New Data Model-Driven CLI

This new optional CLI mode provides the ability to control all configurations from a single configuration mode, using commands that closely match the underlying YANG data model. This mode uses the data model directly to determine command syntax.

IP Unnumbered Interfaces

TNSR now provides the ability to configure IP unnumbered interfaces. By “borrowing” an IP address from another interface, TNSR can now process packets without configuring a unique IP address on an interface.

Proxy ARP

TNSR can now reply to ARP requests on an upstream-facing interface for a range of addresses belonging to peers connected to a downstream-facing interface. This can enable a more modular approach to network design when providing default gateways to network clients.

FRR Unmanaged Mode

TNSR now allows administrators familiar with FRR to manage manual configuration data for FRR directly. This can enable configuration scenarios that are supported by FRR but not possible in TNSR, but the burden is on the administrator to maintain the FRR configuration.

Other Enhancements 

In addition to VPP being updated to version Stable/2502, and the DPDK update to version 24.11.1, the Ubuntu OS is also updated to version 24.04. Finally, this version includes over 50 bug fixes and stability enhancements.

Important Note:

Dataplane ACL and NAT functions are still in place for this release. However, the dataplane NAT plugin is deprecated and will be removed in TNSR 25.10. TNSR will continue to include dataplane ACL functionality.

Dataplane NAT users should migrate to VPF Network Address Translation as soon as possible. If you require assistance, please contact Netgate Professional Services.

Installing the TNSR Version 25.06 Upgrade

For detailed upgrade instructions, please refer to the Upgrade Guide on our TNSR documentation page.

We recommend saving a backup of the TNSR configuration before making any significant changes or upgrades. You will find Backup and Recovery instructions on our TNSR documentation page.

Netgate Technical Assistance

This TNSR 25.06 software release is ready for use in production environments. Should any issues arise, please post to our forum or contact the Netgate Technical Assistance Center (TAC) for professional assistance. We’re happy to discuss your needs in detail so we can provide you with the best solution for your business. Netgate makes a TNSR lab evaluation version available for you to try. Please contact one of our authorized partners or our Netgate sales team for assistance.