Firefly Releases¶

Learn about current and past releases of the Firefly distributed component.

Supported Releases¶

Release 1.4.2¶

Firefly 1.4.2 was released on July 22, 2024. Key features include:

• Firefly connection to HSM for signing using an HSM-protected key You can now connect an HSM to the Firefly server (or container) to allow Firefly to sign certificates using a private key protected by an HSM. Learn more.

• Option to specify alternative names for Firefly authorization claims: Firefly can now be configured to use alternative names for the venafi-firefly.configuration, venafi-firefly.allowedPolicies, and venafi-firefly.allowAllPolicies claims in JWTs presented by API clients.

• Option to allow Firefly API clients to connect using TLS 1.2: Firefly can now be configured to allow legacy API clients that do not support TLS 1.3 to connect using TLS 1.2 instead.

-Resilience to transient HSM availability issues Firefly will now automatically recover from the HSM protecting its signing key becoming temporarily unavailable.

Docker Image¶

bash docker pull registry.venafi.cloud/public/venafi-images/firefly:v1.4.2

Helm Chart¶

helm pull oci://registry.venafi.cloud/public/venafi-images/helm/firefly \ 
    --version v1.4.2

PKCS#11 Binaries¶

Releases of firefly-pkcs11 are signed and the detached signature file is included with the binary in the downloadable zip file. SHA-256 checksums of the zip files each release are listed below for additional verification.

• 1.4.2 (July 22, 2024) 92a35e5a77bd84639bbb4839dcf316696e3ae30ed8a430bbcd3daad778791ad3
• 1.4.1 (July 12, 2024) 32fb025d7d8587a78525882bdcd501d3bdaa877d3db7a9704604a027531054ee
• 1.4.0 (June 28, 2024) 86fab9bff47c202d871ff177f2989ace3ed9e94e7f15639199767954d94e0a95

Changelog¶

1. PKCS#11 binary is added, not included in previous versions. (VC-32033)
2. Firefly now supports HSM protected signing key. (VC-30950)
3. Monitoring of config.yaml and service account private key files ignores chmod.
4. Fixed issue that issue firefly-pkcs11 from being able to renew its issuer certificate. (VC-34576)
5. Added metrics options to Helm chart. (VC-34401)
6. Option to specify alternative names for authorization claims in API client JWTs. (VC-34341)
7. Option to allow API clients to connect using TLS 1.2. (VC-34525)
8. Firefly now automatically recovers when HSM is temporarily unavailable. (VC-34696)
9. Log details of HSM partitions (slot/label/serial) visible to firefly-pkcs11 when it starts up.

Release 1.3.4¶

Firefly 1.3.4 was released on April 16, 2024. Key features include:

• Firefly now supports requesting certificates using Unix Domain Sockets: gRPC and REST clients can now request certificates from Firefly using a Unix Domain Socket (UDS) to forgo the overhead of TLS and authentication for use cases where clients are co-hosted with Firefly.

• Firefly now has a method specifically for downloading trust chain CA certificates: Trust Manager clients can obtain the CA certificates applicable to Firefly trust without having to request a certificate.

• Helm charts for Firefly now support configuring API servers: Support for configuring gRPC, GraphQL, and REST servers has been added to Helm charts.

• Firefly image now includes OCI annotions: Introduced standard OCI annotations (labels) to the Firefly container image.

• Firefly instances may now derive parts of their name from environment variables: Environment variable substitution is now supported for Firefly instance names when using Venafi Control Plane.

Docker Image¶

docker pull registry.venafi.cloud/public/venafi-images/firefly:v1.3.4

Helm Chart¶

helm pull oci://registry.venafi.cloud/public/venafi-images/helm/firefly \
    --version v1.3.4

Changelog¶

1. Clients can request certificates using a Unix Domain Socket (UDS) with gRPC and REST. (VC-27929)
2. Clients can obtain the CA certificates in the Firefly trust chain without requesting a certificate. (VC-27930)
3. Timeout for Firefly to Venafi Control Plane increased to 30 seconds.
4. Helm charts enhanced to support configuration of gRPC, GraphQL, and REST API servers.
5. OCI annotations (labels) added to Firefly container image. (VC-31094)
6. Support for environment variable substitution when naming Firefly instances. (VC-31747)

Release 1.2.1¶

Firefly 1.2.1 was released on November 1, 2023. Key features include:

• Firefly now supports requesting certificates using a public key: gRPC clients can now request certificates from Firefly using a public key and Subject/SAN values for use cases where workloads generate keypairs but orchestrators request certificates for them.

• Firefly now supports Instance Identity Documents from Azure and Google (in addition to AWS): Clients can now authenticate and get signed certificates from Firefly using Instance Identity Documents from Azure and Google. This builds on the AWS IID support in Firefly 1.1 and means that Firefly now supports all three major cloud providers.

• Updated Terms of Use / EULA: The Firefly Terms of Use have been updated and are now available at a new URL. Please read the Venafi End User License Agreement before upgrading.

Changelog¶

1. Clients can request certificates with a public key and Subject/SAN values using gRPC. (VC-27928)
2. Clients can now authenticate to Firefly using Azure workload identity documents. (VC-24321)
3. Clients can now authenticate to Firefly using Google workload identity documents. (VC-24322)
4. The End User License Agreement has been updated. (VC-26429)
5. Miscellaneous bug fixes and stability improvements.

Release 1.1¶

Firefly 1.1 was released on August 9, 2023. Key features include:

• New AWS authentication endpoint: A new API endpoint for AWS authentication allows clients to authentication using AWS workload identity documents
• Helm Chart: The addition of a new Helm chart makes it easy to install Firefly in a Kubernetes cluster, and to integrate it with cert-manager.

Changelog¶

1. Clients can now authenticate to Firefly using AWS workload identity documents. (VC-22896)
2. A new Helm chart makes it easy to install Firefly in a Kubernetes cluster and integrate with cert-manager (VC-23956)
3. Improved error messages when connecting to the Venafi control plane help diagnose configuration errors. (VC-25547)
4. Miscellaneous bug fixes and stability improvements.

Release 1.0¶

Firefly 1.0 was released on April 19, 2023. Key features include:

• Versatility: Firefly has multiple, flexible deployment options including cloud, cloud-native, DevOps, and federated PKI.
• Performance: Firefly can generate keys and issue certificates at speeds and volumes well beyond service mesh requirements.
• Autonomy: Firefly operation is decentralized making it attractive to software architects and developers.
• Security: Firefly is managed and governed by the Venafi Control Plane and supports modern authentication mechanisms.
• Leanness: Firefly requires minimal infrastructure to deploy in production to achieve high availability and fault tolerance.