OpenVPN 2.6 Beta Brings Data Channel Offload Kernel Acceleration, OpenSSL 3.0 Support

The first beta of OpenVPN 2.6 is now available and it's a big one for those using this cross-platform, virtual private network (VPN) system.

With OpenVPN 2.6 Beta 1 there is now Data Channel Offloading (DCO) kernel acceleration support across Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD. This DCO kernel acceleration should help provide better VPN performance -- more information on it via this earlier article. This acceleration relies on the ovpn-dco kernel module that hasn't yet been mainlined in the Linux kernel.

OpenVPN 2.6 also brings support for OpenSSL 3, improved handling for the tunnel MTU, reworking the TLS handshake code to avoid possible replay-packet state exhaustion attacks, and improved protocol negotiation for faster connection setup.

OpenVPN 2.6 Beta 1 can be downloaded from GitHub.