Astra Linux 1.8 Review
On August 1, RusBITech presented the eighth version of its flagship product, the Astra Linux SE OS, which was named Astra Proxima. The upgrade brought many changes and improvements to the system to make it more convenient to work in. We in mClouds We tested the updated OS and in this article we will tell you what interesting and useful things have appeared in it.
Evolution of Style: Astra Linux Goes into Space
The most noticeable change is the new graphic style of Astra Proxima. The appearance of the eighth version is filled with cosmic motifs, a reference to which is also in the name: Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun.
The developer has “redrawn” and brought the application icons to uniformity, now the interface looks more relevant and fresh compared to its predecessor, Astra Linux SE 1.7.
Users are offered three themes: light, dark and service, which is used by default for the OS administrator account, but can be installed for any other user. In the previous version, ordinary users had a blue design by default, while the administrator was supposed to have a red desktop design.
To support the design leitmotif, new wallpapers and sounds, developed jointly with the Roscosmos state corporation, have been added to the interface.
Interface Usability: One Step Forward
In addition to the reworked visual style, the interface has also been improved functionally. It has become more intuitive.
The design of application windows has not changed significantly:
However, the design of the file manager has changed – now it is similar to Explorer in Windows 11. It has the following features:
The toolbar is editable.
Additional items have been added to the navigation bar.
In dual-pane mode, each panel has its own independent address bar.
It is now possible to unpack the archive into a network folder.
The ability to display mounted network resources in the navigation panel is supported.
A full-fledged notification panel has also appeared, similar to the OS from Microsoft:
The Start menu has also been redesigned, becoming more concise and understandable. All system components are divided into six main categories:
“Programs” – as before, is divided into submenus depending on the purpose of the application.
“Favorites” – here you can put frequently used applications for quick access to them.
“Computer” – actually copies the menu from the file manager.
“Recent” – this is where recently launched programs are located.
“Options” – this category contains all system settings. And the control panel, familiar to Windows users, is no longer there.
“Shutdown” – here are the power management buttons. The “Shutdown” program has the ability to set up a schedule to automate actions to manage the system and user sessions.
Clicking on a user's avatar opens a menu to manage the current user's settings and the current session.
The Start menu also acquired a full-fledged search bar with the result output in an interactive window and an improved user interaction mechanism. In the interactive window, the user can:
Group and filter search results by categories: programs, folders, documents, archives and others.
View properties of found files: name, type, path, size and others.
The lock screen has also changed, its functionality has been significantly expanded. In Astra Proxima, the user can:
View and configure system network settings.
Send messages to the user directly from the lock screen.
Set up shutdown, reboot, sleep, or hibernation from the login/lock screen.
Customize whether the battery level indicator appears on the login/lock screen for laptops and mobile devices.
Set up login/unlock functions by token.
Expanded functionality: install faster, update more conveniently, work more safely
Now we move from external changes to internal ones: Astra Linux 1.8 is based on Debian 12 Bookworm and includes support for two versions of the Linux kernel: the older 6.1 with long-term support for the entire life of the distribution and 6.6 – one of the most modern, but with short-term support.
The installation program has also changed. You can install the OS “in one click” by specifying the necessary system parameters and clicking the corresponding button. Before that, the system boots in LiveCD mode – you can familiarize yourself with the interface and basic functions in advance.
There have been other changes to the installation program, such as:
At the installation stage, it became possible to select a time server.
Now you can connect additional repositories.
Added the function of creating local users directly during the installation of Astra Linux.
The developers have implemented a mechanism for transitioning from version 1.7 to version 1.8 — the so-called migration mechanism. To use it, you need to install the latest current regular and urgent update in the system being updated, and then launch the migration mechanism. The administrator can use the migration readiness assessment mode in advance and, if something is wrong, postpone the start of the update. If necessary, the update can be “rolled back”.
Urgent and operational OS updates can now be installed automatically. The astra-update-service service checks for such updates in connected repositories, downloads them, and installs them.
The components that are installed with the OS have also been changed and improved. For example, in the virtualization software it is now possible to:
Create full, incremental, and differential backups of virtual machines.
Make snapshots of virtual machines with UEFI (external, internal) and virtual machines on thin and thick LVM disks.
Using the virt-manager utility, combine VMs into groups, view the tree of snapshots, memory integrity monitoring results, and file monitoring.
The composition of packages in the system has also changed. Thus, it included the isc-kea package — the DHCP service, which replaced isc-dhcp and is its recommended replacement. isc-dhcp itself is still preserved in the OS, but with the first regular update, the developer plans to remove it from Astra Linux.
There are also changes in security-related software:
We updated the protected DBMS as part of the OS. The new system is developed on the basis of the Tantor DBMS in Basic version, implemented using the PostgreSQL DBMS version 15. It has been modified in accordance with the requirements of Astra Linux integration, contains the implementation of the DP model of access control and information flows and ensures the implementation of security functions in accordance with the FSTEC order No. 64.
The mechanism for mandatory integrity control has been adjusted. In Astra Linux 1.8, you can use the hierarchical (linear) integrity level. Its features are:
The root of the file system has zero linear integrity.
Users have no linear integrity, which is equivalent to having a linear integrity of zero.
File objects can be assigned a linear integrity less than zero.
Processes can be started with negative linear integrity, and they can create file objects with negative linear integrity.
Also introduced two new additional entity attributes for the MCC:
ssi (numeric value 0x40), assigned to file objects to restrict read and execute access.
iinh (numeric value 0x80) assigned to directories, valid only in extended MCC mode.
Implemented the ability to ensure integrity control of file system objects based on templates, which are text files and contain lists of files to check. Templates can also be used to check MD5 sums of installed packages.
Added the following Linux privileges:
cap_perfmon (0x4000000000), which allows the use of monitoring systems.
cap_bpf (0x8000000000), which allows some operations to be performed with the BPF packet filtering module.
cap_checkpoint_restore (0x10000000000), which allows you to determine the PID that is allocated to the next process created within the namespace.
Improved the event audit subsystem:
Optimized the subsystem to reduce the load on the operating system.
We have improved the self-diagnostics mechanism: in the event of an abnormal termination of one of the subsystem components, it is restarted.
Added the function of creating and uploading diagnostic report messages.
In the “System Event Log” program, the mechanisms for filtering displayed events and searching for them have been improved, and a function for customizing reactions to events has appeared.
Summing up the testing results, we can say that Astra Linux SE 1.8 is a truly major update of one of the best domestic OS on the market, with many improvements, innovations and changes. Astra Linux has become even more modern, safer and more convenient for both the average user and the administrator. Read more about the update and request the OS for testing you can on the developer's website.
