Version 6.0.21 of the Passenger application server has been released. This release switches the RPMs to Nginx 1.24.0 on EL9 distros (RHEL, Rocky, Alma), and removes Ubuntu Mantic (23.10) packages, the addition of Ubuntu Noble (24.04LTS) packages is delayed due to an upstream bug.

Passenger 6 introduced Generic Language Support, or: the ability to support any and all arbitrary apps.

Updates & improvements

  • [Python] Fix version of Python when imp module is replaced with importlib. Contributed by Grigory Ponomarenko.
  • [Ubuntu] Remove packages for Ubuntu 23.10 "mantic".
  • [Nginx] Upgrades preferred Nginx to 1.26.0 from 1.24.0.
  • [Nginx] Switch to using PCRE2 instead of PCRE.
  • [Standalone] Fixes security update checker with builtin engine.
  • [Enterprise] Ability to enforce hard memory limits on application processes (PassengerHardMemoryLimit/passenger_hard_memory_limit/`--hard-memory-limit``). Unlike the soft memory limit, the hard memory limit doesn't wait for the request to finish. Useful for preventing high memory usage from taking down the entire machine or container.
  • [Enterprise] Ability to throttle memory metrics collection (PassengerAnalyticsCollectionRate/passenger_analytics_collection_rate). This allows you to control the frequency that Passenger Enterprise measures the app memory use at.
  • Swaps http-parser for llhttp.
  • Fixes crash-watch hanging when lldb is used as the backend.
  • Fixes Apache module unload crash due to not properly cleaning up all threads.
  • Workaround compilation error on clang on x86_64.
  • Upgrades Boost from 1.83 -> 1.85.
  • Updated various library versions used in precompiled binaries (used for e.g. gem installs):
    • ccache: 4.6.3 -> 4.9.1
    • cmake: 3.28.1 -> 3.29.3
    • curl: 8.5.0 -> 8.7.1
    • git: 2.43.0 -> 2.45.0
    • gnupg: 2.4.3 -> 2.4.5
    • libassuan: 2.5.6 -> 2.5.7
    • libffi: 3.4.4 -> 3.4.6
    • libgpg_error: 1.47 -> 1.49
    • libksba: 1.6.5 -> 1.6.6
    • libpsl: 0.21.5
    • npth: 1.6 -> 1.7
    • openssl: 3.2.0 -> 3.3.0
    • pcre2: 10.42 -> 10.43
    • pinentry: 1.2.1 -> 1.3.0
    • rubygems: 3.5.4 -> 3.5.10
    • zlib: 1.3 -> 1.3.1
    • zstd: 1.5.5 -> 1.5.6
    • rubies:
      • 3.0.6 -> 3.0.7
      • 3.1.4 -> 3.1.5
      • 3.2.3 -> 3.2.4
      • 3.3.0 -> 3.3.1

RPM Nginx module compatibility

In keeping with the policy change of supporting the newest Nginx module stream available that started in Passenger 6.0.18, the Enterprise Linux 9 Nginx module packages we provide will be built against Nginx 1.24.0 instead of 1.22.0 which was previously the newest version available. This means upgrading Passenger will require upgrading Nginx as well.

Installing 6.0.21

Please see the installation guide for advice on getting started with Passenger. Coming from a language other than Ruby, Python, Meteor or Node? Even if we didn't write a specific tutorial for your language, we made a generic guide that shows you the steps.

Upgrading to 6.0.21

We strongly advise staying up to date with the latest version.

Check out our upgrade guides for the different platforms:

Please be aware that you can enjoy enterprise features and sponsor the open source development directly by buying Phusion Passenger Enterprise.