System packages

Some Genero BDL features need specific operating system packages.

Security note: OpenSSL 3.0 LTS support

Starting with FGLGWS 3.10.23, 3.21.01, 4.01.05 and 5.00.00, OpenSSL 3.0 LTS is required for encryption and security.

Because OpenSSL 1.1.1 goes EOL in September 2023, it is now mandatory to use OpenSSL 3.0 LTS to get the latest security fixes.

When installing an FGLGWS package, OpenSSL 3.0 libs will be provided in FGLDIR, if no OpenSSL 3.0 exists on the system.

Starting with OpenSSL 3.0, the SHA-1 digest algorithm is no longer supported by default. The OpenSSL 3.0 libs provided in FGLDIR still have SHA-1 digest activated by default. If you want to enable SHA-1 with the system OpenSSL 3.0 libs, use a command such as update-crypto-policies --set DEFAULT:SHA1 in order to use SHA-1. However, the SHA-1 digest algorithm is no longer recommended, because it is increasingly vulnerable as computers become more and more powerful. If you are using SHA-1 with GWS crypto APIs, consider moving to SHA-256 or to a stronger secure hash algorithm.

See GWS Security for more details about security and encryption with GWS.

Curses (or NCurses) library

On Unix-like platforms, the Genero runtime system (fglrun) needs the Curses library to be installed on the system.

The Curses library is required for the text mode (for INFORMIXTERM=terminfo). However, fglrun is linked directly to the Curses library so it needs to be installed on the system even when the GUI mode is used.

Depending on the operating system, fglrun will require libcurses, libncurses, libncurses5, libncursesw5, libncurses6, or libncursesw6 to be installed on the system.

For UTF-8 support in text mode, you need the wide-char Curses shared library (libncursesw.so.5 for example). Make sure that the Curses software package installed on your system includes this library. See Platform specific notes.

If the required Curses library is not installed, executing fglrun will report a shared library not found error.