OpenLDAP 2.5 End of Life: January 15, 2027, Critical Fixes Only
OpenLDAP 2.5 receives critical fixes, at the Project's discretion, only until January 15, 2027. The OpenLDAP Project's announcement of August 2024 put 2.5 in its end-of-life stage when it promoted 2.6 to Long Term Support, effective January 2025. After the January date, the Project says, 2.5 "will be designated as a historical release and no longer supported or maintained by the Project". OpenLDAP's download page already files 2.5 under Historic. Live status and EOL Risk Score are on the OpenLDAP 2.5 page; every release is on the OpenLDAP page.
Key Dates at a Glance
- OpenLDAP 2.5: end of life 2027-01-15
Where each OpenLDAP release stands
| Release | First released | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 2.7 | August 6, 2026 | Current Feature Release |
| 2.6 (LTS) | October 25, 2021 | Long Term Support release since January 2025; the Project gives a projected lifespan of five years and no end date |
| 2.5 | April 29, 2021 | End-of-life stage: critical fixes until January 15, 2027 |
| 2.4 | October 31, 2007 | Updates ceased on October 25, 2021 |
The Project's "projected lifespan of five years" for 2.6 is a projection, not a date; this site serves no end date for 2.6 until the Project names one.
Moving to 2.6
The same announcement covers compatibility. The Project says replication compatibility between 2.5 and 2.6 is excellent and expected to stay that way through the rest of 2.5's end-of-life stage, so mixed 2.5 and 2.6 replication is a workable step during a migration. Configuration file compatibility is also excellent, but may require some manual intervention at upgrade time, particularly with the OpenLDAP Load Balancer daemon (lloadd). Upgrade notes are in the OpenLDAP 2.6 administrator's guide.
Many deployments run OpenLDAP from an operating system vendor's packages rather than from openldap.org, and those vendors set their own support periods for the packages they ship. The dates in this guide are the OpenLDAP Project's own.
What to do
- Find every 2.5 server, including replicas and consumers.
- Plan the move to 2.6 before January 15, 2027, using replication to bring 2.6 servers in alongside 2.5.
- Test lloadd configurations separately; the Project flags them as the likely place for manual work.
- Check your OS vendor's package support if OpenLDAP comes from a distribution; the OpenLDAP page covers the Project's own releases, and the EOL Checker answers for a single release.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is OpenLDAP 2.5 end of life?
The OpenLDAP Project's announcement gives January 15, 2027 as the last day OpenLDAP 2.5 receives critical fixes, at the Project's discretion. After that it is designated a historical release and is no longer supported or maintained by the Project.
Is upgrading from OpenLDAP 2.5 to 2.6 difficult?
The Project says replication compatibility between 2.5 and 2.6 is excellent and configuration file compatibility is excellent but may need some manual intervention at upgrade time, particularly with the OpenLDAP Load Balancer daemon. It publishes upgrade notes in the OpenLDAP 2.6 administrator's guide.
Related
- OpenLDAP — every release and its dates
- Red Hat build of Keycloak 26.6 and 26.4 — identity service dates in late 2026
- FreeBSD 14.4 end of life — another open source date at the turn of the year