FreeBSD stable/5 End of Life Date
FreeBSD stable/5 end-of-life date, support status, and CVE risk. Data reconciled from official vendor documentation and endoflife.date at every build; the source of each date is on the product page.
FreeBSD 5 was released on January 14, 2003 and support ended on May 31, 2008 — a supported lifespan of 5 years and 5 months, longer than the 1 year and 3 months median for FreeBSD releases. It has been without security patches for 18 years and 4 months. 51 newer FreeBSD releases have shipped since.
Commercial vendors offer security patches beyond EOL. Compare your options.
Compare Options →| Version | Latest | EOL Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| releng/1.0 | — | Aug 31, 1994 | EOL |
| releng/1.1 | — | May 31, 1995 | EOL |
| releng/2.0 | — | Feb 28, 1996 | EOL |
| releng/2.1 | — | Jun 30, 1997 | EOL |
| releng/2.2 | — | Mar 31, 1998 | EOL |
| releng/3.0 | — | May 31, 1999 | EOL |
| releng/3.1 | — | Aug 31, 1999 | EOL |
| releng/3.2 | — | Dec 31, 1999 | EOL |
What does FreeBSD stable/5 end of life mean?
When FreeBSD stable/5 reaches end of life, the maintainers stop issuing security patches for this version. CVEs discovered after the EOL date are publicly disclosed on the National Vulnerability Database with no patch available. Exploit code frequently appears on GitHub within days of disclosure.
The CVE blind spot: A CVE-based scan does not show the ongoing accumulation of unpatched vulnerabilities in EOL software versions. Some scanners flag unsupported versions of common products, but coverage varies, and none of them give you the date in advance. Running FreeBSD stable/5 past its EOL date creates a growing attack surface that a clean scan result does not rule out.
Migrate to FreeBSD releng/14.5 or implement compensating controls — network segmentation, enhanced monitoring, restricted access — while migration is underway.