Announcing EmbassyOS 0.2.0!

2 min readSep 1, 2020

Major Updates

The Embassy user interface is now hosted on the Embassy itself and served as its own private website, accessible from the browser, replacing the current Embassy Companion App for iOS and Android and making the Embassy platform more resilient to the whims of App Store and Play Store rules and regulations.
Auto-generated mnemonic passphrases have been replaced with user-generated passwords for better browser authentication.
The Embassy’s Tor Address (for .onion URLs) and Root Certificate Authority (for https) are derived from private keys generated by the user’s Setup App instead of inside EmbassyOS, removing another element of trust from Start9.
Dependency Management! It is now possible to run services that depend on other services, such as Lightning!
Service data can now be backed up to a USB drive, protecting against potential loss.
WiFi credentials can now be added and saved without auto-connecting. This is useful for users who want to set up their Embassy at location A (over Ethernet), provide the WiFi credentials for location B (but not connect), then move the Embassy to locations B (and connect).
Embassy can be renamed and synced across devices.

Linux Kernel upgraded to 5.4 w/ 64bit kernel mode. This upgrade affords numerous performance enhancements, better heat management, and lays the groundwork for disk encryption.
System Synchronization. The OS is now capable of intelligently correcting system errors.
Removes reset flows. These had the potential to cause more harm than good and were a potential security vulnerability if a bad actor gained physical access to a Embassy.
Services can now fetch configuration values from their dependencies, allowing services to cooperate.