diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 83e9835c5..f3ff4cc95 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
+strongswan-4.2.5
+----------------
+
+- management of different virtual IP pools for different
+  network interfaces have become possible.
+
+- fixed a bug which prevented the assignment of more than 256 
+  virtual IP addresses from a pool managed by an sql database.
+
+ 
 strongswan-4.2.4
 ----------------
 
diff --git a/configure.in b/configure.in
index 1ce53edc6..c97e90209 100644
--- a/configure.in
+++ b/configure.in
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ dnl ===========================
 dnl  initialize & set some vars
 dnl ===========================
 
-AC_INIT(strongSwan,4.2.5)
+AC_INIT(strongSwan,4.2.5rc4)
 AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(tar-ustar)
 AC_C_BIGENDIAN
 AC_SUBST(confdir, '${sysconfdir}')