Red Hat Training
A Red Hat training course is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5.9 Release Notes
Release Notes for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9
Edition 9
Red Hat Engineering Content Services
Abstract
Preface
Chapter 1. Hardware Support
The mstflint package, which provides Mellanox firmware burning and diagnostics tools, now includes support for Mellanox ConnectX-3 devices.
The smartmontools package, which provides tools for monitoring SMART-capable hard drives, has been upgraded to add support for HP Smart Array controllers. This update also adds improved MegaRAID support.
delloem
Commands Upgraded
The Dell-specific IPMI extension, which adds the delloem
subcommand to the ipmitool utility, has been updated to include the following enhancements:
- A new
vFlash
command, which allows users to display information about extended SD cards. - A new
setled
command, which allows users to display the backplane LED status. - Improved error descriptions.
- Added support for new hardware.
- Updated documentation of the
ipmitool delloem
commands in theipmitool
manual page.
The NetApp LUN built-in configuration now uses the tur
path checker by default. Also the following hardware table parameters have been updated:
flush_on_last_del
has been enabled,dev_loss_tmo
has been set to600
,fast_io_fail_tmo
has been set to5
,- and
pg_init_retries
has been set to50
.
Chapter 2. Kernel
The following tracepoints for system call events have been added:
sys_enter
sys_exit
HAVE_SYSCALL_TRACEPOINTS
configuration option enabled.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 adds hardware checksum support for UDP running over IPv6.
The prlimit64()
system call has been added to allow users to dynamically change the limits of a running process via the /proc/<PID>/limits
file (this file is now writable).
pktgen
VLAN support has been added to the pktgen
module. The pktgen
module is now able to produce 802.1Q tagged frames.
/proc/<PID>/
The hidepid=
and gid=
mount options have been added to procfs
to allow restricting of access to /proc/<PID>/
directories.
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, the netfilter
module now supports mangling of the DSCP field.
This feature allows you to compare a booted system with a dumped system to efficiently analyze changes that might be introduced by image migration. To identify a guest, stsi
and stfle
data is used. A new function, lgr_info_log()
compares the current data (lgr_info_cur
) with the last recorded one (lgr_info_last
).
The Parallel access volume (PAV) storage server feature is intended to achieve better I/O performance through alias devices. With HyperPAV, you no longer need to configure dedicated aliases for each device for which you want to use PAV with. HyperPAV supports an alias pool from which alias devices are automatically assigned when required. This results in reduced configuration effort and dynamic self-optimization of the PAV configuration.
Applications often use system calls that are related to system time. The virtual dynamic shared object (vdso) support is a kernel-provided shared library that holds the required data for the correct system time. The calculation is done in user space, and accelerates the operations. This results in increased performance, especially for applications with high amounts of time-related system calls.
Chapter 3. Device Drivers
3.1. Storage Drivers
- The
mptfusion
driver has been updated to version 3.04.20, which adds the following device ID:SAS1068_820XELP
. - The
qla2xxx
driver for QLogic Fibre-Channel HBAs has been updated to version 8.03.07.15.05.09-k. - The
qla4xxx
driver has been updated to version 5.02.04.05.05.09-d0. - The
lpfc
driver for Emulex Fibre-Channel Host Bus Adapters has been updated to version 8.2.0.128.3p. - The
be2iscsi
driver for ServerEngines BladeEngine 2 Open iSCSI devices has been updated to version 4.2.162.0r. - The
bnx2i
driver for Broadcom NetXtreme II iSCSI has been updated to version 2.7.2.2. - The Brocade BFA FC SCSI driver (
bfa
driver) is no longer considered a Technology Preview. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, the BFA driver is fully supported. Additionally, the Brocadebfa
FC SCSI driver was updated to version 3.0.23.0 which includes, among others, the following enhancements:- Support for issuing a Loop Initialization Protocol (LIP) from a Fibre-Channel host.
- Support for the Extended Link Services (ELS) and Common Transport (CT) fibre-channel passthrough commands.
- Added IOCTL interface.
- The
bfa
firmware was updated to version 3.0.23.0. - The
mpt2sas
driver was updated to version 13.101.00.00, which adds NUMA I/O support, Fast Load support, and support for customer specific branding. - The
megaraid_sas
driver has been updated to version 00.00.06.15-rh, which adds support for LSI MegaRAID SAS 9360/9380 12Gb/s controllers as a Technology Preview. Additionally, support has been added for multiple MSI-X vector and multiple reply queue. - The
iscsiuio
driver for the Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5706/5708/5709 series PCI/PCI-X Gigabit Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC) and for the Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM57710/57711/57712/57800/57810/57840 series PCI-E 10 Gigabit Ethernet Network Interface Card has been updated to version 0.7.4.3, which includes, among other enhancements, VLAN and routing support.
3.2. Network Drivers
- Support for the
ib_qib
device driver has been added to the kernel shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9. Theib_qib
driver is an updated version (and a replacement) of QLogic'sib_ipath
InfiniBand Host Channel Adapter (HCA) device driver and provides support for the latest PCI Express QLE-series of SDR, DDR, and QDR InfiniBand adapters. The olderipath
driver is still retained and is used to manage all older HTX based QLogic InfiniBand controllers. - The Solarflare driver (
sfc
) has been updated to version 3.1, which adds support for the SFE4003 board and TXC43128 PHY support. - The
bnx2x
firmware has been updated to version 7.2.51 to include support for the Broadcom 57710/57711/57712 chips. - The
bnx2x
driver has been updated to version 1.72.51-0+ to include support for the Broadcom 578xx family of chips, support for iSCSI offload, support for additional PHYs (including EEE), OEM-specific features, and to address a number of bugs. - The
bnx2
driver has been updated to version 2.2.1+. - The
cnic
driver and firmware have been updated to add FCoE parity error recovery, statistics support, and FCoE capabilities advertisement. - The
cxgb3
driver for the Chelsio T3 family of network devices has been updated to the latest upstream version. - The
cxgb4
driver for Chelsio Terminator4 10G Unified Wire Network Controllers has been updated to the latest upstream version, which adds support for the Chelsio T480-CR and T440-LP-CR adapters. - The
cxgb4
firmware has been updated to upstream version 1.4.23.0. - The
iw_cxgb3
driver has been updated to the latest upstream version. - The
iw_cxgb4
driver has been updated to the latest upstream version. - The
cxgb4i
,cxgb3i
, andlibcxgbi
drivers have been updated. - The
netxen_nic
driver has been updated to version 4.0.79, which includes Minidump support. - The
tg3
driver for Broadcom Tigon3 Ethernet devices has been updated to version 3.123. - The
ixgbe
driver for Intel 10 Gigabit PCI Express network devices has been updated to the latest upstream version, which adds the following enhancement:- Support for the Intel Ethernet 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller.
- Support for the Quad Port 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapter based on the Intel Ethernet 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller.
- Added module parameter (
allow_unsupported_sfp
) to allow untested and unsafe enhanced small form-factor pluggable (SFP+) modules.
- The
ixgbevf
driver has been updated to the latest upstream version to include the latest hardware support, enhancements, and bug fixes. Additionally, support to recognize 100MB link speed has been added. - The
igbvf
driver has been updated to upstream version 2.0.1-k-1. - The
igb
driver for Intel Gigabit Ethernet Adapters has been updated to the latest upstream version, which adds support for Intel Ethernet Network Connection I210 and Intel Ethernet Network Connection I211. - The
e1000e
driver for Intel 82563/6/7, 82571/2/3/4/7/8/9, and 82583 PCI-E family of controllers has been updated to the latest upstream version, which includes support for Intel Ethernet Network Connection I217-LM. - The
bna
driver is no longer considered a Technology Preview. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, the BNA driver is fully supported. Additionally, the BNA driver and firmware have been updated to version 3.0.23.0. - The
qlge
driver has been updated to version 1.00.00.30. - The
qlcnic
driver for HP NC-Series QLogic 10 Gigabit Server Adapters has been updated to version 5.0.29. - The
be2net
driver for ServerEngines BladeEngine2 10Gbps network devices has been updated to version 4.2.116r. - The
enic
driver for Cisco 10G Ethernet devices has been updated to version 2.1.1.33.
3.3. Miscellaneous drivers
- The
mlx4
ib
andnet
drivers have been updated to the latest upstream version. Additionally, support for EEH error recovery has been added to themlx4
driver. - The
mlx4_en
driver has been updated to version 1.5.3. - The
mlx4_core
driver has been updated to version 1.0-ofed1.5.4. - The
ALSA HDA
audio driver has been updated to enable or improve support for new chipsets and HDA audio codecs. - The
IPMI
driver has been updated to the latest upstream version.
Chapter 4. File System and Storage Management
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 adds support for using FIPS mode with dmraid root devices. A dmraid
device is now activated before the FIPS checksum is checked.
Chapter 5. Subscription Management
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, users are able to migrate from RHN Classic to Red Hat Subscription Asset Manager (SAM). SAM acts as a proxy for handling subscription information and software updates on client machines. For more information on the migration process, refer to the Subscription Management Guide.
Support for the selection of a remote server during the registration of a system is now supported in Subscription Manager. The Subscription Manager user interface provides an option to choose a URL of a server to register against, together with a port and a prefix, during the registration process. Additionally, when registering on the command line, the --serverurl
can be used to specify the server to register against. For more information about this feature, refer to the Subscription Management Guide.
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, during firstboot system registration, registering to Red Hat Subscription Management is now the default option.
gpgcheck
Behavior
Subscription Manager now disables gpgcheck for any repositories it manages which have an empty gpgkey
. To re-enable the repository, upload the GPG keys, and ensure that the correct URL is added to your custom content definition.
System profiles are now unregistered when they are deleted from the Customer Portal so that they no longer check in with certificate-based RHN.
Subscription manager now allows users to associate a machine with a preferred Service Level which impacts the auto-subscription and healing logic. For more information on service levels, refer to the Subscription Management Guide.
Subscription manager now allows a user to select a specific release (for example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8), which will lock a machine to that release. Prior to this update, there was no way to limit package updates in the event newer packages became available as part of a later minor release (for example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9).
The Subscription Manager graphical user interface has been enhanced with various changes based on customer feedback.
Chapter 6. Security and Authentication
pam_cracklib
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 adds backported support for the maxclassrepeat
and gecoscheck
options to the pam_cracklib
module. These options are used to check the properties of a new password entered by a user and reject it if it does not meet the specified limits. The maxclassrepeat
option limits the maximum number of consecutive characters of the same character class (lower case, upper case, digits, and other characters). The gecoscheck
option checks whether the newly-entered password contains words (space-separated strings) from the GECOS field in the /etc/passwd
entry of the user that is entering the password. For more information, refer to the pam_cracklib(8)
man page.
The m2crypto package, which provides a library that allows programs to call OpenSSL functions from Python scripts, has been updated to modify the HTTPS implementation to work with both IPv4 and IPv6. In addition, the M2Crypto.SSL.Connection
object can now be instructed to create IPv6 sockets.
The sudo utility is able to consult the /etc/nsswitch.conf
file for sudoers entries and look them up in files or in LDAP. Previously, when a match was found in the first database of sudoers entries, the look up operation still continued in other databases (including files). In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, an option was added to the /etc/nsswitch.conf
file that allows users to specify a database after which a match of a sudoers entry is sufficient. This eliminates the need to query any other databases; thus, improving the performance of sudoers entry look ups in large environments. This behavior is not enabled by default and must be configured by adding the [SUCCESS=return]
string after a selected database. When a match is found in a database that directly precedes this string, no other databases are queried.
Chapter 7. Compiler and Tools
SystemTap is a tracing and probing tool that allows users to study and monitor the activities of the operating system (particularly, the kernel) in fine detail. It provides information similar to the output of tools like netstat, ps, top, and iostat; however, SystemTap is designed to provide more filtering and analysis options for collected information.
- The SystemTap runtime (staprun) now accepts a
-T
timeout option to allow less frequent wake-ups to poll for low-throughput output from scripts. - When invoked by SystemTap, the
kbuild
$PATH
environment is now sanitized. printf
formats are now capable of using the%#c
control parameter to escape non-printing characters.- Pretty-printed bit fields now use integers; characters now use escaped formatting for printing.
- The SystemTap compile-server and client now support IPv6 networks.
- SystemTap modules are now smaller and compile faster. The modules' debuginfo is now suppressed by default.
- The
@var
syntax is now an alternative language syntax for accessing DWARF variables inuprobe
andkprobe
handlers (process, kernel, module). - The SystemTap script translator driver (
stap
) now provides the following resource limit options:--rlimit-as=NUM --rlimit-cpu=NUM --rlimit-nproc=NUM --rlimit-stack=NUM --rlimit-fsize=NUM
- The SystemTap compile-server now supports multiple concurrent connections.
- The following tapset function is deprecated in the 1.8 release and will be removed in the 1.9 release:
daddr_to_string()
- SystemTap now mangles local variables to avoid collisions with C headers included by tapsets.
- In embedded-C functions, the newly-defined macro
STAP_ARG_*
should now be used instead of theTHIS->*
notation.
Chapter 8. Clustering
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 adds support for the IBM iPDU fence device. For more information on the parameters of this fence device, refer to the Cluster Administration guide.
The Distributed Lock Manager (DLM) now allows tuning of DLM hash table sizes from the /etc/sysconfig/cman
file. The following parameters can be set in the /etc/sysconfig/cman
file:
DLM_LKBTBL_SIZE=<size_of_table> DLM_RSBTBL_SIZE=<size_of_table> DLM_DIRTBL_SIZE=<size_of_table>
/sys/kernel/config/dlm/cluster/lkbtbl_size /sys/kernel/config/dlm/cluster/rsbtbl_size /sys/kernel/config/dlm/cluster/dirtbl_size
Chapter 9. Virtualization
Integrated Red Hat Enterprise Linux guest installation, and Hyper-V para-virtualized device support in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 on Microsoft Hyper-V allows users to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 as a guest on top of Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors. The following Hyper-V drivers and a clock source have been added to the kernel shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9:
- a network driver (
hv_netvsc
) - a storage driver (
hv_storvsc
) - an HID-compliant mouse driver (
hid_hyperv
) - a VMbus driver (
hv_vmbus
) - a util driver (
hv_util
) - a clock source (i386:
hyperv_clocksource
, AMD64/Intel 64: HYPER-V timer)
hypervkvpd
) that passes basic information, such as the guest IP, the FQDN, OS name, and OS release number, to the host through VMbus.
Chapter 10. General Updates
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 includes rebased samba3x packages that introduce several bug fixes and enhancements, the most important of which is added support for the SMB2 protocol. SMB2 support can be enabled with the following parameter in the [global]
section of the /etc/samba/smb.conf
file:
max protocol = SMB2
Warning
smb.conf
file for the latest samba3x package, it only produces a valid configuration for the samba package.
smbd
. You cannot downgrade to an older samba3x version unless you have backups of the tdb files.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 includes full support for OpenJDK 7 as an alternative to OpenJDK 6. The java-1.7.0-openjdk packages provide the OpenJDK 7 Java Runtime Environment and the OpenJDK 7 Java Software Development Kit. OpenJDK 7 includes extensions to support dynamically-typed languages that can run on the JVM, class loader enhancements, support for Unicode 6.0, and updated I/O and networking APIs. OpenJDK 7 is also available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
The java-1.7.0-ibm and java-1.7.0-oracle packages are now available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9.
The libitm contains the GNU Transactional Memory Library, which provides transaction support for access to the memory of a process to enable synchronization of access to a shared memory by several threads.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 includes a new rsyslog5 package which upgrades rsyslog to major version 5.
Important
- The
$HUPisRestart
directive has been removed and is no longer supported. Restart-type HUP processing is therefore no longer available. Now, when the SIGHUP signal is received, outputs (log files in most cases) are only re-opened to support log rotation. - The format of the spool files (for example, disk-assisted queues) has changed. In order to switch to the new format, drain the spool files, for example, by shutting down
rsyslogd
. Then, proceed with the Rsyslog upgrade, and startrsyslogd
again. Once upgraded, the new format is automatically used. - When the
rsyslogd
daemon was running in the debug mode (using the-d
option), it ran in the foreground. This has been fixed and the daemon is now forked and runs in the background, as is expected. Note that the-n
option may be used to preventrsyslogd
from being automatically started in the background.
Appendix A. Revision History
Revision History | |||
---|---|---|---|
Revision 1-2.400 | 2013-10-31 | Rüdiger Landmann | |
| |||
Revision 1-2 | Mon Jun 24 2013 | Martin Prpič | |
| |||
Revision 1-1 | Tue Jan 8 2013 | Martin Prpič | |
| |||
Revision 1-0 | Thu Sep 20 2012 | Martin Prpič | |
|