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4.210. xenpv-win

An updated xenpv-win package that fixes various bugs is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
The xenpv-win package contains installation images for para-virtualized drivers for guests running Windows XP or later on Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts. Para-virtualized drivers provide significant network and disk I/O performance improvements for fully virtualized guests over the same guests running with fully virtualized drivers.
This updated package provides CD-ROM images containing the para-virtualized network and disk drivers for instances of Windows XP or later, running on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux host.

Bug Fixes

BZ#718329
Due to different requirements imposed by Linux and Windows on the implementation of checksum offloading, Windows Server 2003 guests running with para-virtualized drivers previously experienced many TCP retransmissions and showed poor network performance. With this update, checksum offloading has been disabled in the drivers and TCP sessions on Windows Server 2003 guests no longer exhibit problematic behavior.
BZ#697999
Previously, the para-virtualized Xen network driver did not report when it consumed packets. As a result, when using traffic control on virtual networks, Windows virtual machines dropped packets. Now, the driver correctly implements the "rx-notify" feature, packet consumption is reported promptly to the network back end running on domain 0, and traffic control does not cause unexpected packet drops.
BZ#692961
Para-virtualized Xen drives did not handle properly the "MODE SENSE" command. Consequently, Windows guests failed to initialize a mirror or a striped dynamic volume that included a para-virtualized Xen drive, leaving the volume in a failed state. With this update, the "MODE SENSE" command implementation has been fixed and dynamic volumes now work properly with para-virtualized Xen drives.
BZ#685049
A variable was not reset to NULL when Windows XP sent a ScsiStopAdapter control message to the RHELSCSI driver. Consequently, when running the debug version of the drivers on Windows XP, an assertion failure was reported during hibernation. Now, the stored device extension is reset to NULL when the adapter is stopped and the assertion failure no longer occurs.
BZ#725342
Previously, Windows guests did not acknowledge the "xm shutdown -H" command run from a host. Consequently, attempting to turn off a Windows virtual machine with "xm shutdown -H" failed. Furthermore, it prevented "xm shutdown" from working until the virtual machine was rebooted. Now, the para-virtualized Xen network driver triggers a shutdown of a virtual machine when "xm shutdown -H" is sent, thus fixing this bug.
BZ#657540
Due to different requirements imposed by Linux and Windows on the implementation of checksum offloading, Windows guests running with para-virtualized drivers were unable to communicate with other guests running on the same host. With this update, checksum offloading has been disabled in the drivers and communication between Windows guests running on the same host now works correctly.
BZ#734813
Para-virtualized Xen drives did not handle properly the "READ CAPACITY(16)" command. Consequently, the "SCSI compliance test" in the Windows Logo Kit failed. Now, the "READ CAPACITY(16)" command implementation has been fixed and the compliance tests for it no longer fail.
Note that this bug does not cause any known problem in normal operation.
All users of xenpv-win are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which fixes these bugs.