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5.327. systemtap

Updated systemtap packages that fix a bug are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
SystemTap is a tracing and probing tool to analyze and monitor activities of the operating system, including the kernel. It provides a wide range of filtering and analysis options.

Bug Fix

BZ#859832
In previous kernels and versions of systemtap, the nfsd.open probe-alias in the nfsd tapset referred to the "access" parameter, which was later renamed to "may_flags" in the kernel. Consequently, the semantic errors occurred and then the stap command failed to execute. This update lets the nfsd.open probe-alias check under both names for setting the "access" script-level variable, and stap now works as expected in the described scenario.
All users of systemtap are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs and add these enhancements.
Updated systemtap packages that fix multiple bugs and add several enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
SystemTap is a tracing and probing tool to analyze and monitor activities of the operating system, including the kernel. It provides a wide range of filtering and analysis options.
BZ#751478
The systemtap packages have been upgraded to upstream version 1.7, which provides a number of bug fixes and enhancements.

Bug Fixes

BZ#588359
SystemTap did not fully implement backtraces for the PowerPC and the IBM System z platforms and the backtraces were not always informative. Now, the support for PowerPC and IBM System z backtraces is improved.
BZ#639338
The custom functions "deref()" and "store_deref()" in the SystemTap support code did not correctly handle the memory access for the IBM System z platform and some SystemTap tests could fail. Now, the SystemTap runtime use the kernel version of these functions.
BZ#738365
The usymbols.exp test did not correctly cast some arguments for data structures it accessed and subsequently failed on PowerPC and IBM System z platforms. This update modifies the test to successfully run on PowerPC and IBM System z platforms.
BZ#752170
The SystemTap translator did not parse code with user-space markers containing some types of operand location information. Now, the SystemTap translator understands the additional x86_64 address modes.
BZ#752568
Compile servers took a long time to translate scripts into instrumentation and send them back. Now, the verbose options provide information about the progress of the compiler server to verify that the compiler server is working as expected.
BZ#754567
The systemtap-client script functionality was folded into the systemtap package, eliminating the systemtap-client package. As a consequence, a client-only systemtap installation was not available. This update provides the systemtap-client package to allow for client-only systemtap installations.
BZ#790091
The stap-serverd daemon hard-coded some rlimit values when running under the stap-server User ID. The daemon failed if the rlimit values were exceeded. Now, stap-serverd refers to configuration information stored in ~/stap-server/.systemtap/rc. .
BZ#791243
The tcp.sendmsg probe alias variable sock was not correctly set for certain kernel versions. Scripts that used the sock variable when probing tcp.sendmsg did not compile. Now, the tcp.sendmsg alias initialization of the sock variable handles these variations in the kernel structure.
BZ#812871
The nd_syscall tests used several probes that applied a sixth argument. Consequently, these probes could fail on IBM System z platforms which did not support access to a sixth argument if a function was on the stack. Now, the access code for the IBM System z runtime is improved to allow access to arguments on the stack.
BZ#813323
SystemTap did not run precompiled scripts if users with membership only of the stapusr group attempted to run an unsigned precompiled script from the /lib/modules/`uname -r`/systemtap directory. Now, SystemTap elevates the privileges for precompiled scripts in the systemtap directory.

Enhancement

BZ#798754
This update adds the enospc.stp script to obtain a direct information when a file system is full.
All users of systemtap are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs and add these enhancements.