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7.220. s390utils

Updated s390utils packages that fix several bugs and add two enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
The s390utils packages contain a set of user space utilities for Linux on IBM system z achitecture.

Bug Fixes

BZ#818599
The internal parsing logic of the ziomon utility previously relied on a Bash shell construct when identifying multipath devices. Changes in later versions of Bash caused the parsing logic to not work properly if the ziomon command was specified with more than one multipath device as an argument. Consequently, ziomon did not recognize all multipath devices and did not collect performance data for the respective devices. With this update, ziomon has been modified to use a bash-independent construct in the parsing logic. The ziomon utility now correctly recognizes all multipath devices and provides performance data as expected.
BZ#818877
Previously, the /etc/zipl.conf configuration file did not belong to any RPM package. This update corrects this problem and the /etc/zipl.conf file is now owned by the s390utils-base package.
BZ#828145
The "lsdasd -h" command always incorrectly returned an exit code of 1. Also, the lsdasd(8) man page was missing information about the "-b, --base" option. With this update, the lsdasd utility has been corrected to return the exit code 0 on success when issued to print help information. The lsdasd(8) man page has been updated and it now provides information on usage of the "-b" option as expected.
BZ#828146
Previously, the lsluns utility performed a SCSI generic (sg) functionality test before scanning for available LUNs or showing the attached LUNs. Consequently, the lsluns command failed and did not display any available or attached LUNs if there was no SCSI device available. This update modifies lsluns to perform a LUN scan first and execute an sg functionality test only if at least one SCSI device is found.
BZ#837311
The lsluns utility performed a SCSI registration test immediately after adding LUN0 and WLUN to the unit_add file. However, SCSI devices are not available immediately after adding LUNs to unit_add so lsluns did not recognize that LUN0 and WLUN are available. The lsluns command therefore failed with the "Cannot attach WLUN / LUN0 for scanning" error message. This update modifies lsluns so that the SCSI registration test is now performed several times allowing the SCSI mid-layer to complete SCSI device registration. The lsluns command now successfully displays LUNs as expected.
BZ#857815
Due to the way the kernel maintains caches for block devices, running the zipl boot loader could, under certain circumstances, lead to inconsistent cache contents in the first 4096 bytes on an FBA DASD device (a direct-access storage device with a fixed block architecture). This update modifies zipl so that the boot loader flushes disk buffers before installing the initial program load (IPL), which prevents cache corruption from occurring on FBA DASD devices.

Enhancements

BZ#847087
This update adds the necessary user space tools to allow Linux to access Storage Class Memory (SCM) as a block device on IBM System z systems using sub-channels of the Extended Asynchronous Data Mover (EADM) Facility.
BZ#847088
The lszcrypt utility has been modified to support the IBM Crypto Express 4 feature.
All users of s390utils are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs and add these enhancements.