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8.21. binutils

Updated binutils packages that fix several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
The binutils packages provide a collection of binary utilities for the manipulation of object code in various object file formats. It includes the "ar", "as", "gprof", "ld", "nm", "objcopy", "objdump", "ranlib", "readelf", "size", "strings", "strip", and "addr2line" utilities.

Bug Fixes

BZ#1128279
Previously, the ld linker could overwrite a valid SONAME with an empty string in a DT_NEEDED record. Consequently, certain programs were linked but could not be executed because symbols from some libraries were not loaded. With this update, the ld linker correctly handles empty strings in SONAMEs, and programs linked by ld now can be executed as expected.
BZ#906079
When creating a shared library for a "ppc64" target, the ld linker selected linker stubs that were not thread-safe by default. Consequently, if such a shared library was used by a multi-threaded application, calls into the library could fail in unpredictable ways. To fix this problem, the ld linker now build shared libraries for "ppc64" targets with thread-safe linker stubs.
BZ#909056
The readelf utility incorrectly assumed that a long name table would always be available if an archive used long names. Consequently, readelf could terminate unexpectedly with a segmentation fault on archive libraries that used long names but did not have a long name table. To fix this problem, readelf now verifies the existence of a long name table on archive libraries.
BZ#959422
The ld linker incorrectly handled certain TLS relocations that appears in debugging (DWARF) sections. Consequently, debugging information for some variables in TLS sections could be incorrect. With this update, the ld linker now correctly handles TLS relocations in DWARF sections, and the related TLS variables now can be properly examined.
Users of binutils are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs.