8.224. util-linux-ng

Bug Fixes

BZ#885313

Previously, the hexdump utility terminated with a segmentation fault when iterating over an empty format string. This bug has now been fixed and hexdump no longer crashes in this scenario.

BZ#911756

Previously, the libblkid library incorrectly detected certain disks as a Silicon Image Medley RAID device. Consequently, this caused problems in certain systems after a weekly reboot. This update adds a checksum count from the superblock record and a new superblock definition from the dmraid tool, which makes the signature recognition of Silicon Image Medley RAID devices more robust.

BZ#864585

Previously, the "mount -av" command, which triggers mounting filesystems with helpers like the /sbin/mount.nfs file, printed the message "nothing was mounted", even though the helper mounted a filesystem. This bug has been fixed and the incorrect message is no longer printed in this scenario.

BZ#872291

Previously, the hwclock(8) manual page contained a reference to the non-existing adjtimex utility. This update fixes the hwclock(8) manual page.

BZ#915844

Previously, the mount(8) manual page incorrectly described the "relatime" mount option. With this update, the description of the "relatime" mount option has been improved to better describe when the kernel updates the atime.

BZ#917678

Due to a regression in the code, if a symbolic link was used for a mount point in the /etc/fstab configuration file, mount attempts to that mount point failed. This update ensures that all paths in /etc/fstab are made canonical and such mount points can now be mounted as expected.

BZ#966735

Prior to this update, the lscpu command accepted only sequentially assigned logical CPU numbers. Consequently, lscpu did not properly list CPUs after a CPU eject operation. After this update, the lascpu command does not expect sequentially assigned CPU numbers and works properly on systems with a hot-plug CPU.

Enhancements

BZ#816342

Previously, it was not possible to determine the right CLOCAL flag by the kernel and, also, some machines required manual settings. With this update, the new -L[={always,auto,never}] option has been added to the agetty utility to allow complete control on the CLOCAL terminal flag.

BZ#846790

Previously, the kill(1) manual page did not include information about the interaction between the kill utility and threads. With this update, the kill(1) manual page has been improved to explicitly explain the interaction between the kill system call and threads.

BZ#870854

The default kill character "@" was in collision with login user names on IPA systems with the "user@domain" convention. With this update, the agetty utility has been improved to accept the "--kill-chars" and "--erase-chars" options to control special kill and erase terminal characters.

BZ#947062

With this update, the "blkdiscard" command has been introduced to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 to discard device sectors. The "discard" support is important for example on thinly-provisioned storage to improve disk efficiency by reclaiming free space so that the storage can re-use the free space for other area.