RHBA-2004:213 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated ypserv package that addresses several bugs and implements several
enhancements is now available.

Description

The Network Information Service (NIS) is a system that provides network information (login
names, passwords, home directories, group information) to all of the machines on a network. NIS
allows users to log in on any machine on the network, as long as the machine has
the NIS client programs running and the user's password is recorded in the NIS passwd database.
NIS was formerly known as Sun Yellow Pages (YP).

This package provides the NIS server, which needs to run on a network. NIS clients do not need
to be running the server.

To speed login when NIS is used, it is now possible to use the netid.byname map. This map is
traditionally not used for this purpose, but usually contains the correct information and is
generated by default on recent Linux and Solaris NIS servers.

To enable this feature, find the following line in /etc/default/nss:
# NETID_AUTHORITATIVE=TRUE
Next, use a text editor to remove the leading '#' character, then saving your changes when done.

Note
The runtime does not perform netid.byname map content cross-checks; this is the system
administrator's responsibility.

It is also possible to improve NIS performance by using the services.byservicename map. If this
map exists and has been built properly, it may be enabled by the following setting in
/etc/default/nss:

SERVICES_AUTHORITATIVE=TRUE

The services.byservicename map must contain both names of services and aliases as keys, both
specified with and without protocol. The original Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 NIS server does not
create such a services.byservicename map, but the updated ypserv package provides properly
built services.byservicename maps.

Users of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 should upgrade to this updated package.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

To update all RPMs for your particular architecture, run:

rpm -Fvh [filenames]

where [filenames] is a list of the RPMs you wish to upgrade. Only those
RPMs which are currently installed will be updated. Those RPMs which are
not installed but included in the list will not be updated. Note that you
can also use wildcards (*.rpm) if your current directory *only* contains
the desired RPMs.

Please note that this update is also available via Red Hat Network. Many
people find this an easier way to apply updates. To use Red Hat Network,
launch the Red Hat Update Agent with the following command:

up2date

This will start an interactive process that will result in the appropriate
RPMs being upgraded on your system.

If up2date fails to connect to Red Hat Network due to SSL Certificate
Errors, you need to install a version of the up2date client with an updated
certificate. The latest version of up2date is available from the Red Hat
FTP site and may also be downloaded directly from the RHN website:

https://rhn.redhat.com/help/latest-up2date.pxt

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 3 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 3 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 3 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 3 s390
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 3 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 103576 - RHEL 2.1 U4: Modify behavior of getservbyname() to be more efficient when no protocol is specified and service name is being pulled from NIS.
• BZ - 109606 - sed crashes on garbage multibyte sequence
• BZ - 109790 - broken pthread_exit() in NPTL static
• BZ - 110252 - glibc should BuildRequire: texinfo
• BZ - 110401 - regex library mem leaks
• BZ - 112208 - memory leak when creating threads with user defined stacksize
• BZ - 112512 - pthread_setcancelstate does not work
• BZ - 112602 - Strange pthread_testcancel exception behavior
• BZ - 112726 - pmap_set leaks file descriptors on failure
• BZ - 112869 - grep -iE segfaults using \W unless LANG=C
• BZ - 115349 - mutex hang when using pthread_cond_broadcast() under high contention
• BZ - 116526 - Memory leak in getaddrinfo().
• BZ - 116606 - mbtowc() doesn't like large SIZE parameter values
• BZ - 118338 - RHEL 3 U2: NETID_AUTHORITATIVE functionality in glibc

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)