- Issued:
- 2004-09-01
- Updated:
- 2004-09-01
RHBA-2004:284 - Bug Fix Advisory
Synopsis
Updated autofs package
Type/Severity
Bug Fix Advisory
Topic
An updated autofs version 4 package is now available.
Description
Autofs controls the operation of the automount daemons. The automount
daemons automatically mounts filesystems and unmounts them after a period
of inactivity. File systems can include network file systems, CD-ROMs,
floppies, and other media.
Autofs version 3 was laden with problems ranging from kernel hangs to
improper parsing of options. The package has been upgraded to version 4,
which has a more robust deployment history. It also implements some key
sought-after features, such as browsable mounts, replicated servers, and
executable maps.
Specific user-visible bugs include the following:
Mount options in auto.master are ignored if preceded by a dash. This
differs from the behavior of the Sun automounter, and as such, the Linux
automounter has been changed to parse options as mount options when
preceded by a dash.
After restarting the automounter (using service autofs restart), each
automount mount point is listed twice in /etc/mtab (or /proc/mounts). The
file system may only be unmounted once. This version of the automounter
fixes the problem by only allowing one automount daemon to mount a given
file system.
Timeouts were not inherited by submounts. Thus, a submount would timeout
according to the default timeout, and not the user-specified timeout. This
has been addressed in autofs-4.
Features added include the following:
o Browsable mounts (ghosting) - Ghosting of map directories
allows you to see the directories in the autofs map without mounting
them. When they are accessed, such as when a directory listing is
requested, the map entry is mounted so that it is seen.
o Replicated Server support - Replicated server functionality
allows the administrator to specify map entries which point to multiple,
replicated servers. The automount daemon attempts to determine the best
server to use for mounts by testing the latency of an rpc_ping to each
available server. Weights may also be assigned to the servers, allowing for
more administrator control. Refer to the
usr/share/doc/autofs-4.1.3/README.replicated-server file for additional map
format information.
o Executable maps - A map can be marked as executable. The
initscript that parses the auto.master map passes this as a program
map to the automounter. A program map is called as a script with the
key as an argument. It may return no lines of output if there is an
error, or one or more lines containing a map (with \ quoting line
breaks). This feature is useful for implementing /net functionality.
o Multi-mounts - This feature allows the automount daemon to
seek multiple lookup methods in succession. A lookup could query NIS
and file maps, for example.
All users of autofs should upgrade to this updated package, which
resolve these issues.
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:
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 Workstation 3 x86_64
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 3 ia64
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 3 i386
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 3 x86_64
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 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 - 116873 - Timeouts Not Inherited by Submounts of Automount Daemon
CVEs
(none)
References
(none)
The Red Hat security contact is secalert@redhat.com. More contact details at https://access.redhat.com/security/team/contact/.