RHBA-2005:229 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated kernel-utils packages that fix various bugs are now available.

Description

The kernel-utils package contains several utilities that can be used to
control the kernel or machine hardware. Included are:

• dmidecode - gives information about the BIOS and motherboard revisisons
• microcode_ctl - updates the microcode on Intel CPUs
• smartctl - monitor the health of disks

This updated kernel-utils package addresses the following issues:

• The dmidecode utility has been fixed to work on Itanium architectures.
• The microcode_ctl utility had its initscript modified so that it starts

in all runlevels.

• The udev utility changed the location where microcode_ctl looks for its

device node. The microcode_ctl utility has been updated to look for
/dev/cpu/microcode.

• The x86info utility has been updated to recognize several new processors,

and no longer requires an executable stack.
The existing version of salinfo_decode, installed by the kernel-utils
RPM does not decode OEM records.

• The IA64 salinfo utility has been moved out to its own separate package.

The existing version of salinfo_decode, installed by the kernel-utils
RPM does not decode OEM records.

salinfo_decode is a community-developed, Itanium utility that allows
decoding of hardware errors when a Machine Check Exception(MCE) is
generated. In addition to these SAL records, more information in the
form of vendor-specific OEM data maybe included.

The existing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 version of salinfo_decode was
developed internally at Red Hat. During testing it was found that this
version did not properly decode OEM records, causing loss of critical
information of why an MCE occured.

All users of kernel-utils should upgrade to these updated packages, which
resolve these issues.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied. Use Red Hat
Network to download and update your packages. To launch the Red Hat
Update Agent, use the following command:

up2date

For information on how to install packages manually, refer to the
following Web page for the System Administration or Customization
guide specific to your system:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 4 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 145608 - microcode_ctl uses wrong device path

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)