RHBA-2009:0093 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An enhanced module-init-tools package that fixes various bugs and provides
an enhancement is now available.

Description

module-init-tools is a package that provides utilities that are used for
loading and unloading Linux kernel modules.

This updated module-init-tools package includes fixes for the following bugs:

• module-init-tools provides the modprobe utility to add and remove modules

from the Linux kernel. When removing kernel modules with modprobe, blocking
mode was enabled by default, which could have resulted in deadlock. In this
updated package, modprobe does not enable blocking mode by default, thus
removing the potential for deadlock and resolving the issue.

• the '--delete-modules' option has been added to the /sbin/weak-modules

script in order to prevent it from attempting to locate a compatible
replacement driver update when removing driver updates.

• on the x86 architecture, when block device encryption was being used and

no VIA padlock device was present, the insmod command for installing
loadable kernel modules would display the following dire warning message:
"insmod: error inserting '/lib/padlock.ko': -1 No such device". As using
block device encryption without a VIA padlock device is quite common, this
error message has been changed to be more informative in nature, so that it
does not sound as if an essential component is missing from the system.

In addition, this updated module-init-tools package provides the following
enhancements:

• a wildcard kernel-matching option has been added to the depmod.conf

configuration file to allow specific releases of the kernel to match on a
given driver update.

• reduced warnings on module alias loads whenever multiple modules match a

given alias identity. This will, for example, remove warnings concerning
non-existent hardware at module load time. This specifically addresses
undesirable warnings generated by the kernel "padlock" driver.

All users of module-init-tools are advised to upgrade to this updated
package, which resolves these issues and provides this enhancement.

Solution

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

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red
Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 280411 - Need to fix modprobe to default to operating in non-blocking mode
• BZ - 432959 - weak-modules --remove-modules does not remove soft links
• BZ - 458134 - insmod error from padlock.ko
• BZ - 460046 - Wildcard support for kernel matching in module-init-tools

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)