RHBA-2009:0119 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An enhanced vnc package that fixes various bugs is now available.

Description

• When vncserver failed to start Xvnc, vncserver would exit without

producing an error message. This situation would occur, for example, if a
user attempted to start vncserver with illegal options. An error message
is now included in vncserver and will be displayed if Xvnc fails to start:
"Unable to start Xvnc, exiting". Furthermore, since no specific exit code
was assigned to this error, the exit code would default to "0". Without
a specific exit code, the only way to identify this particular error was
to look for the string of the error message in output. This strategy is
unreliable because the string is subject to change. A specific exit code
has now been assigned to this error, and if Xvnc fails to start,
vncserver will exit with code "2". Note: if vncserver fails to start due
to an illegal option selected by the user, this will be shown in the log
file for the vncserver session.

• The GLX extension was not available to users of Xvnc on Red Hat

Enterprise Linux 5. Vncserver has been rebased to a version which supports
GLX and RENDER on all architectures. Furthermore, Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 uses Xorg 7.1 and Mesa 6.5.1. GLX relies on Mesa, but Xorg 7.1 requires
additional patches to build against Mesa 6.5.1. These patches are now
included in the vnc package. With these patches applied, GLX is enabled in
Xvnc.

• Xvnc's color depth settings did not always work correctly when using the

RENDER extension. Vncserver would sometimes output at a color depth other
than the one specified by the user, or would cause a segmentation fault.
A patch has been developed that corrects this issue. With the patch
applied, 8bpp, 16bpp, and 24bpp color modes all work correctly.

• A fault in vnc.so could crash the X server under certain circumstances.

This could occur, for example, if a user opened a vnc connection to an X
session after X was already used on the console in the same session. A
patch has been developed that corrects this issue based on a patch from
upstream. With the patch applied, it is possible to open a vnc connection
to an X session in which X has already been used on the console.

• An error message would be displayed during a vnc-based install:

"Couldn't interpret _XKB_RULES_NAMES property". The error appeared due to
a parameter in X server configuration file used by vncserver. This has been
corrected in a patch. With the patch applied, the error message does not
appear during vnc-based installation.

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/FAQ_58_10188

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 - 282661 - Reproducible crash in libvnc.so [crashes Xorg]
• BZ - 385241 - feature request: update vnc-server
• BZ - 451789 - [CRM#1825054] Enable support for GLX in Xvnc
• BZ - 458651 - Give exit code != 0 when vncserver did not started
• BZ - 464783 - Couldn't interpret _XKB_RULES_NAMES property

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)