RHBA-2009:0424 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated cpuspeed package that fixes various bugs is now available.

Description

The cpuspeed package provides CPU frequency scaling support.

This updated package fixes the following bugs:

• the cpuspeed init script loaded the speedstep-centrino driver on Intel

systems, even when the acpi-cpufreq driver had already loaded successfully.
With both these drivers loaded, the system would not handle P-states
correctly. The cpuspeed init script now attempts to load the
speedstep-centrino driver only as a fallback for situations where it has
not been able to load the acpi-cpufreq driver. Intel systems that can use
the acpi-cpufreq driver no longer load the speedstep-centrino driver, and
now handle P-states correctly. (BZ#485480)

• a development version of this package attempted to make cpuspeed run

reliably on Xen kernels by only allowing cpuspeed to start on Xen kernels
if the number of virtual CPUs in dom0 equalled the number of physical CPUs
in the system. However, this condition can never be true until xend starts,
and xend starts after cpuspeed. Therefore, cpuspeed would only run properly
on Xen kernels if cpuspeed were restarted after the system completed the
boot process. The restriction that cpuspeed can only start if the number of
virtual and physical kernels are equal has therefore been removed, allowing
cpuspeed to start on Xen kernels even when xend has not yet started.
(BZ#488924, BZ#498406, BZ#492139)

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 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 - 488924 - [RHEL5.3 Xen]: cpuspeed lies about frequency scaling
• BZ - 492139 - kernel-xen does not depend on xen
• BZ - 498406 - [RHEL5.4]: Xen systems fail to start the cpuspeed service

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)