RHBA-2009:0432 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated device-mapper-multipath packages that resolve an issue are now
available.

Description

The device-mapper multipath packages provide tools to manage multipath
devices by issuing instructions to the device-mapper multipath kernel
module, and by managing the creation and removal of partitions for
device-mapper devices.

These updated device-mapper-multipath packages fix the following bug:

• there was a race condition in the shutdown code for multipathd wherein a

lock could be destroyed before all threads were finished using it. This
could cause the machine to become unresponsive on multipathd shutdown. The
multipathd daemon now waits for all threads to finish using the lock before
destroying it, thus removing the race and resolving the issue.

• when adding a new multipath-capable block device, a race condition

existed between the multipathd daemon and udev to multipath the new device.
If udev--through multipath--updated the multipath devices first, then the
multipathd daemon would not use the device-specific configurations for the
device when it started monitoring the path. With this update, multipathd
now correctly configures the device, even when udev notices it first, thus
resolving the issue.

All users of device-mapper-multipath are advised to upgrade to these
updated packages, which resolve this issue.

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 for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.3 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.3 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 5.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 5.3 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 5.3 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 IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 5.3 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 5.3 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 494582 - Stopping multipathd hangs the machine
• BZ - 494961 - [RHEL 5.1] multipath -ll output shows mix of failover and multibus

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)