RHBA-2009:1359 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated hal package that fixes various bugs and adds several
enhancements is now available.

Description

HAL is daemon for collection and maintaining information from several
sources about the hardware on the system. It provides a live device list
through D-BUS.

Bugs fixed in these updated packages include:

• hal now detects blank optical media correctly on buggy hardware.

(BZ#488265)

• if a device identifier was not well formed, the error message the

presented was not correctly formatted. This has been fixed. (BZ#471004)

• if an error occurrs the correct hal-device code is now returned.

(BZ#462453)

• permissions on the directory /usr/lib/hal were incorrect. hal now owns

this directory, as expected. (BZ#481806)

• hal no longer tries to close shared DBus connections to avoid printing a

warning. (BZ#472199)

• the hal daemon now starts earlier in the boot sequence, allowing other

services to use HAL. (BZ#500577)

• another ID match was added to fix suspending on Lenovo X61s type 7667

notebooks. (BZ#456277)

• the number of brightness levels is now reported correctly for newer

laptops using the ibm-acpi driver. (BZ#475850)

• storage devices on the cciss bus are now detected. (BZ#489982)

As well, this update includes the following enhancements:

• new man pages for the installed binaries. (BZ#217644)
• the child-timeout can now be set for machines with a large number of

devices. (BZ#463128)

All HAL users should install this upgraded package which addresses these
issues and adds these enhancements.

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

Users are advised to upgrade to this updated hal package, which resolves
these issues.

A system re-boot is recommended after installing this update. The optical
media recognition fix requires a system re-boot before coming in to effect.

This update features a backport to allow the startup child timeout to be
changed, which may be useful if the system is attached to a very large
number of devices (for instance above 1000 SCSI devices). If the default
timeout value of 250 seconds is not sufficient for haldaemon to start then
this can be raised by appending --child-timeout=1000 to the daemon
statement in /etc/init.d/haldaemon.

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 - 462453 - hal-device returns 0 even if error message is shown
• BZ - 471004 - hal-device shows an error at the end of its output
• BZ - 472199 - hal throws an error if getting/setting property of non-existing UDI
• BZ - 489982 - cciss disk devices do not have storage capability in HAL
• BZ - 500577 - haldaemon starts too late during init to be used by other services

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)