RHBA-2009:1388 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated grub package that fixes a bug and adds an enhancement is now
available.

Description

The GRUB utility is responsible for booting the operating system kernel.

This update addresses the following bug:

• current GCC defaults mean grub is compiled without writable string

support. On systems with an XFS file system present on the same controller
as the boot disk, this could cause the grub shell to segfault and crash.
With this update grub no longer assumes constant strings in the XFS file
system driver are writable, obviating the error. (BZ#496949)

And adds the following enhancement:

• previously, grub-install did not support installing on virtio_blk

devices. When attempted it printed the error message "[device path] does
not have any corresponding BIOS drive." With this update, support has been
added for installing to virtio devices. (BZ#498388)

All grup users are advised to install this updated package, which resolves
this issue and adds 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 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 Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 498388 - [RHEL5.4 KVM/virtio][PATCH] add support for virtio_blk devices to grub-install

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)