RHBA-2010:0158 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated kvm packages that resolved two issues are now available.

Description

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for
Linux on AMD64 and Intel 64 systems. KVM is a Linux kernel module built
for the standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernel. KVM can run multiple
unmodified, virtualized guest Windows and Linux operating systems.

These updated packages fix the following bug:

• high loads could cause Microsoft Windows 7 32 bit guests to crash with

a Blue Screen error that contained the "HAL_RTC_IRQF_WILL_NOT_CLEAR"
error code. The updated package resolves this issue and Windows 7 32 bit
guests should not crash under high loads.

All KVM users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain
backported patches to resolve these issues. Note that the procedure in the
Solution section must be performed before this update takes effect.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously-released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the 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

To enable the updated kvm package, follow this procedure:

1. Stop all KVM virtualized guests.

2. Either reboot the hypervisor machine, or, as the superuser:
a. find the running modules with the "lsmod {kvm,ksm,kvm-intel,kvm-amd}"
command.
b. remove the running kvm modules with the
"modprobe -r {kvm,ksm,kvm-intel,kvm-amd}" command.
b. reload the modules using "modprobe {kvm,ksm}" and,
"modprobe kvm-intel" or "modprobe kvm-amd" depending on the system
architecture.

3. Restart required KVM virtualized guests.

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64

Fixes

• BZ - 565431 - KVM: WIN7-32bit blue screen (IMAGE_NAME: ntkrnlmp.exe).

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)