RHBA-2010:0174 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated strace package that fixes two bugs is now available.

Description

The strace program intercepts and records the system calls called and
received by a running process. Strace can print a record of each system
call, its arguments and its return value.

This updated strace package fixes the following bugs:

• when an strace process was terminated by a signal while the tracee was

executing a fork or clone system call the tracee was forcefully terminated
instead of being cleanly detached. This update corrects this: tracees are
now cleanly detached as expected when an strace process is terminated in
the circumstance noted above. (BZ#558471)

• RHBA-2010:0047, the strace update released to address BZ#548363,

uncovered a race condition on Itanium-based systems. (See References below
for a link to this previous release.) The race condition presented when
strace attached to a process while said process was executing the execve
system call. With this update, strace now reliably detects this post-execve
trap and, consequently, avoids the race condition. (BZ#564364)

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

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 5.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.4 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 5.4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 5.4 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 558471 - [5.4] When strace command is killed by SIGTERM, the target process of strace command is also terminated.
• BZ - 564364 - [5.4] strace stops logging a trace

CVEs

(none)

References

• http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2010-0047.html