RHBA-2010:0251 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated perl-Sys-Virt package that fixes several bugs is now available.

Description

The Sys::Virt module provides a Perl XS binding to the libvirt virtual
machine management APIs. This allows machines running within arbitrary
virtualization containers to be managed with a consistent API.

This update addresses the following issues:

• a number of calls available in the C API, including

virStorageVolLookupByKey, virStorageVolLookupByName, and
virStorageVolLookupByPath, did not contain Perl bindings. As a result,
these storage functions were unavailable when using Perl-based tools for
virtual machine management. This update adds the missing calls to the Perl
API, and Perl-based management of virtual machines is now possible.
(BZ#519647)

• the 'message' subroutine of Error.pm returned an error code instead of an

error message. As a consequence, error conditions that required a textual
error message instead received an alpha-numeric error code. The 'message'
subroutine has been amended to return a textual message, and error
conditions now produce a more informative error description. (BZ#525091)

• Sys::Virt did not document the 'flags' parameter used by several methods,

including the following:

• $vmm->num_of_node_devices
• $vmm->list_node_device_names
• $vmm->find_storage_pool_sources
• $dom->core_dump
• $dom->reboot
• $dom->block_peek
• $dom->memory_peek
• $dom->get_autostart
• $pool->refresh
• $pool->build
• $pool->delete

Since the 'flags' parameter is currently unused, the parameter and its
default value were not mentioned in the methods' descriptions. This could
cause certain operations that referenced the 'flags' parameter to fail with
a usage error. The 'flags' parameter is now documented as an optional
parameter that defaults to a value of zero if it is omitted. Usage errors
no longer occur when using the methods as documented. (BZ#519712)

• the description of the $dom->reboot method made reference to a list of

&Sys::Virt::Domain::REBOOT_* constants for use with the 'flags' parameter.
However, since the 'flags' parameter is not currently used, the reboot
constants were not included in the document. This could cause confusion
when implementing the $dom->reboot method. The reference to the reboot
constants has been removed from the documentation, and the correct usage
of the $dom->reboot method is now clearer. (BZ#543878)

All users using Perl or Perl-based tools to do virtual machine management
should install this updated package which fixes these bugs.

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 Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 519647 - virStorageVolLookupBy* not implemented
• BZ - 519712 - flags argument of $pool->refresh() undocumented
• BZ - 525091 - message subroutine has a error in Error.pm
• BZ - 543878 - [RHEL5] documentation bug - mention about non-existent REBOOT_* flags

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)