RHBA-2010:0304 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated binutils packages that fix various bugs are now available.

Description

Binutils is a collection of binary utilities, including ar (for
creating, modifying and extracting from archives), as (a family of GNU
assemblers), gprof (for displaying call graph profile data), ld (the
GNU linker), nm (for listing symbols from object files), objcopy (for
copying and translating object files), objdump (for displaying
information from object files), ranlib (for generating an index for
the contents of an archive), readelf (for displaying detailed
information about binary files), size (for listing the section sizes
of an object or archive file), strings (for listing printable strings
from files), strip (for discarding symbols), and addr2line (for
converting addresses to file and line).

These updated binutils packages provide fixes for the following bugs:

• The readelf debugging utility was placing subject error messages in the

middle of the .debug_str in the stderr output. This meant that location
lists in the .debug._info section that were not in ascending order could
not be handled correctly and the debugger could pick the wrong function,
leading to dropped debug information. A patch has now been added and, as a
result, the location lists can now be handled correctly, irrespective of
order. As a result, the debugger now picks the right function when looking
up symbols and debug information is no longer dropped. (BZ#499164,
BZ#509124)

• The strings command was not parsing files correctly. When used with a

multi-digit <NUM> argument (such as strings -10 filename.txt) an "invalid
integer argument" error would occur because it regarded each numeral as a
separate argument. The parsing has now been corrected via a patch to
strings.c.multidigit_input so that multi-digit numerals are regarded as
parts of a single argument. As a result, files are now parsed correctly.
(BZ#508765)

• There was a regression in binutils-devel that caused it to build

"oprofile" files incorrectly. As a result, bfd_get_section_by_name()
returned incorrect information about the debuginfo section and an
"opreport" error would occur. The bfd.h header's API has now been fixed to
match the BFD library's ABI. As a result, the per-symbol profile is now
generated correctly and the opreport runs without error. (BZ#529028)

• There was a link failure whereby when a symbol in a comdat/linkonce

section had a different level of visibility in different files, the linker
could not merge the visibility. As a consequence, after the ld command was
run, a "final link failed: Bad value" error would occur. A patch has been
added to elflink.c.sym_visibility to make sure that the visibility is kept.
As a result, ld now can now merge different levels of visibility without
error. (BZ#531269)

Users are advised to upgrade to these updated binutils
packages, which resolve these issues.

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 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 - 499164 - gcc or readelf problem
• BZ - 508765 - The strings command doesn't work correctly for the -<NUM> option
• BZ - 509124 - holes in debuginfo
• BZ - 529028 - bfd_get_section_by_name() not working correctly on i686 machine
• BZ - 531269 - ld fails to merge different visibility for the same symbol in distinct object files

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)