RHBA-2010:0375 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated kexec-tools package that fixes various bugs is now available.

Description

kexec-tools provides /sbin/kexec binary that facilitates a new kernel to boot
using the kernel's kexec feature either on a normal or a panic reboot. This
package contains the /sbin/kexec binary and ancillary utilities that together
form the user-space component of the kernel's kexec feature.

This updated kexec-tools package fixes the following bug:

• systems running a 32-bit kernel with the PAE (Physical Address Extension)

feature enabled restrict the range of accessible memory to 64 GB, even when the
system contains more physical RAM than 64 GB. On such a system, the kernel
exports all of the detected memory via /proc/iomem, not just the amount of
accessible memory. The kexec user-space tools use /proc/iomem to determine the
amount of system memory in order to format its vmcore file so that all memory is
accessible. However, on systems with more than 64 GB of RAM, the value read by
kexec from /proc/iomem did not represent the amount of actual memory used by the
system, which resulted in /proc/vmcore read errors when the kdump mechanism
activated.

This update restricts the size of the vmcore file on 32-bit systems to 64 GB,
thus preventing /proc/vmcore read errors due to an incorrectly-sized vmcore
file. (BZ#582349)

All users of kexec-tools are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which
resolves this issue.

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
• 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 - 582349 - failed to dump vmcore on Nehalem EX machine

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)