RHBA-2011:0012 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated qemu-kvm packages that fix various bugs are now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux
on AMD64 and Intel 64 systems. qemu-kvm is the user-space component for running
virtual machines using KVM.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• When running a Windows Server 2008 virtual machine with a virtio network

interface controller (NIC), unplugging the NIC could cause qemu-kvm to terminate
unexpectedly with a segmentation fault. With this update, the underlying source
code has been modified to address this issue, and unplugging such NIC while the
virtual machine is active no longer causes qemu-kvm to crash. (BZ#648821)

• Previously, qemu-kvm did not allow a user to select a resolution higher than

1920x1080, which may have been rather limiting. This update increases the
maximum supported resolution to 2560x1600. (BZ#653329)

• Due to an error in the Russian keyboard layout, pressing the "/" and "|" keys

with the "ru" layout enabled produced wrong characters. With this update, the
relevant lines in the ru.orig file have been corrected, and pressing these keys
now produces the expected results. (BZ#653337)

• Under certain circumstances, QEMU could stop responding during the

installation of an operating system in a virtual machine when the QXL display
device was in use. This error no longer occurs, and kvm-qemu now works as
expected. (BZ#653341)

• When running a virtual machine with 4 or more gigabytes of the virtual memory,

an attempt to hot plug a network interface controller (NIC) failed with the
following error message:

Device '[device_name]' could not be initialized

This update resolves this issue, and hot-plugging a NIC in a virtual machine
with 4 or more gigabytes of the virtual memory no longer fails. (BZ#653343)

• Previously, the conversion of a disk image by using the "qemu-img convert"

command may have been significantly slow. With this update, various patches have
been applied to improve the performance of the above command. (BZ#662058)

All users of qemu-kvm are advised to upgrade to these updated 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
https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension 6 x86_64

Fixes

• BZ - 648821 - [RHEL6 Snap13]: Hot-unplugging of virtio nic issue in Windows2008 KVM guest.
• BZ - 653329 - support high resolutions
• BZ - 653337 - Incorrect russian vnc keymap
• BZ - 653341 - Qemu becomes unresponsive during unattended_installation
• BZ - 653343 - Cannot hot-plug nic in windows VM when the vmem is larger
• BZ - 662058 - qemu-img convert poor performance

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)