RHBA-2011:0241 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated autofs5 package that fixes various bugs is now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 4.

Description

The autofs5 utility controls the operation of the automount daemon. The
automount daemon automatically mounts file systems when you use them, and
unmounts them when they are not busy.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, the file handle was not correctly initialized, which could lead to

excessive CPU utilization. This update resolves this problem in the RPC library
code and initializes the file handle correctly. (BZ#495110)

• Previously, the number of DNS lookups corresponded to the number of IP

addresses returned from a host name lookup for a single NFS server. NFS servers
which resolved to multiple IP addresses increased the number of DNS lookups and
caused excessive system load. This update removes redundant DNS lookups for NFS
servers. (BZ#495890)

• Previously, autofs could encounter segmentation faults if it called the

non-thread safe xmlCleanupParser concurrently from multiple threads. This update
changes autofs to call this function only once from its main thread when the
application exits. (BZ#509513)

• Repeated attempts to access non-existent directories under autofs control with

maps shared to the client the system could consume all reserved ports and autofs
would become unresponsive. With this update, autofs exits gracefully and the
issue is resolved. (BZ#527371)

• Repeated attempts to lookup autofs map keys which didn't exist in the map

which was due to autofs not handling negative caching of non-existent keys. This
update corrects the negative caching of non-existent keys. (BZ#527371)

• Previously, dependent shared libraries could be unloaded while the autofs

shared library was still in use. Now, these libraries are kept open while the
daemon runs. (BZ#527374)

• Previously, autofs calculated the pipe read size incorrectly. Due to this

behavior, the init script did not always report success even when the service
started successfully. Now, the buffer size is calculated correctly. (BZ#527375)

• Previously, automount did not return its status to its parent while it waited

for the autofs daemon to complete its startup. With this update, automount now
returns its status and accurately reports when the service has started.
(BZ#527376)

• Previously, autofs used the select() function to process direct-mount maps and

was limited by the file descriptor limit (by default, 1024). This update uses
poll() instead of select() and is no longer limited by the available file
descriptors. (BZ#527377)

• Previously, autofs could not remount a direct-mount NFS if the mount had

expired after a map reload because of logic code errors. The mount request would
never complete. With this update, autofs can now remount. (BZ#527385)

• Previously a race condition could cause the automount daemon to terminate

unexpectedly. This is due to the Network File System (NFS) mount module is
pre-opened and cached by the "parse_sun" module, so that it can be accessed by
other modules very quickly. Now, automount5 works as expected. (BZ#534093)

• Previously, a logic error in the autofs code caused autofs to terminate

unexpectedly under conditions of heavy load. When autofs was not able to create
a new pthread, it would double free a value. Now, autofs reports a failure when
autofs fails to create a new pthread under heavy load. (BZ#539667)

• Previously, the wait timeout was not correctly converted from seconds to

milliseconds when changing the timed wait from using select(2) to poll(2) in the
non-blocking TCP connection function. This update converts correctly and the
issue is resolved. (BZ#540329)

All autofs users are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which resolves
these issues.

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 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 4 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 471394 - Update Release: & Version: in spec file
• BZ - 495890 - autofs5: large number of DNS lookups for hostnames associated with multiple ip addresses.
• BZ - 509513 - Segmentation fault in sasl_client_add_plugin
• BZ - 527375 - Read and write size of startup status report buffer is incorrect
• BZ - 527376 - service autofs start when the service is running does not return success
• BZ - 527377 - Using a large number of direct mounts causes autofs to hang
• BZ - 534093 - autofs5: segfault in close_mount()
• BZ - 539667 - autofs crashes because of double-free under heavy stress
• BZ - 540329 - connect_nb() uses a wrong timeout

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)