RHBA-2011:0489 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix several bugs are now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5.4 Extended Update Support.

Description

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating
system.

These updated kernel packages provide fixes for the following bugs:

• Previously, on VMware, the time ran too fast on virtual machines with more

than 4GHz TSC (Time Step Counter) processor frequency if they were using PIT/TSC
based timekeeping. This was due to a calculation bug in the
get_hypervisor_cycles_per_sec function. This update fixes the calculation and
timekeeping works correctly for such virtual machines. (BZ#690133)

• GFS2 (Global File System 2) keeps track of the list of resource groups to

allow better performance when allocating blocks. Previously, when the user
created a large file in GFS2, GFS2 could have run out of allocation space
because it was confined to the recently-used resource groups. With this update,
GFS2 uses the MRU (Most Recently Used) list instead of the list of the
recently-used resource groups. The MRU list allows GFS2 to use all available
resource groups and if a large span of blocks is in use, GFS2 uses allocation
blocks of another resource group. (BZ#690237)

• Previously, some IBM storage arrays (IBM 1745 and 1746) could have stopped

responding or fail to load to the device list of the scsi_dh_rdac kernel module.
This occurred because the scsi_dh_rdac device list did not contain these storage
arrays. With this update, the arrays have been added to the list, and they are
now detected and operate as expected. (BZ#692369)

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches
to correct these bugs. The system must be rebooted for this update to take
effect.

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

To install kernel packages manually, use "rpm -ivh [package]". Do not use "rpm

• Uvh" as that will remove the running kernel binaries from your system. You may

use "rpm -e" to remove old kernels after determining that the new kernel
functions properly on your system.

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 5.4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 5.4 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 690133 - Time runs too fast in a VM on processors with > 4GHZ freq [rhel-5.4.z]
• BZ - 690237 - gfs2: creating large files suddenly slow to a crawl [rhel-5.4.z]

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)