RHBA-2011:0690 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated net-tools package that fixes various bugs is now available for Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The net-tools package contains basic networking tools, including ifconfig,
netstat, route, and others. Netstat prints information about the Linux
networking subsystem.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Unless a device name was specified on the command line, the mii-tool utility

automatically checked Ethernet interfaces from eth0 to eth7. Similarly, running
the mii-diag or ether-wake utility without the device name caused it to use eth0
by default. However, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 introduces the possibility to
use arbitrary names for these network interfaces. Because of this, the mii-tool,
mii-diag, and ether-wake utilities have been adapted to require a device name to
be specified on the command line. (BZ#682368)

• Due to an incorrect use of 32-bit integers, running the netstat utility with

the "-s" (or "--statistics") command line option on a 64-bit architecture could
cause some entries in the "IpExt" section to be displayed with negative values.
With this update, integers on 64-bit architectures are now handled properly, and
the "netstat -s" command now produces the correct output. (BZ#580054)

• When the netstat utility is run with the "-c" (or "--continuous") command line

option, it prints the selected information continuously every second.
Previously, netstat failed to free the allocated memory. Consequent to this,
running the utility for a long time could cause it to consume all available
memory. With this update, the underlying source code has been corrected to free
the allocated memory when appropriate, and running the netstat utility with the
"-c" option no longer leads to a memory leak. (BZ#634539)

• Prior to this update, the manual page for the netstat utility stated that

running the utility with the "-a" (or "--all") command line option allows a user
to list both listening and non-listening sockets. Since this description was
rather vague, this update extends the manual page to provide a clear explanation
of which sockets are classified as non-listening. (BZ#614931)

All users of net-tools are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which
fixes these bugs.

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 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6 ppc64
• 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 from RHUI 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems) 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension (for IBM z Systems) 6 s390x

Fixes

• BZ - 614931 - netstat -a does not report non listening sockets
• BZ - 682368 - mii-tool will only iterate over ethX interfaces

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)