RHBA-2012:0802 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated seabios packages that fix several bugs and add multiple enhancements are
now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The seabios package contains a legacy BIOS implementation, which can be used as
a coreboot payload.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, SeaBIOS sometimes booted from an incorrect drive. This happened

because the QEMU hard-drive priority was lower than the virtio block-device
priority. With this update, the QEMU hard-drive priority has been raised above
the virtio block-device priority and SeaBIOS now boots from the correct drive.
(BZ#757999)

• Previously, a guest could remain unresponsive during boot after the S3

(Suspend to RAM) state as SeaBIOS failed to advertise to the guest's operating
system that the device was powered down. With this update, the underlying code
handling the block device resume has been fixed and the problem no longer
occurs. (BZ#771946)

• Previously, a Windows guest could detect an HPET (High Precision Event Timer)

device although the guest had the HPET device disabled. This occurred because
the HPET device was defined in the DSDT (Differentiated System Description
Table). This update removes the definition from the table and the problem no
longer occurs. (BZ#786142)

• Booting from some USB flash drives could fail because SeaBIOS did not support

recovery from USB STALL conditions. This update adds support for recovery from
STALLs. (BZ#801293)

• RTC (Real-Time Clock) wake-up for Windows guest did not work. With this

update, the underlying code of FADT (Fixed ACPI Description Table) has been
fixed to match QEMU behavior and the problem no longer occurs. (BZ#804933)

• Previously, if a device was hot plugged while the guest was still processing a

previous hot-plug event, the new hot-plug event failed to be processed and the
device was not detected. With this update, SeaBIOS uses a different event to
handle hotplugging and the problem no longer occurs. (BZ#808033)

• Guest booting could fail if the guest had more than 62 sockets and multiple

virtio disk devices. This happened because, BIOS ran out of memory and failed to
initialize the boot disk. With this update, new memory is allocated under these
circumstances and booting succeeds. (BZ#810471)

This update also adds these enhancements:

• The in-guest S4 (Suspend-to-Disk) and S3 (Suspend-to-RAM) power management

features were added as a Technology Preview. The features provide the ability to
perform suspend-to-disk and suspend-to-RAM functions on the guest. To enable the
feature, users have to choose the /usr/share/seabios/bios-pm.bin file for VM
BIOS instead of the default /usr/share/seabios/bios.bin file through libvirt.
(BZ#809797)

• SeaBIOS now supports booting from virtio-scsi devices. (BZ#782028)

More information about Red Hat Technology Previews is available here:
https://access.redhat.com/support/offerings/techpreview/

All seabios users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix
these bugs and add these enhancements.

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
https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/articles/11258

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 - 757999 - usb-storage's boot priority is not set correctly by seabios
• BZ - 771946 - guest hangs in bios after s3
• BZ - 786142 - Windows guest shows HPET device, but qemu has none.
• BZ - 801293 - fix boot from host or redirected USB pen drives
• BZ - 804603 - place rpm version info into version banner
• BZ - 804933 - RTC wake up does not work with windows guests
• BZ - 805168 - seabios should not spin on cpu if started cpu count != cmos value at 0x5f
• BZ - 808033 - kvm guest doesn't see all hotplugged vcpus when 'virsh setvcpus 64 --live ' or hot-plugged devices when they added fast enough
• BZ - 810471 - boot fails while starting guest with sockets>62 and cores=1 and threads=1 option and 10 virtio disks

CVEs

(none)

References

• https://access.redhat.com/support/offerings/techpreview/