RHBA-2012:0871 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated module-init-tools packages that fix two bugs and add one enhancement are
now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The module-init-tools packages include various programs needed for automatic
loading and unloading of modules under 2.6 kernels, as well as other module
management programs. Device drivers and file systems are two examples of loaded
and unloaded modules.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, on low-memory systems (such as low-memory high-performance

infrastructure, or HPC, nodes or virtual machines), depmod could use excessive
amount of memory. As a consequence, the depmod process was killed by the OOM
(out of memory) mechanism, and the system was unable to boot. With this update,
the free() function is correctly used on several places in the code so that
depmod's memory consumption is reduced. (BZ#670613)

• Previously, if the "override" keyword was present in the depmod.conf file

without any parameters specified, the depmod utility terminated unexpectedly
with a segmentation fault. A patch has been applied to ensure that the depmod
utility no longer crashes and a syntax warning is displayed instead. (BZ#673100)

This update also adds the following enhancement:

• This update adds the "backports" directory to the search path in the

depmod.conf file, which is necessary to support integration of the
compat-wireless package into kernel packages. (BZ#761511)

All users of module-init-tools are advised to upgrade to these updated packages,
which fix these bugs and add this 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 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 x86_64
• 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 i386
• 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

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)