RHBA-2013:0045 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated python packages that fix several bugs and add one enhancement are now
available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

Description

Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language
often compared to Tcl, Perl, Scheme or Java. Python includes modules, classes,
exceptions, very high level dynamic data types and dynamic typing. Python
supports interfaces to many system calls and libraries, as well as to various
windowing systems (X11, Motif, Tk, Mac and MFC).

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Prior to this update, calling the logging.config.fileConfig() function failed

when the logging handlers already existed. Consequently, a KeyError occured in
the atexit() call to the logging.shutdown() function. With this update, a fix
has been added into logging.config.fileConfig() in order to lose previously
existing handlers. As a result, the KeyError no longer occurs. (BZ#573782)

• IDLE is an integrated development environment for Python. With this update,

support to run multiple instances of IDLE on a server has been added. As a
result, multiple users can now use IDLE at the same time. (BZ#638514)

• Previously, the os.chown() function failed on 32-bit architectures when the

UID and GID parameters contained numeric values greater than 2147483647
(0x7fffffff). Consequently, an error occurred with the following message:

OverflowError: signed integer is greater than maximum

This bug has been fixed and the os.chown function now handles larger
identification numbers correctly. (BZ#640523)

• Previously, the fcntl.ioctl() function failed on 32-bit architectures when the

op parameter contained a numeric value greater than 2147483647 (0x7fffffff).
Consequently, an error occurred with the following message:

OverflowError: signed integer is greater than maximum

This bug has been fixed and the fcntl.ioctl function now handles larger request
codes correctly. (BZ#822072)

• Due to a flaw in the Makefile.pre.in file, occasional compilation or link

errors appeared when Python was rebuilt on systems with more than one CPU core.
This bug has been fixed, and Python can now be rebuilt on multiple-core
processing units without the aforementioned errors. (BZ#701277)

• Previously, a memory leak occurred when Python was used with the

_japanese_codecs module. This bug has been fixed, and the memory leak no longer
occurs in the described scenario. (BZ#701569)

This update also adds the following enhancement:

• The gdb debugger has been enhanced to allow more effective debugging of Python

code. The added hooks enable gdb to display human-readable representations of
Python objects within the process being debugged. As a result, backtraces
involving Python are now easier to read, and the new hooks enhance the
effectiveness of the debugging process. (BZ#644661)

All users of Python are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix
these bugs and add this enhancement.

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 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 573782 - python logging's fileConfig causes KeyError on shutdown
• BZ - 640523 - chown fails with "OverflowError: signed integer is greater than maximum"
• BZ - 822072 - fcntl.ioctl() caused an OverflowError: signed integer is greater than maximum

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)