RHBA-2013:0080 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated device-mapper-multipath packages that fix numerous bugs and add
several enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

Description

The device-mapper-multipath packages provide the tools for managing multipath
devices.

Bug fixes:

• The multipathd daemon ignored all subdirectories in /var/lib/ when deciding

which file systems to unmount. Now, the only subdirectory of /var/lib/ that
multipathd does not unmount is /var/lib/multipath/. Also, multipathd now
unmounts all unnecessary file systems before mounting the ramfs on the /tmp/,
/bin/, and /sbin/ directories. (BZ#833193)

• If initrd was not rebuilt when a new storage device was added to the system,

the new device could have been assigned a user_friendly_names value already
assigned to another device, and the device stopped working correctly. multipathd
now accepts the -B option, which makes the user_friendly_names bindings file
read-only. When started with the -B option, multipath devices without a binding
to a user_friendly_names use their World Wide Identifier (WWID). (BZ#769990)

• The multipathd daemon failed to unmount some file systems because the daemon

was deleting unnecessary file systems while reading through the list of mounted
file systems. Consequently, Multipath could have missed the deleted file
systems. The multipathd daemon now reads through all file systems first and
creates a list of the file systems to unmount, which are then unmounted based on
this list. (BZ#803849)

• The multipathd daemon incorrectly returned exit code 1 when called with the -h

option. The deamon now returns exit code 0 when called with the -h option.
(BZ#771571)

• The multipathd daemon did not always flush the log buffer if it failed during

start-up and error messages logged during start-up could be lost. multipathd now
always flushes the log buffer on failures and error messages are logged
correctly if multipathd terminates unexpectedly during start-up. (BZ#783522)

• The multipath priority callout programs did not work correctly with CCISS

(Compaq Command Interface for SCSI-3 Support) devices because multipath could
not convert the ! character in a CCISS sysfs name to the / character in the
CCISS device name. Consequently, callout programs failed to set path priorities
for these devices. The code has been modified and Multipath now supports the
"%c" wildcard for callout functions and the CCISS names are converted correctly.
(BZ#781480)

Enhancements:

• This update adds the default configuration for HP P2000 G3 MSA Smart Array

Systems. (BZ#742906)

• Multiple default settings and parameters have been enhanced:
• The multipathd daemon did not set the max_fds option and the user had to

manually set the max_fds option in multipath.conf.

• Multipath did not disable queuing when it stopped: when multipathd stopped

on node shutdown, if a multipath device had no working paths and was set to
queue_if_no_path, the device queued outstanding IO forever, rendering the
machine unresponsive.

• The user_friendly_names option was only configurable in the defaults section

and users could not override its value in their device-specific configurations.

• A path group with many secondary paths could be used instead of the path

group with the primary path by default. This happened because Multipath set the
priority of path groups to the sum of their path priorities and used the path
group with the primary path instead of using a path group with many secondary
paths.

Device Mapper Multipath now sets max_fds to the system maximum,
queue_if_no_daemon to the "no", and pg_prio_calc to "average" by default. The
user_friendly_names property can be configured in the devices section of
multipath.conf. (BZ#744231)

• Configuration for Fujitsu ETERNUS storage systems has been added. (BZ#788965)
• The built-in configuration for NetApp LUNs has been updated to use the tur

path checker by default and multiple hardware table parameters have been
updated.(BZ#799847)

Users of device-mapper-multipath 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 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 - 644989 - mpath_prio_alua manpage errors
• BZ - 747180 - "-r" is not in man page of multipath(8)

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)