RHBA-2013:0435 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated udev packages that fix several bugs and add one enhancement are now
available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The udev packages implement a dynamic device directory, providing only the
devices present on the system. This dynamic directory is managed in user space,
dynamically creates and removes devices, provides consistent naming, and a
user-space API.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, the /dev/disk/by-id file contained all expected symbolic links for

cciss devices, but only one device link was present in the /dev/disk/by-path/
directory. This bug has been fixed and this file now contains all symbolic links
as expected. (BZ#784697)

• The udev(7) man page did not document the hex encoding of blacklisted

characters used in the device or symbolic link names. This update adds a
paragraph about character encoding into the SYMLINK section of the udev(7) man
page. (BZ#790321)

• Due to a bug in the binutils linker, the libudev library lost the ExecShield

(GNU_RELRO) section and was not protected by the ExecShield security mechanism.
This update contains libudev with the ExecShield (GNU_RELRO) section included.
(BZ#829188)

• When using multipath devices, the udev utility tried to make a UUID symbolic

link for all the different paths, but only the first one succeeded.
Consequently, udev wrote several "File exists" error messages to the system log.
This update provides a patch to change these messages from being logged as an
error message to being logged as an informational message. (BZ#838451)

• When no medium was inserted in a drive, the cdrom_id utility, which is an udev

helper tool, could not read DV and CD-ROM drive profiles. Consequently, the udev
properties for the device node of the drive may not have contained all
properties describing the capabilities of the drive, which could prevent other
software using the udev database from offering all functionality for the drive.
This bug has been fixed and all udev properties for the drive, which cdrom_id
detects via drive's properties, are now stored for the device as expected.
(BZ#847925)

This update also adds the following enhancement:

• Previously, kernel messages showed device names instead of persistent device

names provided by udev. As a consequence, device names could point to different
devices every boot. This enhancement adds a new feature, which stores the
mapping of device names, such as sda or sdb, and persistent device names to
kernel messages. (BZ#826396)

All users of udev 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 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 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 (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 - 790321 - Document supported hex encoding of blacklisted characters used in device/symlink names
• BZ - 838451 - udev is throwing " rename(/dev/disk/by-id/wwn-xxx.udev-tmp, /dev/disk/by-id/wwn-xxx) failed: No such file or directory" out

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)