RHBA-2013:0461 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

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

Description

The RPM Package Manager (RPM) is a powerful command-line driven package
management system that can install, uninstall, verify, query and update software
packages.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, PGP keys were loaded even if they were not needed. Consequently,

under certain conditions, RPM could not be opened. With this update, the PGP
keys are loaded only when needed and RPM no longer fails to start. (BZ#664696)

• The debuginfo packages contained only one symbolic link per build ID. When

multiple identical binaries existed on the system, only one of them was linked.
With this update, numbered symbolic links are created instead. (BZ#727872)

• Setting the %defattr macro in a package's spec file overrode the directory

permissions given by the %attr macro so that directories were created with
incorrect permissions during installation of the package. This update modifies
the underlying RPM code to prevent the %defattr macro from overriding the %attr
macro. The directories are now created with the correct permissions by RPM.
(BZ#730473)

• The value of the %_host macro was set to "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu" by

default. With this update, the word "unknown" is replaced by "redhat" as is
expected by several parts of the build chain. (BZ#743229)

• Previously, using the "rpmbuild" command caused the [patched].orig file to be

created without any indication, which could confuse the user. This update
modifies the underlying source code so that rpmbuild no longer runs the patch
utility with the "-s" command line option. (BZ#773503)

• When a large package was sent to the standard input (stdin), the rpm2cpio

utility terminated. With this update, the underlying source code has been
modified and rpm2cpio works as expected in this situation. (BZ#802839)

• Previously, using the RPM API for parsing spec files caused macros defined in

a spec file to remain in the RPM macro "environment" after the parsing routine
exited. This behavior affected the parsing results if more than one spec file
was parsed per process lifetime. To resolve the problem, this update backports
the reloadConfig() method from RPM 4.10's Python API. Multiple spec files can
now be safely processed within a single process. (BZ#825147)

• An attempt to import multi-key PGP armors caused the rpm utility to fail,

which could lead to memory corruption or RPM database corruption. With this
update, rpm has been modified to reject multi-key PGP armors. As a result, when
importing multi-key PGP armors, the "unsupported=multikey packets/armors" error
message is returned. (BZ#829621)

• Due to the lack of DWARF 3 and 4 format support, the rpmbuild utility was not

able to produce usable debug packages with newer compilers. This update adds the
required support for the debugedit utility to RPM, and DWARF 3 and 4 formats are
now supported as expected. (BZ#858731)

• Previously, RPM returned the 0 exit code even if the import of a PGP key

failed. The underlying source code has been modified to fix this bug and RPM no
longer returns 0 if key import fails. (BZ#869667)

• This update contains several minor fixes and corrections in the rpm(8) manual

page. (BZ#804049, BZ#845065)

This update adds the following enhancements:

• This enhancement improves RPM to support the dpkg-style tilde character ("~")

in the package's version and the release string to signify lower priority in
version comparison. Note that this enhancement could affect packages that
already have the tilde character in their version or release and the updated
version of RPM do not work with packages that were built with an old RPM
version. (BZ#825087)

• This update adds the description of the --eval, --setperms and --setugid

parameters to the rpm(8) manual page. (BZ#839126, BZ#845063)

All users of rpm 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 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
• 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 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
• 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 - 727872 - find-debuginfo.sh should handle identical binaries via additional symlinks
• BZ - 730473 - %defattr overrides %attr if directory default permission given
• BZ - 743229 - %_host set to x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu by default
• BZ - 773503 - rpmbuild silents patch which may cause confusion
• BZ - 802839 - rpm2cpio fails intermittently when file is piped to stdin
• BZ - 804049 - mention that SHA256 is used for file digest
• BZ - 825087 - RFE: Handle '~' in version/release to lower priority in rpmVersionCompare()
• BZ - 825147 - Please backport the reloadConfig() method from rpm 4.10's Python API
• BZ - 829621 - rpm database corruption after gpg keys import
• BZ - 839126 - rpm(8) manual page missing information about --setperms and --setugid
• BZ - 869667 - when rpm --import fail rpm does not return error

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)