RHBA-2013:1297 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated rpm packages that fix several bugs are now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5.

Description

The RPM Package Manager (RPM) is a command-line driven package management system
capable of installing, uninstalling, verifying, querying, and updating software
packages.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, the package size was recorded incorrectly for packages built on

big-endian platforms (PowerPC or IBM S/390), which would show up in Anaconda as
packages having zero bytes. With this update, package sizes are correctly
recorded on all platforms, but older packages built with the flawed versions of
RPM still show incorrect sizes. (BZ#648516)

• Previously, when multiple packages failed to update correctly, the failed

packages could get removed from the system entirely. With this update, the rpm
and yum utilities can handle multiple failures during updates without unexpected
package removals. (BZ#671194)

• Previously, attempts to install packages with a large number of files

(approximately 80,000 or more), could have caused RPM to terminate unexpectedly
with a segmentation fault due to the RPM header exceeding its upper limit. This
update increases the header limit so RPM is able to handle larger package
installs, and crashes no longer occur in the described scenario. (BZ#706935)

• A new size check recently added to rpmbuild caused rpmbuild to display an

error message and exit if the contents of the RPM file exceeded 2GB in size.
This size check was performed prior to the elimination of duplicate files,
however, in some cases it was possible for rpmbuild to exit with a ">2GB"
warning even if the contents of the RPM file were actually smaller than 2GB.
With this update, the size check for rpmbuild is expanded, and it is possible to
build RPM files larger than 2GB. (BZ#716853)

Users of rpm are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these
bugs.

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/site/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 - 706935 - RPM sigfaults when installing a package with huge (80k) number of files.
• BZ - 716853 - rpmbuild 2GB check chokes on big files (around 1GB)

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)