RHBA-2013:1705 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

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

Description

The numad packages provide a daemon for NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Architecture)
systems, monitors NUMA characteristics and manages placement of processes and
memory to minimize memory latency. The packages also provide an interface that
can be used to query the numad daemon for the best manual placement of an
application.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• When all CPUs were busy, the numad daemon was too reluctant to balance

processes across nodes even though it would have resulted in significantly
better application and system performance. With this update, numad is more
aggressive about moving processes even when all CPUs are busy. As a result,
overall system performance has improved significantly. (BZ#987563)

• Previously, it was not possible to set the system's hugepage

"scan_sleep_millisecs" parameter. As a consequence, NUMA performance was damaged
when process memory was migrated across nodes. The underlying code has been
changed to accept the new "-H" option to specify "scan_sleep_millisecs", thus
fixing the bug. The user can now set the value to fine-tune the numad's
performance. (BZ#987559)

This update also adds the following enhancement:

• A configuration file for the logrotate tool has been added to be fully

supported by Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. (BZ#913546)

All users of numad 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/site/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 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 Extension 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension 6 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 913546 - Logrotate config missing
• BZ - 987559 - Allow NUMAD to change hugepage scan_sleep_millisecs parameter
• BZ - 987563 - numad too reluctant to balance loads when all CPUs busy

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)