RHBA-2013:1719 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated iotop package that fixes several bugs is now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The iotop package provides a program with a UI similar to the "top" utility. The
program watches input-output (I/O) usage information output by the Linux kernel
and displays a table of current I/O usage by processes on the system.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, the iotop utility terminated unexpectedly when it was run by a

non-root user. This was because a recently-applied patch in CVE-2011-2494 made
I/O statistics from the taskstats kernel subsystem accessible only to root
users, and iotop did not anticipate that its "taskstats" call could fail when
run by a non-root user. This update adds permission checks to iotop, and when
the user does not have the necessary permissions, iotop exits with an
explanation that root privileges are now required. (BZ#746240, BZ#908149)

• Previously, the iotop utility did not handle platform strings correctly.

Consequently, the iotop command could not show the I/O scheduling class and its
priority ("PRIO") column on 64-bit PowerPC systems properly. With this update,
the bug has been fixed so that the iotop command now shows the "PRIO" column on
64-bit PowerPC systems as expected. (BZ#826875)

• When an invalid locale was set, the iotop utility failed to start with the

following traceback error:

locale.Error: unsupported locale setting

With this update, the underlying source code has been modified. As a result,
when an invalid locale is set, the default locale is used instead and a warning
about this change is returned. (BZ#849559)

Users of iotop are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which fixes 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 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 - 849559 - iotop fails to start with wrong locale

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)