RHBA-2013:1730 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated libnl packages that fix several bugs are now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The libnl packages contain a convenience library to simplify using the Linux
kernel's Netlink sockets interface for network manipulation.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• When a domain was started using the libvirt client libraries and utilities, a

memory leak was triggered from the libnl library because libnl continued to use
memory that was no longer in use. With this update, memory leaks in libnl are
fixed, and libnl releases memory after it completes its usage. (BZ#682240)

• Prior to this update, libnl's error handling made generous use of the

strerror() function. Nevertheless, the strerror() function was not threadsafe,
and it was possible for multiple threads in an application to call libnl. With
this update, all the occurrences of strerror() are replaced with a call to the
strerror_r() function that puts the message into a thread-local static buffer.
(BZ#689559)

• When the max_vfs parameter of the igb module, which allocates the maximum

number of Virtual Functions, was set to any value greater than 50,50 on a KVM
(Kernel-based Virtual Machine) host, the guest failed to start with the
following error messages:

error : virNetDevParseVfConfig:1484 : internal error missing
IFLA_VF_INFO in netlink response

error : virFileReadAll:457 : Failed to open file
'/var/run/libvirt/qemu/eth0_vf0': No such file or directory
error : virFileReadAll:457 : Failed to open file
'/var/run/libvirt/qemu/eth1_vf0': No such file or directory

This update increases the default receive buffer size to allow receiving of
Netlink messages that exceed the size of a memory page. Thus, guests are able to
start on the KVM host, and error messages no longer occur in the described
scenario. (BZ#953339)

Users of libnl 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 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 - 682240 - multiple memory leaks in libnl
• BZ - 689559 - libnl's error handling uses strerror, which is not threadsafe

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)