RHBA-2014:1198 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

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

Description

Perl is a high-level programming language that is commonly used for system
administration utilities and web programming.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• When a Perl script was installing a custom signal handler and then received a

signal while exiting, the code tried to access the interpreter structure which
had already been torn down. As a consequence, Perl terminated with a
segmentation fault. With this update, the code resets the signal handler to
SIG_DFL before calling the perl_destruct() function, so it does not request
thread-specific interpreter structure. Now, Perl scripts no longer crash in the
described situation. (BZ#991854)

• An incorrect implementation of the NDBM_File module caused using the exists()

function on dbmopen()-bound variables to fail with the following warning:

AnyDBM_File doesn't define an EXISTS method

The database preference list has been modified to move the NDBM_File module to a
less significant place. Now, Perl code which uses dbmopen() defaults to the
Berkeley DB database type and no longer fails in the described situation.
(BZ#1018721)

• The Perl Locale::Maketext localization framework did not properly translate

the backslash (\) characters. As a consequence, Perl rendered the backslashes as
double (\\). With this update, Perl no longer escapes the backslashes in literal
output strings, and they appear correctly. (BZ#1029016)

• Previously, it was not possible to convert dates beyond year 2038 using the

timegm() function on 64-bit systems. After this update, Perl detects 64-bit
systems correctly and timegm() successfully converts calendar time into seconds
since the Unix epoch. Note that using timegm() with dates beyond year 2038 is
still not possible on a 32-bit system, because the time_t type is not large
enough. (BZ#1057047)

Users of perl 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 - 1029016 - Locale::Maketext interpolating escaped backslashes improperly
• BZ - 1057047 - perl Time::Local does not work with dates after 2038 or below 1902

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)