RHBA-2014:1468 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated sysstat packages that fix several bugs and add two enhancements are now
available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The sysstat packages provide a set of utilities which enable system monitoring
of disks, network, and other I/O activity.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• When the sysstat utility appended new statistics to the "sa" daily data files,

it did not check whether those files existed from the previous month. Under
certain circumstances, for example when a month was short, sysstat appended new
statistics to the old files. With this update, the utility has been modified to
check whether the old files exist and remove them in case they does. As a
result, new statistics are not appended to the old "sa" files. (BZ#921612)

• Previously, the "sa2" script did not support the xz compression. As a

consequence, old daily data files were not deleted. The support for the xz
compression has been added to the script and the data is now deleted as
expected. (BZ#1088998)

• The dynamic ticks kernel feature can currently make the /proc/stat file

unreliable because a CPU cannot provide reliable statistics if it is stopped.
Even though the kernel is trying to provide the best guess, the statistics are
not always accurate. As a consequence, some sysstat commands could show
overflowed values. This update detects values going backwards in sysstat, and
sysstat commands no longer show overflowed values.(BZ#1124180)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancements:

• With this update, the user is able to set a compress method in the

/etc/sysconfig/sysstat configuration file using the ZIP variable. This
enhancement provides an easier configuration of the data file compression
method. (BZ#1102603)

• The sysstat(5) manual page now provides documentation of the

/etc/sysconfig/sysstat configuration file as well as detailed description of the
HISTORY configuration variable. (BZ#1110851)

Users of sysstat are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix
these bugs and add these enhancements.

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/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 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 6 x86_64
• 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 - 921612 - SAR log file corruption in odd Feb 28th edge-case
• BZ - 1088998 - When XZ compression is used /var/log/sa/sa* files kept longer than given HISTORY parameter
• BZ - 1102603 - RFE - Setting compress method in /etc/sysconfig/sysstat file

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)