RHBA-2014:1546 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated s390utils packages that fix several bugs and add two enhancements are
now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The s390utils packages contain a set of user space utilities that should be used
together with the zSeries (s390) Linux kernel and device drivers.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Due to incorrect order of initialization, Anaconda failed to detect the

presence
of the zSeries Linux fibre-channel adapter (zFCP) disks. To fix this bug, the
cio_settle kernel interface has been implemented, which waits for the zFCP
devices to become online. Now, Anaconda detects the zFCp devices as intended.
(BZ#1009897)

• For each possible CPU, the zfcpdump kernel consumed all memory for the per-CPU

data structures. Because only 32 MB are available for zfcpdump, zfcpdump could
run out of memory. This update adds a new kernel parameter "possible_cpus=1",
and the zfcpdump system no longer runs out of memory. (BZ#1016181)

• Previously, when the "fdasd -c" command was called with a configuration file

that contained only one parameter for a partition, the fdasd daemon terminated
unexpectedly with a segmentation fault during configuration file parsing. This
update adds a new function to parse configuration file lines, and fdasd no
longer crashes in the described situation. (BZ#1020364)

• Previously, removing a device that was currently offline resulted in an error.

The znetconf protocol has been fixed to handle removal of an offline ccwgroup
devices correctly, and the "znetconf -r" command now removes a currently offline
device as intended. (BZ#1094376)

• The output of the lsqeth command depends on the presence of a file named "?".

Due to a bug in the grep command regular expression (regex), the system qeth
devices failed to be detected when a file named "?" was present in the current
working directory. To fix this bug, the regex argument of grep has been put in
single quotes, and the system qeth devices are now detected
successfully.(BZ#1107779)

• Due to incomplete dependencies specified in the s390utils packages, various

command-line tools did not work when invoked or gathered incomplete data. This
update adds the missing dependencies to the tools, which now work as expected.
(BZ#1109898)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancements:

• With this update, various information gathered by the dbginfo.sh utility has

been expanded, along with the relevant manual page. (BZ#1017854, BZ#1031143,
BZ#1032061, BZ#1088328)

• This update introduces a new interface that enables Linux applications such

as Data Stage to access and process read-only data in physical sequential data
sets owned by IBM System z without interfering with System z. By avoiding FTP
or NFS transfer of data from System z, the turnaround time for batch processing
is significantly reduced. (BZ#1053832)

Users of s390utils 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/site/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6 s390x
• 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 (for IBM z Systems) 6 s390x

Fixes

• BZ - 1009897 - Adding zFCP device fails on s390x guest with one CPU

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)