RHBA-2015:0342 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated lorax packages that fix several bugs and add various enhancements are
now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Description

Lorax is a tool for creating the anaconda install images. It also includes
livemedia-creator which is used to create bootable livemedia, including live
isos and disk images. It can use libvirtd for the install, or Anaconda's image
install feature.

Bug fixes:

• Previously, the plymouth dracut module was excluded from the IBM Power Systems

initrd and upgrade.img images because the initrd daemon was exceeding the 32MiB
limit. As a consequence, upgrades on the aforementioned platform did not work
correctly. This update allows the plymouth dracut module to be added to
upgrades.img, which has no size limit like initrd, and upgrades on IBM Power
Systems now work correctly. (BZ#1069671)

• Booting from DVD on IBM System z requires kernel arguments that were

previously missing, which caused that the IBM System z was not able to boot from
DVD. A new rpm file has been added with DVD specific commands in it to fix this
bug, and IBM System z now boots from DVD successfully. (BZ#1132050)

• Prior to this update, the petitboot bootloader could not parse certain aspects

of grub2.cfg files. As a consequence, petitboot did not boot DVD media. The
32-bit section has been deleted from grub2.cfg, and petitboot can now boot the
DVD media successfully. (BZ#1169878)

• Previously, the 64-bit ARM architecture lorax template did not include the

boot.iso creation section, which caused that the boot.iso image was not created.
This update adds the mkisofs command to the template, and the boot.iso is now
created by lorax as expected. (BZ#1174475)

• When running the lorax utility in non-English locales, the yum action string

could cause a traceback error. Consequently, running lorax on different locales
failed. This update makes sure that the yum action string is UTF-8 encoded
before printing it, and lorax can now be used in other locales. (BZ#1072362)

• As BOOTAARCH64.efi is not a File Allocation Table (FAT) compliant file name,

the installation could not boot on all UEFI implementations. To fix this bug,
the name has been changed to BOOTAA64.efi, which is compatible with all UEFI
implementations, thus fixing the bug. (BZ#1080113)

Enhancements:

• With this update, the image-minimizer tool is available to be used with the

livemedia-creator utility and other projects using the kickstart installation
method. (BZ#1082642)

• IBM Power Systems support has been added to the livemedia-creator utility, so

that live media, such as ISO or disk images, can be built on this platform.
(BZ#1102318)

• The od, hexdump, and hexedit utilities have been added to lorax as well as all

the binaries from sg3_utils. In addition, rescue mode is more useful for system
examination and repair as the xfsdump and xfsrestore utilities are now also
available. (BZ#1109785)

• With this update, the kdump anaconda addon is included in the installation

media to make the kdump utility available for use and configuration in anaconda.
(BZ#1116335)

• The Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) kernel drivers and

impitools have now been included in the installation media to support the
ability of anaconda to log the installation state using IPMI. (BZ#1126009)

• Support for the livemedia-creator utility has been added to help in creating

Docker images. The support includes the addition of "--make-fsimage" option to
the virt-install utility and the "--make-tar" option, which creates a xz
compressed tarfiles of the root file system. (BZ#1144140)

• To be consistent with other architectures and to be able to boot initrd images

larger than 32MiB, grub2 is now used on IBM Power Systems installation media
instead of yaboot. (BZ#1131199)

• Support for the little-endian variant of IBM Power Systems has been added, so

the lorax utility can now create installation media for this platform.
(BZ#1136490)

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

For details on how to apply this update, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 7 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.7 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.3 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 7 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.7 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.5 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.4 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.3 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.3 x86_64

Fixes

• BZ - 1082642 - Backport image-minimizer introduction
• BZ - 1102318 - livecd creation for Power64
• BZ - 1131199 - [RFE] Switch install media to use grub2 instead of yaboot on ppc64
• BZ - 1136490 - Add ppc64le arch support
• BZ - 1144140 - Docker Enablement for livemedia-creator
• BZ - 1147518 - RFE: Help for every spoke
• BZ - 1157777 - Please port template variable patches to 7.1, so Atomic can use 7.1's lorax

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)