RHBA-2015:0501 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

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

Description

The util-linux package contains a large variety of low-level system utilities
that are necessary for a Linux system to function. Among others, Util-linux
contains the fdisk configuration tool and the login program.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Because the "dmesg -w" command was not properly line-buffered, using "dmesg
• w" with a pipe character ("|") led to a significant delay in the response due

to buffering. This update fixes line-buffering for dmesg -w, and the delays no
longer occur. (BZ#1067354)

• The "lscpu --sysroot" command failed when it was used on a directory located

on an XFS file system. This bug has been fixed and "lscpu --sysroot" now
properly works on XFS file systems. (BZ#1072298)

• The "hwclock --systohc" command could enter an infinite loop on busy or

virtual machines. Consequently, the machine could not complete the shutdown and
reboot processes. A patch with a different mechanism has been applied, and the
"hwclock --systohc" command now completes successfully. (BZ#1072930)

• The "wipefs" command incorrectly erased nested partition tables. On certain

flash drives, this caused subsequent formatting to fail. The behavior of
"wipefs" has been adjusted to ignore nested partition tables, and the command no
longer makes flash drives impossible to format. Note that erasing nested
partition tables with "wipefs" is still possible by using the "--force" option.
(BZ#1077310)

• The "kill" command used by the ntfs service did not check the "errno" value

after calling the strtol() function. As a consequence, using the "service netfs
stop" command could kill every process on the system if there were more than 100
000 processes running at the same time. This bug has been fixed, and using the
"service netfs stop" command only stops ntfs as expected. (BZ#1115442)

• The losetup utility was only able to use data offsets aligned to 512 bytes.

This caused loop mounting to fail with a "Numerical result out of range" error
when a different offset was specified. Now, losetup also accepts offsets that
are not 512-byte aligned, and the described loop mounting failure no longer
happens. (BZ#1127823)

• Previously, "wipefs" incorrectly attempted to use a 512-byte offset when

erasing disks with 4096-byte sector size. As a consequence, the Anaconda
installer became unresponsive when it invoked "wipefs" to erase such a disk. The
erasing offset of "wipefs" has been corrected, and it no longer causes Anaconda
to hang. (BZ#1127891)

• Due to incorrect logic in the upd_parts function, the "partx -u" command

failed to update the specified partition if it was not the first partition. The
upd_parts logic has been adjusted, and "partx -u" can now update all partitions.
(BZ#1149278)

• The "raw" command in some cases did not properly handle the return value of

the stat() function, which caused "raw" to fail with a "Cannot locate raw
device" error. This problem has been fixed. (BZ#1181444)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancements:

• The swapon tool has been enhanced to have a more flexible set of choices when

selecting the discard policy for mounted swap areas. (BZ#1077864)

• This update implements the "lslogins" command, which lists information about

accounts on the system in an easy-to-read format. For more information, see the
lslogins(1) manual page. (BZ#1113043)

• The "--fork" and "--mount-proc" options have been added to the "unshare"

command. These options allow users to create new PID namespaces without using
the clone() system call. For more information, see the unshare(1) manual page.
(BZ#1131522)

Users of util-linux are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which fixes
these bugs and adds these enhancements.

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 7.4 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 - AUS 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 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 - 1067354 - dmesg -w output not line-buffered
• BZ - 1072930 - hwclock --systohc can hang on busy or virtual machine
• BZ - 1077310 - wipefs problem with some live .isos
• BZ - 1080407 - libblkid XFS detection is too fragile
• BZ - 1113043 - backport lslogins(1)
• BZ - 1127823 - losetup does not accept offset
• BZ - 1136111 - "findmnt" returns incomplete output on kernel-3.14
• BZ - 1149278 - partx fails to update a specific partition other than the first
• BZ - 1156352 - blkdiscard progress report and interruptibility of the process

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)