RHBA-2015:0550 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

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

Description

The tuned packages contain a daemon that tunes system settings dynamically. It does so by monitoring the usage of several system components periodically.

The tuned packages have been upgraded to upstream version 2.4.1, which provides a number of bug fixes and enhancements over the previous version. Among others:

• The tuned GUI with a profile editor has been added.
• New plug-ins have been included, namely the bootloader, scheduler, and SELinux plug-ins.

(BZ#1093883)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• The tuned daemon contained no mechanism to support conditional assignments. For example, if the read-ahead value was initially preset to a higher value than was recommend in the throughput-performance profile, the read-ahead value could be lowered by tuned, which, as a consequence, could significantly affect performance. This update introduces conditional assignments through the so-called assignment modifiers. Now, the user can specify in the tuned profile a configuration option that will prevent the tuning value from changing if the new value would lower (or increase) the current value. (BZ#1096917)
• The tuned daemon automatically detected its initial profile in the RPM post install step. This could fail in cases where the file system was prepared on a different machine than where the code would run. For example, a bare metal profile could be preset while the image was later run on a virtual machine. This could, as a consequence, lead to a performance drop. With this update, the auto-detection has been moved to tuned, and the correct profile is auto-detected upon the first tuned start. (BZ#1144067)
• Verbose debug mode in the tuned D-Bus subsystem was enabled by default. As a consequence, the D-Bus error messages could confuse regular users. With this update, verbose debug mode in the D-Bus subsystem has been disabled by default and it can be enabled by running the "tuned" and "tuned-adm" commands with the "--debug" option. Moreover, the error messages have been improved to be clearer to users. (BZ#1068699)
• The /etc/tuned/active_profile file contains the name of the preset (active) profile. Previously, the file was not excluded from verification. Consequently, the RPM verification using the "rpm -V tuned" command failed when the file differed from the initially installed version. With this update, /etc/tuned/active_profile has been marked as "noverify" in the RPM package spec file, and verification no longer fails in this scenario. (BZ#1104126)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancements:

• This update adds the scheduler plug-in, which applies scheduler and priority tuning to regular expressions matching threads. (BZ#1100826)
• This update adds the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) cpufreq driver, a conservative CPU governor for the balanced profile, which utilizes the ACPI Processor Performance States. As a result, a lower latency but a slightly higher power consumption (under heavy load) has been observed on machines using the balanced profile with the ACPI cpufreq driver. (BZ#1124125)
• The bootloader plug-in has been added, and the tuned daemon is now able to add parameters to the kernel (dracut) boot command line. (BZ#1044111)
• Previously, the user was able to specify the read-ahead value only in kilobytes. With this update, the read-ahead value can also be specified using the number of sectors (the size of a sector is 512 bytes). (BZ#1127127)
• Atomic support has been implemented in the tuned daemon. Two profiles have been added: atomic-host for bare metal and atomic-guest for virtual machines. The profile is selected automatically and can be reported by using the "tuned-adm recommend" command. (BZ#1091977, BZ#1091979)

Users of tuned 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.

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 for SAP Applications for x86_64 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 for SAP Applications (from RHUI) 7 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 SAP Applications for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Applications for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Applications for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Applications for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Applications for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Applications for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.2 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
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Applications for x86_64 - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Applications for x86_64 - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Applications for x86_64 - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Applications for x86_64 - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Applications for x86_64 - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.2 x86_64

Fixes

• BZ - 1044111 - [GSS 7.0][RFE] tuned should edit kernel command line
• BZ - 1091977 - Create tuned profile for RHEL Atomic variant (physical)
• BZ - 1091979 - Create tuned profile for RHEL Atomic variant (virtual)
• BZ - 1093883 - rebase tuned to latest upstream
• BZ - 1100826 - Create new plugin for process scheduling/priority tuning
• BZ - 1104126 - tuned package verification (rpm -V tuned) fails right after installation
• BZ - 1144067 - Move tuned recommendation out of rpm postinstall and into init system
• BZ - 1149162 - tuned-adm list spits out python backtrace

CVEs

(none)

References

• http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#normal