Synopsis

anaconda bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

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

Description

The anaconda packages contain portions of the Anaconda installation program that
can be run by the user for reconfiguration and advanced installation options.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• On the custom storage screen, selecting mountpoint and format as EFI System
  Partition caused the following error message to be displayed:
  

You have not created a /boot/efi partition.

This update modifies the way boot devices are looked up. As a result, an
acceptable boot device is located and no error is reported in the described
situation. (BZ#1145812)

• The Anaconda installer set the "boot" flag on the PowerPC Reference Platform
  (PReP) partition when using GUID Partition Table (GPT) disks. Consequently, the
  GUID of the partition changed to the EFI System Partition instead of PReP. Now,
  when using GPT disks, the boot flag is only set on boot partitions that are
  formatted as EFI partitions, and the PReP partition GUID is no longer replaced
  with the ESP GUID. (BZ#1139606)
  
• The LVM physical volume (PV) and volume group (VG) size was sometimes smaller
  than expected. Consequently, Anaconda sometimes tried to create a logical volume
  (LV) that was larger than the available space in the VG. Now, Anaconda verifies
  the amount of available space when creating a LV and if the request is too
  large, only the available space is used. Also, a warning message is included in
  the storage.log file. (BZ#1153376)
  
• Under specific circumstances, if a device lookup by name failed, the function
  failed instead of gracefully returning "no such device". As a consequence,
  Anaconda terminated unexpectedly. With this update, if a device lookup by name
  fails, it is treated as if nothing was found instead of an error. (BZ#1129499)
  
• Previously, Anaconda forced the vesa driver after the Linux framebuffer
  (fbdev). As a consquence, the X server could terminate unexpectedly while
  booting. Now, Anaconda no longer crashes. (BZ#1083586)
  
• Some servers use network cards that take a very long time to initialize since
  the link is reported as being available. Consequently, the download of the
  kickstart file failed. This update re-adds support for the "nicdelay" installer
  boot option by using NetworkManager's feature of checking the gateway with a
  ping before the device is reported as connected. As a result, for servers with
  network cards taking a very long time to initialize, the "nicdelay" boot option
  can be used to prevent kickstart download from failing. (BZ#979163)
  
• When starting the VNC server, Anaconda always passed the "-nevershared"
  option, and Anaconda only allowed one VNC connection. This update removes the
  "-nevershared" option. The user has to use the "-shared" option from their VNC
  client to connect to a shared connection. (BZ#1168024)
  
• The Anaconda installer searched for prepboot disks with a preference for those
  on the same disk as /boot. If a user deleted all partitions including /boot, the
  object would be a NoneType. Consequently, Anaconda terminated unexpectedly. This
  update adds a guard to perform a safe default in the described situation.
  (BZ#1021445)
  

In addition, this update adds the following enhancements:

• On IBM System z, if LDL-formatted Direct Access Storage Devices (DASDs) are
  detected, the Anaconda installer now displays a warning dialog that explains the
  problem and presents a list of the detected Linux Disk Layout (LDL) DASDs with
  an option to format them as Compatible Disk Layout (CDL). Before, although LDL
  DASDs were recognized by the kernel, they were not officially supported in the
  installer. The user can now choose whether or not to format the detected LDL
  DASDs as CDL. (BZ#1144979)
  
• This update adds support for LVM Thin Provisioning as a device type within the
  Anaconda installer and kickstart configuration. (BZ#1083459)
  

Users of anaconda 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 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 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 Server from RHUI 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 995531 - When installing via kickstart with encrypted sha512 rootpw line, Anaconda ignores the password and prompts for root password to be set
• BZ - 1168024 - [Feature Request] Allow simultaneous client connections for VNC
• BZ - 1205286 - Move translations to Zanata
• BZ - 1225469 - KeyError: 'rah-docker-pool'

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6

SRPM
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.src.rpm	SHA-256: 866e6af2babe89562e5dc470596d1e901d9f0203a47a59c34ebfadb03d4b192b
x86_64
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.x86_64.rpm	SHA-256: 589b9847e6d3b3dea421c54239a66fe9821a57e11a47942d0b28d0ecef5e66f6
anaconda-debuginfo-13.21.239-1.el6.x86_64.rpm	SHA-256: d29c2816ae6ab10542217e3ab2ff63359c2e971ddb1fccafa689cf5488c432fa
i386
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.i686.rpm	SHA-256: 2ac3d3e70c5a713fd31e6f04bd506dd9eed5d1371f29027edd9e75fff3e2492c
anaconda-debuginfo-13.21.239-1.el6.i686.rpm	SHA-256: bdbf9c03cdd9402416fdb4d5527c89001826320bd2c561ab361c17e8dee0ceee

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6

SRPM
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.src.rpm	SHA-256: 866e6af2babe89562e5dc470596d1e901d9f0203a47a59c34ebfadb03d4b192b
x86_64
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.x86_64.rpm	SHA-256: 589b9847e6d3b3dea421c54239a66fe9821a57e11a47942d0b28d0ecef5e66f6
anaconda-debuginfo-13.21.239-1.el6.x86_64.rpm	SHA-256: d29c2816ae6ab10542217e3ab2ff63359c2e971ddb1fccafa689cf5488c432fa
i386
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.i686.rpm	SHA-256: 2ac3d3e70c5a713fd31e6f04bd506dd9eed5d1371f29027edd9e75fff3e2492c
anaconda-debuginfo-13.21.239-1.el6.i686.rpm	SHA-256: bdbf9c03cdd9402416fdb4d5527c89001826320bd2c561ab361c17e8dee0ceee

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6

SRPM
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.src.rpm	SHA-256: 866e6af2babe89562e5dc470596d1e901d9f0203a47a59c34ebfadb03d4b192b
x86_64
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.x86_64.rpm	SHA-256: 589b9847e6d3b3dea421c54239a66fe9821a57e11a47942d0b28d0ecef5e66f6
anaconda-debuginfo-13.21.239-1.el6.x86_64.rpm	SHA-256: d29c2816ae6ab10542217e3ab2ff63359c2e971ddb1fccafa689cf5488c432fa
i386
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.i686.rpm	SHA-256: 2ac3d3e70c5a713fd31e6f04bd506dd9eed5d1371f29027edd9e75fff3e2492c
anaconda-debuginfo-13.21.239-1.el6.i686.rpm	SHA-256: bdbf9c03cdd9402416fdb4d5527c89001826320bd2c561ab361c17e8dee0ceee

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6

SRPM
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.src.rpm	SHA-256: 866e6af2babe89562e5dc470596d1e901d9f0203a47a59c34ebfadb03d4b192b
s390x
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.s390x.rpm	SHA-256: bae15f8de92c878e65cd1b36e9f079c2e3a792d072c8b9260bd0f6f02e9609f7
anaconda-debuginfo-13.21.239-1.el6.s390x.rpm	SHA-256: f786b850e7b2826425722c522889faf86b1601c5db729af0db87f82858f8c12c

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6

SRPM
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.src.rpm	SHA-256: 866e6af2babe89562e5dc470596d1e901d9f0203a47a59c34ebfadb03d4b192b
ppc64
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.ppc64.rpm	SHA-256: 4f1b67963e96e60977bc937322992fb7505656f20c275e703220a93052b68289
anaconda-debuginfo-13.21.239-1.el6.ppc64.rpm	SHA-256: 48d7c5640bbd3804a0879fbe1ea39b4023825051d3101956e06641d8a3f0ecc0

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6

SRPM
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.src.rpm	SHA-256: 866e6af2babe89562e5dc470596d1e901d9f0203a47a59c34ebfadb03d4b192b
x86_64
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.x86_64.rpm	SHA-256: 589b9847e6d3b3dea421c54239a66fe9821a57e11a47942d0b28d0ecef5e66f6
anaconda-debuginfo-13.21.239-1.el6.x86_64.rpm	SHA-256: d29c2816ae6ab10542217e3ab2ff63359c2e971ddb1fccafa689cf5488c432fa
i386
anaconda-13.21.239-1.el6.i686.rpm	SHA-256: 2ac3d3e70c5a713fd31e6f04bd506dd9eed5d1371f29027edd9e75fff3e2492c
anaconda-debuginfo-13.21.239-1.el6.i686.rpm	SHA-256: bdbf9c03cdd9402416fdb4d5527c89001826320bd2c561ab361c17e8dee0ceee