RHBA-2016:2862 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

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

Description

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux
operating system.

These updated kernel packages include numerous bug fixes and enhancements, some of which you can see below. Space precludes documenting all of these bug fixes and enhancements in this advisory. To see the complete list of bug fixes and enhancements, users are directed to the related Knowledge Article:
https://access.redhat.com/articles/2780461

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, using a floating IP address inside a network namespace in some cases failed with the following error message: "bind: Cannot assign requested address". With this update, the kernel respects setting of the net.ipv4.ip_nonlocal_bind parameter to 1 in namespaces, and the floating IP address is now assigned as expected. (BZ#1388591)
• In the OpenStack Platform (OSP) environment with multiple guests on the same network, "no route to host" errors occurred when attempting to ping all the guests from a single virtual machine. With this update, the deffering policy of the Open vSwitch data path has been fixed, and the described error no longer occurs. (BZ#1388592)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux in some cases failed to boot on platforms due to High Performance Event Timer (HPET) clock access contention. On systems with a Time Stamp Counter (TSC) clock and an HPET, the HPET is used to calibrate the TSC. On some large CPU count systems, this in some cases led to access contention on HPET, which caused a system lockup followed by Nonmaskable Interrupt (NMI) softlockup watchdog. This update reduces HPET counter read contention, thus fixing this bug. As a result, Red Hat Enterprise Linux now boots as expected on affected platforms. (BZ#1388597)
• Previously, when two NFS shares with different security settings were mounted, the I/O operations to the kerberos-authenticated mount caused the RPC_CRED_KEY_EXPIRE_SOON parameter to be set, but the parameter was not unset when performing the I/O operations on the sec=sys mount. Consequently, writes to both NFS shares had the same parameters, regardless of their security settings. This update fixes this problem by moving the NO_CRKEY_TIMEOUT parameter to the auth->au_flags field. As a result, NFS shares with different security settings are now handled as expected. (BZ#1388604)
• Due to an incorrect value in the virtual time base (VTB) register, the kernel of an IBM POWER8 KVM guest in some cases incorrectly detected a soft lockup condition, logged a call trace, and reported the following error: "NMI watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#x stuck for XXs". This update applies a set of patches to fix these problems. As a result, the soft lockups and error messages no longer occur in the described situation. (BZ#1388997)
• Previously, a packet loss occurred on transmit when Red Hat Enterprise Linux had complex network configuration and was running as a guest on a Xen hypervisor. An upstream patch has been backported that fix the xen-netfront driver to avoid packet loss when ethernet header crosses page boundary. As a result, the packet loss no longer occurs in the described scenario. (BZ#1390257)
• After migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3, the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) boot failed due to a bug that prevented the kernel from booting through the PE/COFF image entry, which is used by the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) ipxe boot loader. This update fixes the alignment parameter on the call to the efi_low_alloc() function, and the kernel now boots as expected. (BZ#1392044)

All users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs and add these enhancements. The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.

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 Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 7 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 Power, little endian 7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.6 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.5 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.4 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.3 ppc64le
• 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 Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems) 7 s390x
• 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 for Power LE - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server for Power LE - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.6 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server for Power LE - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.4 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server for Power LE - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.3 ppc64le
• 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 Server - Extended Life Cycle Support for IBM Power, big endian 7 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support for IBM Power, little endian 7 ppc64le

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

• https://access.redhat.com/articles/2780461