RHBA-2018:3341 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated gnome-session, gdm, mutter, and xorg-x11-server packages that fix several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Description

The gnome-session package manages the GNOME desktop session. It starts up other core components of GNOME and handles logouts and session saving.

Mutter is a compositing window manager that displays and manages desktop through OpenGL. It combines the window-management logic inherited from the Metacity window manager with a display engine that uses the Clutter toolkit.

X.Org is an open-source implementation of the X Window System. It provides the basic low-level functionality that full-fledged graphical user interfaces are designed upon.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, in certain situations, the GNOME display manager failed to identify when a login screen was not already running. As a consequence, when switching the user, the program displayed a blank screen instead of a login screen. This update ensures the GNOME display manager always shows the login screen when switching user. (BZ#1636519)
• Previously, if a user shut down a machine while the user was simultaneously logging into GNOME, the gnome-session program terminated unexpectedly. As a consequence, the system logged a crash error message during the shutdown. This update improves the error handling of gnome-session. As a result, the gnome-session program no longer crashes during machine shutdown. (BZ#1636536)
• Due to a bug in the output setup code of the generic mode setting drive, the X11 server sometimes terminated a session. As a consequence, the switched-to session terminated when the user switched the session. The problem has been fixed, and as a result, user switching works as expected. (BZ#1636878)
• Previously, certain graphics drivers failed to release the ownership of the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) device when the server exited. This caused a race condition with other X servers running other sessions. As a consequence, when a user switched the session, exiting the other user's session resulted in a blank screen and the system being unusable. With this update, the server releases the DRM device explicitly when exiting. As a result, user switching works as expected. (BZ#1637651)
• Previously, the Mutter window manager triggered additional modifiers when assigning keystrokes with modifiers to pad buttons. As a consequence, Mutter did not run the expected actions triggered by the keystroke. This update fixes the bug, and Mutter now triggers the configured keystrokes correctly. (BZ#1637822)

Users of gnome-session, gdm, mutter, and xorg-x11-server are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs.

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 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.6 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 7.6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 7 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian 7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.6 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM 64 7 aarch64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power 9 7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server for Power LE - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.6 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM System z (Structure A) 7 s390x

Fixes

• BZ - 1636519 - Switching users in GNOME session is starting new X servers for the user, and a user logout is making it unusable. [rhel-7.6.z]
• BZ - 1636536 - [abrt] [faf] gnome-session: raise(): /usr/libexec/gnome-session-check-accelerated-gles-helper killed by 5 [rhel-7.6.z]
• BZ - 1636878 - User session is terminated after User Switch [rhel-7.6.z]
• BZ - 1637651 - Switching users in GNOME session is starting new X servers for the user, and a user logout is making it unusable. [rhel-7.6.z]
• BZ - 1637822 - Mutter Causing Odd/Bad Button Mapping Behavior on Wacom Tablets [rhel-7.6.z]

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)