RHEA-2005:188 - Product Enhancement Advisory

Topic

Updated device-mapper packages that include various enhancements are now
available.

Description

The device-mapper package provides a library required by logical volume
management utilities such as LVM2 and dmraid.

These packages include the following enhancements:

• In addition to its column-based output, 'dmsetup -c info',

colon-separated output is now available, 'dmsetup -c --noheadings info'.
To replicate multipath devmap_name functionality add '-o name'.

• The inodes created in the /dev/mapper directory when devices are

activated are now accessible by the 'disk' group used by some
backup tools.

• The control inode /dev/mapper/control, necessary for communication with

the kernel device-mapper driver, is now checked against the running kernel
transparently. If it has the wrong dynamic device number (major:minor) the
libdevmapper library attempts to correct it transparently. Previously, it
was only checked during boot time.

• Devices can now be referenced by major and minor numbers as an

alternative to the device name or uuid. For example, to display
information about the device-mapper device that has major number 253 and
minor number 1 use 'dmsetup -j 253 -m 1 info'.

• If the internal buffer libdevmapper used for data transfer is filled, a

warning message is now issued.

• A new library function, dm_task_no_open_count(), has been added that

now instructs the kernel not to retrieve the 'open_count' field. This
avoids a particular performance issue affecting the multipath daemon.

• The internal version number used in the libdevmapper soname has been

incremented from 1.00 to 1.01, in order to reflect this extension to the
interface. An old version of the library without this extension is still
supplied and any programs using the old library picks up the new version
when it is next recompiled. No code changes are necessary.

All users of device-mapper should upgrade to these updated packages, which
include these enhancements.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied. Use Red Hat
Network to download and update your packages. To launch the Red Hat
Update Agent, use the following command:

up2date

For information on how to install packages manually, refer to the
following Web page for the System Administration or Customization
guide specific to your system:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 4 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 141050 - Permission of logical volumes do not allow backup.

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)