RHEA-2009:0218 - Product Enhancement Advisory

Topic

An enhanced kbd package that adds a statically-linked loadkeys binary is now
available.

Description

The kbd package contains tools for managing console behavior on a Linux
system, including the keyboard, the screen fonts, the virtual terminals and
font files.

This updated kbd package adds support for installation to encrypted block
devices using LUKS, the Linux Unified Key Setup. Doing so requires that
initial initrd ramdisks need to support the decryption of encrypted root
and swap devices, as well as the ability to obtain pass phrases via
keyboard input. This in turn requires that the system keymap be loaded
prior to the user entering their pass phrase. Becuase the mkinitrd utility,
which is the program that creates the initial ramdisks, does not support
dynamically-linked binaries, a static loadkeys binary is required to enable
LUKS support. This updated kbd package provides this static loadkeys binary.

All users requiring LUKS encryption and/or a statically-linked loadkeys
binary should upgrade to this updated package, which adds this enhancement.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_58_10188

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 451672 - [RFE] include static loadkeys

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)