RHEA-2009:1377 - Product Enhancement Advisory

Topic

Updated device-mapper-multipath packages that fix several bugs and add
various enhancements are now available.

Description

The device-mapper-multipath packages provide tools to manage multipath
devices using the device-mapper multipath kernel module.

This update applies the following bug fixes:

• Occasionally multipathd was ignoring a device's hardware type when

configuring it after a path was added.

• Multiple documentation errors were fixed.
• Multipathd would occasionally hang or crash while shutting down.
• Multipath would always return a failure exit code when removing a device

with multipath -f/-F.

• Multipathd wouldn't free its resources when it failed to execute a callout.
• Multipathd would always return a success exit code for interactive

commands, even if the command failed or was invalid.

• The mpath_prio_alua pritority callout was failing on some setups because

a buffer was too small.

• Multipathd was holding mount points in the /etc directory busy, even

after they were unmounted.

• Multipath and multipathd were racing to create the mulitpath devices for

newly added block devices. This was causing device creation to take a long
time on some systems, and could even cause devices to have incorrect
configurations.

This update adds the following enhancements:

• Default configurations were added for the Compellent Storage Center and

the IBM DS3200, DS3300, DS4700, and DS5000.

• It is now possible to set the verbosity level for the multipath and

multipathd commands in /etc/multipath.conf.

• The TUR path checker retries on more transient errors, so that multipathd

will not fail a path due to a transient error.

• There is a new priority callout mpath_prio_intel to support the Intel

Modular Server.

• There is now a multipath.conf.5 man page that explains the

/etc/multipath.conf configuration file.

All users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which resolve
these issues and add these enhancements.

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/docs/DOC-11259

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 IBM z Systems 5 s390x
• 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 - 244967 - Frequent path failures during I/O on DM multipath devices
• BZ - 452897 - [RHEL 5.1] multipath -ll output shows mix of failover and multibus
• BZ - 457776 - Error in multipath.conf.defaults causes reboot hangs if used in an actual config file
• BZ - 462776 - Patch to add support for Compellent SANs to hwtable.c for dm-multipath
• BZ - 470896 - Possible bug in the DM-MP documentation.
• BZ - 471854 - [NetApp 5.4 feat] Add an option to specify multipathd verbosity through /etc/multipath.conf
• BZ - 472451 - [Emulex 5.4 bug] path checker does not retry TUR in case of transient error
• BZ - 474451 - [Intel 5.4 FEAT] Request to Support Intel Modular Server in scsi_dh
• BZ - 477023 - multipath always exits with EXIT_FAIL with -f/-F commands
• BZ - 480048 - multipathd doesn't close pipe fds on a failed fork
• BZ - 481227 - multipath.conf: polling_interval is misleading in the docs
• BZ - 481633 - Kernel Panics Observered During Multipath Storage Failover/Failback
• BZ - 484711 - multipathd cmd should return non zero exit if cmd string is bogus
• BZ - 490633 - multipath pp_alua: retry RTPG command if buffer too small
• BZ - 496682 - multipathd holds mount-points busy even after unmounting
• BZ - 506715 - [NetApp 5.4 bug] Extended delay in releasing underlying devices by multipathd after flushing multipath maps

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)