Release Announcement for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8
Abstract
Red Hat is pleased to announce the availability of the 4.8 release
(kernel-2.6.9-89.EL) for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 family of
products including:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 4 for x86, AMD64/Intel® 64, Itanium Processor Family, System p and System z
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES 4 for x86, AMD64/Intel® 64, and Itanium Processor Family
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 4 for x86, AMD64/Intel® 64, and Itanium Processor Family
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 for x86 and AMD64/Intel® 64
rpm now correctly fails on archives larger than 2GB
1.3. Storage Enhancements
updated device-mapper to 1.02.28
updated device-mapper-multipath dm_hp_sw handler for HP Storage Arrays
updated device-mapper-multipath mpath_prio_ontap for improved error handling on NetApp
1.4. Networking
Added router solicitation support
Enforced sg requires tx csum in ethtool
OFED updated to v1.4
1.5. Platform Enhancements
Added virtio drivers to support KVM hypervisor environments
Added new AMD HDMI audio support to ATI HDMI
Updated Alsa hda driver update from upstream 2008-07-22
Added support for affected_cpus for cpufreq
Remove i8042 polling timer
Fixed and properly detect pmtimer on asus a8v motherboard
Backport usbfs_mutex in usbfs
1.6. Kernel Improvements
General Features
Added "wake_balance" tunable parameter to /proc/sys/kernel/ to allow the scheduler to run the thread on any available CPU rather than scheduling it on the optimal CPU.
Added "max_writeback_pages" tunable parameter to /proc/sys/vm/ to allow the max number of modified pages kupdate writes to disk per iteration per run
Added "swap_token_timeout" tunable parameter to /proc/sys/vm/ to provide a valid hold time of swap out protection token.
Added diskdump support to sata_svw driver
Systems with more than 64GB physical RAM booting with the 32-bit kernel will be limited to 64 GB of RAM
Improved reliability of Autofs
Added support for 'rdattr_error' in NFSv4 readdir request
Fixed various short packet handling for NFSv4 readdir and sunrpc issues
Updated CIFS to latest upstream
Architecture Specific Support
x86/x86_64
Added initialization vendor info in boot_cpu_data
PPC64
Added support for digi pci-e gen1 4-8 port async io adapter on i/p6 servers
Updated ehea driver from version 0078-04 to 0078-08
Updated logging of checksum errors in ehea driver
s390x
Added support for N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) to zFCP
New Driver support or Driver Updates
Network Driver Updates
Updated forcedeth driver to latest upstream version 0.61
Fixed various e1000 issues with e1000_clean_tx_irq call from e1000_netpoll and restart receive unit on esb2 hardware
Updated e1000e driver to upstream version 0.3.3.3-k6
Updated igb to upstream version 1.2.45-k2
Updated tg3 to upstream version 3.96
Updated ixgbe to upstream version 1.3.18-k4
Updated bnx2 to upstream version 1.7.9
Updated bnx2x to upstream version 1.45.23
Added netxen 3031 initial and msi-x support and fw bugfixes enhancement
Improved netxen 2031 tx locking, interrupt handling, ethtool support
Added realtek support for 8111cp and 8111bp with Intel Tylersburg chipset
Storage Driver Updates
Fixed various SCSI layer issues such as
avoid an unnecessary error message
handle async iscsi scsi sense events
harden against possible data corrupter
sd driver calls revalidate_disk wrapper
Fixed dm-raid bug with reduce io delay in dm-raid1
Removed quirk aac_quirk_scsi_32 for some aaccraid controllers
Updated fcp driver with backport of fcp point to point connection support
Updated lpfc to version 8.0.16.46
Updated megaraid_sas to version 4.01-rh1
Updated mptfusion driver to version 3.12.29.00rh
Updated qla2xxx firmware to 4.06.01 for 4GB/s and 8GB/s adapters
Updated qla2xxx driver to version 8.02.09.00.04.08-d
Updated cciss driver to version 2.6.20.RH2
Fixed sata_nv in libsata to disable adma by default
1.7. Laptop and Desktop Enhancements
Better support for Graphire CTE-440 and Graphire4
1.8. Developer Enhancements
GCC4 packages have been updated to sync with the version released in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3
2. Technology Previews
Technology Preview features are included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux to provide the features with wide exposure with the goal of supporting these features in a future release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Technology Preview features are not supported under Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8 subscription services and may not be functionally complete. Red Hat welcomes customer feedback and suggestions for Technology Previews. Advisories will be provided for high-severity security issues in Technology Preview features.
There were no new or enhanced Technology Preview features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8.
3. Additional Information
Additional information is provided below on Lifecycle, Accessing the Software, Documentation, Defect Reporting, and Mailing Lists.
As previously announced, the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8 will mark the end of Production 1 phase of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4. No major hardware enablement will be expected during the next phase of the lifecycle. A minor hardware enablement release will be available at the end of Production 2 phase.
Customers should note that their subscriptions provide access to all currently supported versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
5. Accessing the Software
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8 is available to existing Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscribers via RHN. The channels will automatically appear in your account. Installable binary and source ISO images are available via Red Hat Network at:
The Release Notes are also on your Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 installed system in the redhat-release package. However, for the most upto date version of the release notes, please refer to the online version.
7. Defect Reporting
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8 customers using the Technical Account Manager (TAM) Service should raise all issues and questions with this release using your current Issue Tracker account. If you're interested in the Technical Account Manager Service visit:
While defects can be reported using Red Hat's Bugzilla, please be advised that Bugzilla is not a support tool and thus does not offer any Service Level Agreement (SLA) for issues reported through that channel. Therefore, while sufficient for defects found during testing a Beta product, customers should *NOT* rely on Bugzilla when reporting production issues.
8. Mailing Lists
Red Hat has a public mailing list for communication during this and all future Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 programs.
rhelv4-announce redhat com
A low-volume, moderated, announcement-only mailing list. Red Hat will use this list to communicate one-way information about RHEL 4 programs, such as notifications when releases are available or solicitations for feedback. Subscribe at: