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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

5.9 Release Notes

Release Notes for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9

Edition 9

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Abstract

Red Hat Enterprise Linux minor releases are an aggregation of individual enhancement, security and bug fix errata. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 Release Notes document the major changes made to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system and its accompanying applications for this minor release. Detailed notes on all changes in this minor release are available in the Technical Notes.
Preface
1. Hardware Support
2. Kernel
3. Device Drivers
3.1. Storage Drivers
3.2. Network Drivers
3.3. Miscellaneous drivers
4. File System and Storage Management
5. Subscription Management
6. Security and Authentication
7. Compiler and Tools
8. Clustering
9. Virtualization
10. General Updates
A. Revision History

Preface

The Release Notes provide high level coverage of the improvements and additions that have been implemented in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9. For detailed documentation on all changes to Red Hat Enterprise Linux for the 5.9 update, refer to the Technical Notes.

Chapter 1. Hardware Support

mstflint Support for ConnectX-3 devices
The mstflint package, which provides Mellanox firmware burning and diagnostics tools, now includes support for Mellanox ConnectX-3 devices.

smartmontools Support for HP Smart Array controllers and MegaRAID
The smartmontools package, which provides tools for monitoring SMART-capable hard drives, has been upgraded to add support for HP Smart Array controllers. This update also adds improved MegaRAID support.

ipmitool delloem Commands Upgraded
The Dell-specific IPMI extension, which adds the delloem subcommand to the ipmitool utility, has been updated to include the following enhancements:

  • A new vFlash command, which allows users to display information about extended SD cards.

  • A new setled command, which allows users to display the backplane LED status.

  • Improved error descriptions.

  • Added support for new hardware.

  • Updated documentation of the ipmitool delloem commands in the ipmitool manual page.

Updated configuration for NetApp LUNs
The NetApp LUN built-in configuration now uses the tur path checker by default. Also the following hardware table parameters have been updated:

  • flush_on_last_del has been enabled,

  • dev_loss_tmo has been set to 600,

  • fast_io_fail_tmo has been set to 5,

  • and pg_init_retries has been set to 50.

Chapter 2. Kernel

System Call Tracepoints
The following tracepoints for system call events have been added:

  • sys_enter

  • sys_exit

The system call enter and exit tracepoints are only supported on architectures that have the HAVE_SYSCALL_TRACEPOINTS configuration option enabled.

IPv6 UDP Hardware Checksum
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 adds hardware checksum support for UDP running over IPv6.

Per-process Resource Limits
The prlimit64() system call has been added to allow users to dynamically change the limits of a running process via the /proc/<PID>/limits file (this file is now writable).

VLAN Support Added to pktgen
VLAN support has been added to the pktgen module. The pktgen module is now able to produce 802.1Q tagged frames.

Restricting Access to /proc/<PID>/
The hidepid= and gid= mount options have been added to procfs to allow restricting of access to /proc/<PID>/ directories.

DSCP Field Mangling
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, the netfilter module now supports mangling of the DSCP field.

Chapter 3. Device Drivers

3.1. Storage Drivers
3.2. Network Drivers
3.3. Miscellaneous drivers

3.1. Storage Drivers

  • The mptfusion driver has been updated to version 3.04.20, which adds the following device ID: SAS1068_820XELP.

  • The qla2xxx driver for QLogic Fibre-Channel HBAs has been updated to version 8.04.00.05.05.09-k.

  • The qla4xxx driver has been updated to version 5.02.04.05.05.09-d0.

  • The lpfc driver for Emulex Fibre-Channel Host Bus Adapters has been updated to version 8.2.0.128.3p.

  • The be2iscsi driver for ServerEngines BladeEngine 2 Open iSCSI devices has been updated to version 4.2.162.0r.

  • The bnx2i driver for Broadcom NetXtreme II iSCSI has been updated to version 2.7.2.2.

  • The Brocade BFA FC SCSI driver (bfa driver) is no longer considered a Technology Preview. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, the BFA driver is fully supported. Additionally, the Brocade bfa FC SCSI driver was updated to version 3.0.23.0 which includes, among others, the following enhancements:

    • Support for issuing a Loop Initialization Protocol (LIP) from a Fibre-Channel host.

    • Support for the Extended Link Services (ELS) and Common Transport (CT) fibre-channel passthrough commands.

    • Added IOCTL interface.

  • The bfa firmware was updated to version 3.0.23.0.

  • The mpt2sas driver was updated to version 13.101.00.00, which adds NUMA I/O support, Fast Load support, and support for customer specific branding.

  • The megaraid_sas driver has been updated to version 00.00.06.15-rh, which adds support for Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 9, LSI MegaRAID SAS 9360/9380 12GB/s controllers, and multiple MSI-X vector and multiple reply queue.

  • The iscsiuio driver for the Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5706/5708/5709 series PCI/PCI-X Gigabit Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC) and for the Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM57710/57711/57712/57800/57810/57840 series PCI-E 10 Gigabit Ethernet Network Interface Card has been updated to version 0.7.4.3, which includes, among other enhancements, VLAN and routing support.

3.2. Network Drivers

  • Support for the ib_qib device driver has been added to the kernel shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9. The ib_qib driver is an updated version (and a replacement) of QLogic's ib_ipath InfiniBand Host Channel Adapter (HCA) device driver and provides support for the latest PCI Express QLE-series of SDR, DDR, and QDR InfiniBand adapters.

  • The Solarflare driver (sfc) has been updated to version 3.1, which adds support for the SFE4003 board and TXC43128 PHY support.

  • The bnx2x firmware has been updated to version 7.2.51 to include support for the Broadcom 57710/57711/57712 chips.

  • The bnx2x driver has been updated to version 1.72.51-0+ to include support for the Broadcom 578xx family of chips, support for iSCSI offload, support for additional PHYs (including EEE), OEM-specific features, and to address a number of bugs.

  • The bnx2 driver has been updated to version 2.2.1+.

  • The cnic driver and firmware have been updated to add FCoE parity error recovery, statistics support, and FCoE capabilities advertisement.

  • The cxgb3 driver for the Chelsio T3 family of network devices has been updated to the latest upstream version.

  • The cxgb4 driver for Chelsio Terminator4 10G Unified Wire Network Controllers has been updated to the latest upstream version, which adds support for the Chelsio T480-CR and T440-LP-CR adapters.

  • The cxgb4 firmware has been updated to upstream version 1.4.23.0.

  • The iw_cxgb3 driver has been updated to the latest upstream version.

  • The iw_cxgb4 driver has been updated to the latest upstream version.

  • The cxgb4i, cxgb3i, and libcxgbi drivers have been updated.

  • The netxen_nic driver has been updated to version 4.0.79, which includes Minidump support.

  • The tg3 driver for Broadcom Tigon3 Ethernet devices has been updated to version 3.123.

  • The ixgbe driver for Intel 10 Gigabit PCI Express network devices has been updated to the latest upstream version, which adds the following enhancement:

    • Support for the Intel Ethernet 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller.

    • Support for the Quad Port 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapter based on the Intel Ethernet 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller.

    • Added module parameter (allow_unsupported_sfp) to allow untested and unsafe enhanced small form-factor pluggable (SFP+) modules.

  • The ixgbevf driver has been updated to the latest upstream version to include the latest hardware support, enhancements, and bug fixes. Additionally, support to recognize 100MB link speed has been added.

  • The igbvf driver has been updated to upstream version 2.0.1-k-1.

  • The igb driver for Intel Gigabit Ethernet Adapters has been updated to the latest upstream version, which adds support for Intel Ethernet Network Connection I210 and Intel Ethernet Network Connection I211.

  • The e1000e driver for Intel 82563/6/7, 82571/2/3/4/7/8/9, and 82583 PCI-E family of controllers has been updated to the latest upstream version, which includes support for Intel Ethernet Network Connection I217-LM.

  • The bna driver is no longer considered a Technology Preview. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, the BNA driver is fully supported. Additionally, the BNA driver and firmware have been updated to version 3.0.23.0.

  • The qlge driver has been updated to version 1.00.00.30.

  • The qlcnic driver for HP NC-Series QLogic 10 Gigabit Server Adapters has been updated to version 5.0.29.

  • The be2net driver for ServerEngines BladeEngine2 10Gbps network devices has been updated to version 4.2.116r.

  • The enic driver for Cisco 10G Ethernet devices has been updated to version 2.1.1.35+.

3.3. Miscellaneous drivers

  • The mlx4 ib and net drivers have been updated to the latest upstream version. Additionally, support for EEH error recovery has been added to the mlx4 driver.

  • The mlx4_en driver has been updated to version 1.5.3.

  • The mlx4_core driver has been updated to version 1.0-ofed1.5.4.

  • The ALSA HDA audio driver has been updated to enable or improve support for new chipsets and HDA audio codecs.

  • The IPMI driver has been updated to the latest upstream version.

Chapter 4. File System and Storage Management

FIPS Mode Support for dmraid
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 adds support for using FIPS mode with dmraid root devices. A dmraid device is now activated before the FIPS checksum is checked.

Chapter 5. Subscription Management

Migration from RHN Classic to Subscription Asset Manager
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, users are able to migrate from RHN Classic to Red Hat Subscription Asset Manager (SAM). SAM acts as a proxy for handling subscription information and software updates on client machines. For more information on the migration process, refer to the Subscription Management Guide.

Registering Against External Servers
Support for the selection of a remote server during the registration of a system is now supported in Subscription Manager. The Subscription Manager user interface provides an option to choose a URL of a server to register against, together with a port and a prefix, during the registration process. Additionally, when registering on the command line, the --serverurl can be used to specify the server to register against. For more information about this feature, refer to the Subscription Management Guide.

Firstboot System Registration
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, during firstboot system registration, registering to Red Hat Subscription Management is now the default option.

Subscription Manager gpgcheck Behavior
Subscription Manager now disables gpgcheck for any repositories it manages which have an empty gpgkey. To re-enable the repository, upload the GPG keys, and ensure that the correct URL is added to your custom content definition.

Server-side Deletes
System profiles are now unregistered when they are deleted from the Customer Portal so that they no longer check in with certificate-based RHN.

Preferred Service Levels
Subscription manager now allows users to associate a machine with a preferred Service Level which impacts the auto-subscription and healing logic. For more information on service levels, refer to the Subscription Management Guide.

Limiting updates to a specific minor release
Subscription manager now allows a user to select a specific release (for example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8), which will lock a machine to that release. Prior to this update, there was no way to limit package updates in the event newer packages became available as part of a later minor release (for example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9).

Usability Changes in the GUI
The Subscription Manager graphical user interface has been enhanced with various changes based on customer feedback.

Chapter 6. Security and Authentication

Additional Password Checks for pam_cracklib
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 adds backported support for the maxclassrepeat and gecoscheck options to the pam_cracklib module. These options are used to check the properties of a new password entered by a user and reject it if it does not meet the specified limits. The maxclassrepeat option limits the maximum number of consecutive characters of the same character class (lower case, upper case, digits, and other characters). The gecoscheck option checks whether the newly-entered password contains words (space-separated strings) from the GECOS field in the /etc/passwd entry of the user that is entering the password. For more information, refer to the pam_cracklib(8) man page.

IPv6 Support for M2Crypto
The m2crypto package, which provides a library that allows programs to call OpenSSL functions from Python scripts, has been updated to modify the HTTPS implementation to work with both IPv4 and IPv6. In addition, the M2Crypto.SSL.Connection object can now be instructed to create IPv6 sockets.

Treating Matches Authoritatively in Look Ups of sudoers Entries
The sudo utility is able to consult the /etc/nsswitch.conf file for sudoers entries and look them up in files or in LDAP. Previously, when a match was found in the first database of sudoers entries, the look up operation still continued in other databases (including files). In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, an option was added to the /etc/nsswitch.conf file that allows users to specify a database after which a match of a sudoers entry is sufficient. This eliminates the need to query any other databases; thus, improving the performance of sudoers entry look ups in large environments. This behavior is not enabled by default and must be configured by adding the [SUCCESS=return] string after a selected database. When a match is found in a database that directly precedes this string, no other databases are queried.

Chapter 7. Compiler and Tools

SystemTap
SystemTap is a tracing and probing tool that allows users to study and monitor the activities of the operating system (particularly, the kernel) in fine detail. It provides information similar to the output of tools like netstat, ps, top, and iostat; however, SystemTap is designed to provide more filtering and analysis options for collected information.

SystemTap in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 has been updated to version 1.8, providing the following features and enhancements:

  • The SystemTap runtime (staprun) now accepts a -T timeout option to allow less frequent wake-ups to poll for low-throughput output from scripts.

  • When invoked by SystemTap, the kbuild $PATH environment is now sanitized.

  • printf formats are now capable of using the %#c control parameter to escape non-printing characters.

  • Pretty-printed bit fields now use integers; characters now use escaped formatting for printing.

  • The SystemTap compile-server and client now support IPv6 networks.

  • SystemTap modules are now smaller and compile faster. The modules' debuginfo is now suppressed by default.

  • The @var syntax is now an alternative language syntax for accessing DWARF variables in uprobe and kprobe handlers (process, kernel, module).

  • The SystemTap script translator driver (stap) now provides the following resource limit options: 
    --rlimit-as=NUM
--rlimit-cpu=NUM
--rlimit-nproc=NUM
--rlimit-stack=NUM
--rlimit-fsize=NUM

  • The SystemTap compile-server now supports multiple concurrent connections.

  • The following tapset function is deprecated in the 1.8 release and will be removed in the 1.9 release: 
    daddr_to_string()

  • SystemTap now mangles local variables to avoid collisions with C headers included by tapsets.

  • In embedded-C functions, the newly-defined macro STAP_ARG_* should now be used instead of the THIS->* notation.

Chapter 8. Clustering

Support for IBM iPDU Fence Device
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 adds support for the IBM iPDU fence device. For more information on the parameters of this fence device, refer to the Cluster Administration guide.

DLM Hash Table Size Tuning
The Distributed Lock Manager (DLM) now allows tuning of DLM hash table sizes from the /etc/sysconfig/cman file. The following parameters can be set in the /etc/sysconfig/cman file: 
DLM_LKBTBL_SIZE=<size_of_table>
DLM_RSBTBL_SIZE=<size_of_table>
DLM_DIRTBL_SIZE=<size_of_table>

which, in turn, modifies the values in the following files respectively: 
/sys/kernel/config/dlm/cluster/lkbtbl_size
/sys/kernel/config/dlm/cluster/rsbtbl_size
/sys/kernel/config/dlm/cluster/dirtbl_size

Chapter 9. Virtualization

Inclusion of, and Guest Installation Support for, Microsoft Hyper-V Drivers
Integrated Red Hat Enterprise Linux guest installation, and Hyper-V para-virtualized device support in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 on Microsoft Hyper-V allows users to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 as a guest on top of Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors. The following Hyper-V drivers and a clock source have been added to the kernel shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9:

  • a network driver (hv_netvsc)

  • a storage driver (hv_storvsc)

  • an HID-compliant mouse driver (hid_hyperv)

  • a VMbus driver (hv_vmbus)

  • a util driver (hv_util)

  • a clock source (i386: hyperv_clocksource, AMD64/Intel 64: HYPER-V timer)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 also includes a guest Hyper-V Key-Value Pair (KVP) daemon (hypervkvpd) that passes basic information, such as the guest IP, the FQDN, OS name, and OS release number, to the host through VMbus.

Chapter 10. General Updates

Updated samba3x Packages
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 includes rebased samba3x packages that introduce several bug fixes and enhancements, the most important of which is added support for the SMB2 protocol. SMB2 support can be enabled with the following parameter in the [global] section of the /etc/samba/smb.conf file: 
max protocol = SMB2

Warning

The updated samba3x packages also change the way ID mapping is configured. Users are advised to modify their existing Samba configuration files. For more information, refer to the Release Notes for Samba 3.6.0.

OpenJDK 7
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 includes full support for OpenJDK 7 as an alternative to OpenJDK 6. The java-1.7.0-openjdk packages provide the OpenJDK 7 Java Runtime Environment and the OpenJDK 7 Java Software Development Kit. OpenJDK 7 includes extensions to support dynamically-typed languages that can run on the JVM, class loader enhancements, support for Unicode 6.0, and updated I/O and networking APIs. OpenJDK 7 is also available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

New Java 7 Packages
The java-1.7.0-ibm and java-1.7.0-oracle packages are now available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9.

New libitm Package
The libitm contains the GNU Transactional Memory Library, which provides transaction support for access to the memory of a process to enable synchronization of access to a shared memory by several threads.

Rsyslog Updated to Major Version 5
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 includes a new rsyslog5 package which upgrades rsyslog to major version 5.

Important

The rsyslog5 package is a substitute of the existing rsyslog package which provides major version 3 of rsyslog in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. In order to install the rsyslog5 package, the rsyslog package must first be uninstalled.

The upgrade of rsyslog to major version 5 introduces various enhancements and fixes multiple bugs. The following are the most important changes:

  • The $HUPisRestart directive has been removed and is no longer supported. Restart-type HUP processing is therefore no longer available. Now, when the SIGHUP signal is received, outputs (log files in most cases) are only re-opened to support log rotation.

  • The format of the spool files (for example, disk-assisted queues) has changed. In order to switch to the new format, drain the spool files, for example, by shutting down rsyslogd. Then, proceed with the Rsyslog upgrade, and start rsyslogd again. Once upgraded, the new format is automatically used.

  • When the rsyslogd daemon was running in the debug mode (using the -d option), it ran in the foreground. This has been fixed and the daemon is now forked and runs in the background, as is expected. Note that the -n option may be used to prevent rsyslogd from being automatically started in the background.

For more information on changes introduced in this version of Rsyslog, refer to http://www.rsyslog.com/doc/v5compatibility.html.

Revision History

Revision History
Revision 1-0.2Tue Dec 11 2012Martin Prpič
Release of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 Release Notes
Revision 1-0Thu Sep 20 2012Martin Prpič
Release of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 Beta Release Notes