Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 5.3 - RELEASE MANIFEST Instruction Manual

1
Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 5.3
Release Notes
Release Notes for all architectures.
Ryan Lerch
Copyright © 2008 Red Hat, Inc.. This material may only be distributed subject to the
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version of the OPL is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).
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Abstract
This document details the Release Notes for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3.
1. Release Notes Updates .......................................................................................................... 2
1.1. Feature Updates .......................................................................................................... 2
1.2. Resolved Issues ........................................................................................................... 6
1.3. Driver Updates ............................................................................................................. 6
1.4. Virtualization ................................................................................................................ 7
1.5. Known Issues .............................................................................................................. 7
1.6. Technology Previews ................................................................................................... 9
2. Installation-Related Notes ...................................................................................................... 10
2.1. All Architectures ......................................................................................................... 10
2.2. PowerPC Architectures ............................................................................................... 12
2.3. s390x Architectures .................................................................................................... 12
2.4. ia64 Architecture ........................................................................................................ 13
3. Feature Updates ................................................................................................................... 13
4. Driver Updates ...................................................................................................................... 20
4.1. All Architectures ......................................................................................................... 20
5. Kernel-Related Notes ............................................................................................................ 24

Release Notes
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5.1. All Architectures ......................................................................................................... 24
5.2. x86 Architectures ........................................................................................................ 25
5.3. PowerPC Architectures ............................................................................................... 26
5.4. x86_64 Architectures .................................................................................................. 26
5.5. s390x Architectures .................................................................................................... 26
5.6. ia64 Architecture ........................................................................................................ 27
6. Virtualization ......................................................................................................................... 27
6.1. Feature Updates ........................................................................................................ 27
6.2. Resolved Issues ......................................................................................................... 28
6.3. Known Issues ............................................................................................................ 30
7. Technology Previews ............................................................................................................ 32
8. Resolved Issues ................................................................................................................... 36
8.1. All Architectures ......................................................................................................... 36
8.2. x86_64 Architectures .................................................................................................. 39
8.3. s390x Architectures .................................................................................................... 39
8.4. PowerPC Architectures ............................................................................................... 39
9. Known Issues ....................................................................................................................... 39
9.1. All Architectures ......................................................................................................... 39
9.2. x86 Architectures ........................................................................................................ 47
9.3. x86_64 Architectures .................................................................................................. 48
9.4. PowerPC Architectures ............................................................................................... 48
9.5. s390x Architectures .................................................................................................... 49
9.6. ia64 Architecture ........................................................................................................ 50
10. Added Packages ................................................................................................................ 50
11. Dropped Packages ............................................................................................................. 68
12. Updated Packages ............................................................................................................. 70
13. Configuration Changes From Previous Release ................................................................. 210
A. Revision History 239
1. Release Notes Updates
This section contains information about Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 that did not make it into the
Release Notes included in the distribution.
1.1. Feature Updates
audit Update
The audit packages contain user-space utilities for storing and searching the audit records
generated by the audit subsystem in the Linux 2.6 kernel.
These updated packages upgrade the auditd daemon and its utilities to the newer upstream
version 1.7.7, which provides the following enhancements over the previous version:
• the auditctl program, which is used to control the behavior of the audit subsystem, now supports
multiple keys in the audit rules.
• a new utility, ausyscall, which is used to cross-reference syscall name and number information,
is now provided in these updated packages.
• the aureport program has been enhanced to provide reports about keys it sees in audit events.
• event log parsing for the ausearch and aureport programs has been improved.

Feature Updates
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• a sample STIG rules file, named "stig.rules", is newly provided in these updated packages. This
file contains the auditctl rules which are loaded whenever the audit daemon is started by init
scripts.
In addition to the listed enhancements, these updated audit packages also include a new feature
to allow a server to aggregate the logs of remote systems. The following instructions can be
followed to enable this feature:
1. The audispd-plugins package should be installed on all clients (but need not be installed
on the server), and the parameters for "remote_server" and "port" should be set in the /etc/
audisp/audisp-remote.conf configuration file.
2. On the server, which aggregates the logs, the "tcp_listen_port" parameter in the /etc/audit/
auditd.conf file must be set to the same port number as the clients.
3. Because the auditd daemon is protected by SELinux, semanage (the SELinux policy
management tool) must also have the same port listed in its database. If the server and client
machines had all been configured to use port 1000, for example, then running this command
would accomplish this:
semanage port -a -t audit_port_t -p tcp 1000
4. The final step in configuring remote log aggregation is to edit the /etc/hosts.allow configuration
file to inform tcp_wrappers which machines or subnets the auditd daemon should allow
connections from.
wpa_supplicant re-base
wpa_supplicant has been re-based to the latest upstream stable version 0.5.10 and include
backported fixes for a number of issues that may affect users of wireless drivers that depend on
the kernel's mac80211 wireless stack. Specific fixes and enhancements include:
• Support for a D-Bus control interface has been added. D-Bus is a popular lightweight Inter-
Process Communication mechanism, and the addition of this control interface to wpa_supplicant
allows applications (like NetworkManager) to more reliably control the supplicant.
• Cisco Aironet 340/350 wireless cards were not able to successfully connect to 802.1x-enabled
wireless networks, often used in security sensitive organizations. During the connection process
at the 4-Way WPA handshake stage, sending encryption keys to the driver would clear the
wireless card firmware's authentication state. With this update, the supplicant uses an alternate
method of supplying encryption keys to the kernel driver, allowing authentication state to be
preserved in the Aironet firmware and 802.1x connections to succeed.
• Kernel drivers utilizing the new mac80211 wireless stack were sometimes unable to connect
to wireless networks, either failing to find the requested network, or prematurely ending
communication with the wireless access point during the connection process. Some drivers
were prone to reporting multiple disconnection events during the association process, confusing
the supplicant and causing long timeouts. The supplicant also did not sufficiently instruct the
driver to disconnect when switching access points. This update fixes these issues and, in
conjunction with kernel driver updates, allow more wireless hardware to successfully connect to
wireless networks.

Release Notes
4
NetworkManager re-base
NetworkManager has been updated to version 0.7.0. This update provides the following fixes and
enhancements:
• NetworkManager would not display a LEAP password, even when the user selected the "show
password" option. This has been fixed through a rebase to NetworkManager 0.7.
• During the beta phase, a version of NetworkManager was unable to automatically start network
interfaces for which "ONBOOT=no" was present in the ifcfg file. NetworkManager now ignores
this value unless "NM_RESPECT_ONBOOT=yes" is also present.
• a NetworkManager plug-in was named for its upstream repository. This could cause end-users
to mistake the plug-in for an un-supported addition to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This plug-in has
been renamed to "ifcfg-rh".
• with this update, support has been added to NetworkManager for wired 802.1x authentication.
However, after creating an 802.1x-enabled wired connection in the NetworkManager connection
editor, it may be necessary to log out, then log back in before the connection can be used from
the NetworkManager applet menu.
• NetworkManager attempted to set a hostname, but only after X had already done so. The user
could not then open new windows because the authority files had been set by X with a different
hostname. NetworkManager no longer sets hostnames.
• an update for NetworkManager that was available in the beta phase would change the run level
enablement of the package during installation, and thus prevent NetworkManager from starting.
NetworkManager no longer changes run level enablements during installation.
• on a system with more than one network adapter, network keys saved by the user while
connecting with one adapter would not be available when the user attempted to connect with
the other adapter. NetworkManager can now retrieve and use network keys saved for a different
adapter on the same network.
• previously, NetworkManager would not always prompt the user for a new network key if the
protocol or key of a wireless network changed. Although NetworkManager would wait for a new
key, it would not always open a dialog box and allow the user to provide one. NetworkManager
will now open a dialog box when needed.
• several bug fixes and enhancements for NetworkManager were available upstream.
NetworkManager has been rebased to version 0.7 to incorporate these improvements, including
mobile broadband functionality, Phase2 WPA support, and static IP functionality.
• NetworkManager would would cause a segmentation fault when resuming a session. This was
caused by the HAL dropping privileges before connecting to D-Bus, meaning that the HAL could
not send signals to NetworkManager. NetworkManager now explicitly permits signals from the
HAL.
• sometimes, X would freeze if the NetworkManager menu and a keyring manager window were
open at the same time. This updated package includes a patch from upstream that prevents this
behavior.
• if NetworkManager requires a network key from the user, it will open a pop-up window.
However, the applet previously could not steal focus from metacity and would remain in the

Feature Updates
5
background. The window was therefore not obvious to the user. The applet now opens in the
foreground, alerting the user to take action.
• when resuming, NetworkManager could sometimes re-establish a wireless connection, but not a
route. A fix for this problem from upstream has been included in this update.
• NetworkManager did not previously support Cisco Airo Wi-Fi cards, as these devices did not
respond to NetworkManager's attempts to detect them. NetworkManager can now detect and
use these cards.
• the NetworkManager applet would wake up and redraw its icon once per second, even when
NetworkManager was not active. Now, the applet will not wake up unless NetworkManager is
running.
• NetworkManager 0.7 connects faster than libnotify can provide a notification bubble. When
this happens, the bubble will appear at the top left corner of the screen, rather than under the
taskbar. NetworkManager notification bubbles are now delayed for a few seconds, allowing
libnotify to react.
dbus-glib re-base
The dbus-glib integration library has been re-based to version 0.73.8 This update provides
support to updated versions of NetworkManager and also implements the following bugfix and
enhancements
• cleanup of the DBusGProxy objects treated pending remote method calls incorrectly and may
have resulted in freeing invalid memory. Consequently, processes using DBusGProxy objects
may have crashed when the DBusGProxy object was freed. With this update dbus-glib correctly
handles the destruction of DBusGProxy objects, resolving this issue.
• two new function calls, dbus_g_proxy_call_with_timeout and
dbus_g_proxy_begin_call_with_timeout, have been added to dbus-glib providing the
ability to specify a timeout when making a request to a remote service.
• dbus-binding-tool now ignores namespaced Extensible Markup Language (XML) nodes when
processing introspection definition files.
sudo Re-base
sudo has been re-based to upstream version 1.6.9. This version of sudo now supports LDAP, and
allows sub-tree searching instead of just base searching (i.e. tree-level only) for sudo rights. This
allows administrators to categorize sudo rights in a tree, making user privileges easier to manage.
Note
the env_reset sudoers option from newer sudo will reset the PATH environment
variable. This is different from the behaviour in sudo-1.9.8. To keep the old behaviour
simply add PATH variable into env_keep in sudoers file.
LVM-based Cluster mirroring
With this update, the ability to create LVM mirrors in a cluster environment (i.e. while using CLVM)
is now available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux It provides for simultaneous access from multiple
cluster machines, like when using a cluster-aware file system. This solution is compatible with
existing single-machine mirrors. When switching a mirrored logical volume between single-
machine and cluster-aware, no resynchronization is necessary.

Release Notes
6
1.2. Resolved Issues
•system-config-network requires the fonts provided with xorg-x11-fonts-Type1 in order
to display. However, this fonts package was not previously set as a dependency for system-
config-network and it was therefore possible (for example, in the case of a minimal installation)
for system-config-network to be present on a system and yet unable to function because these
fonts were missing. This update sets xorg-x11-fonts-Type1 as a dependency for system-
config-network to ensure that these fonts will be available and that system-config-network
will display correctly.
• In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2, a 64-bit version of httpd was included in addition to the existing
32-bit httpd in the PowerPC architecture. If a user installed both versions, an httpd conflict would
occur, preventing httpd from functioning properly.
To resolve this issue, the 64-bit version of httpd has been removed from this release. Any systems
with the previous 64-bit version of httpd installed should remove the package before upgrade.
1.3. Driver Updates
• the SCSI device handler infrastructure (scsi_dh) has been updated, providing added support for
LSI RDAC SCSI based storage devices.
• the tg3 driver for Broadcom Tigon3 ethernet devices has been updated to version 3.93. This applies
several upstream changes for new hardware. However, the 5785 hardware is not fully supported.
This device may be detected by the driver, but lack of PHY support may cause these chips to not
function correctly and may require the user disable any on-board 5785 cards in the system BIOS.
•scsi-target-utils now features iSCSI Extensions for RDMA (iSER), which is based on
the Linux Target (tgt) framework. iSER is included in this release as a Technology Preview, and
provides capabilities for both single and multiple portals on different subnets. Note, however, that
there are known bugs with using multiple portals on the same subnet.
To set up an iSER target component, install the scsi-target-utils and libibverbs-
devel packages. The corresponding library package for your system's Infiniband hardware is also
required. For example, in HCAs that use the cxgb3 driver the libcxgb3 package is needed, and
for HCAs using the mthca driver the libmthca package is need.
• The MPT Fusion driver has been updated to version 3.04.06, providing the following bugfixes and
enhancements:
• Previously, the MPT Fusion driver always allocated I/O resources, even if they were not required,
which may have caused issues in low resource environments. With this update, the driver now
uses the pci_enable_device_mem and pci_enable_device functions to differentiate the resource
allocations.
• Previously, the kernel would panic when the mptsas and mptcl modules were loaded in parallel.
With this update, this issue has been resolved.
• Previously, system power state changes (such as hibernation and standby) were not functioning
correctly with 106XE controllers. With this update, the driver has been modified to free and
allocate resources in power management entry points.

Virtualization
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1.4. Virtualization
• A bug in the IDE/ATA driver stack that could prevent a system using kernel-xen from booting into
the kdump environment is now fixed. In previous releases, this occurred if the system encountered
a kernel panic while an IDE device was performing I/O and the IDE device was being controlled by a
device driver other than libata.
• A softlockup may have occurred when creating a guest with a large amount of memory.
Consequently, a call trace of the error was displayed on both the dom0 and the other guest. In this
update, this issue has been resolved.
• On systems with large amounts of memory (ie 256GB or more), setting up the dom0 could exhaust
the hypervisor memory heap. To work around this, the xenheap and dom0_size command line
arguments had to be set to valid values for the system. In this update, the hypervisor has been
updated to automatically set these values to a default of 32GB, which resolves this issue.
• Due to technical problems with passing TX checksum offload information between paravirtual
domains, the use of TX checksum offload in conjunction with NAT for traffic originating from another
domain is not supported. TX checksum offload can be used together with NAT as long as the NAT
rule is applied in the domain where the traffic originates.
Note that this also applies to fully virtualised domains using paravirtual network drivers. Fully
virtualised domains using fully virtualised drivers are not affected as they do not support TX
checksum offload at all.
1.5. Known Issues
• Previous versions of the 5.3 Release Notes stated that the CD-ROM/DVD-ROM unit on Dell
PowerEdge R905 servers does not work with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. This note was included by
error, and does not apply to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3.
•kdump now serializes drive creation registration with the rest of the kdump process. Consequently,
kdump may hang waiting for IDE drives to be initialized. In these cases, it is recommended that IDE
disks not be used with kdump.
• Improvements have been made to the 'nv' driver, enhancing suspend and resume support on some
systems equipped with nVidia GeForce 8000 and 9000 series devices. Due to technical limitations,
this will not enable suspend/resume on all hardware.
•pirut sorts some package lists using the textual representation of a package, which is inconsistent
with the textual representation method used in yum. As such, some package lists (e.g. Optional
Packages list) in pirut may not display names in alphabetical order.
• The Hypervisor outputs messages regarding attempts by any guest to write to an MSR. Such
messages contain the statement Domain attempted WRMSR. These messages can be safely
ignored; furthermore, they are rate limited and should pose no performance risk.
• When upgrading from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Workstation to 5 Server, OpenOffice will no
longer work correctly with SELinux. This is because the Red Hat Enterprise Linux version of
OpenOffice is built using an incorrect library. As a result, SELinux will prevent OpenOffice from
accessing any shared libraries, causing OpenOffice to fail.
To work around this, update the SELinux context to allow OpenOffice to access shared libraries. To
do so, run the following commands:

Release Notes
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semanage fcontext -a -t textrel_shlib_t '/usr/lib/ooo-1.1(/.*)?'
semanage fcontext -a -t textrel_shlib_t '/usr/lib64/ooo-1.1(/.*)?'
restorecon -Rv /usr/lib/ooo-1.19
restorecon -Rv /usr/lib64/ooo-1.19
Alternatively, you can also upgrade your OpenOffice to a correct version compatible with SELinux
in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. You can do this by subscribing to the "Productivity App" child channel
in Red Hat Network and running the following command:
yum install openoffice-
{base,calc,draw,emailmerge,graphicfilter,headless,impress,javafilter,math,pyuno,writer,xsltfilter}
• If jumbo frames are enabled on your system, a kernel panic will occur if you attempt to unload the
bnx2 module.
• Red Hat advises that you avoid removing a block device from a guest while the device is in use.
Doing so causes Xend to lose domain information for the guest.
• Accessing the right-click menu of the NetworkManager GNOME applet may cause the GNOME
Keyring Unlock dialog to appear. When this occurs, no XII applications can receive keyboard or
mouse input.
To recover from this, switch to a virtual terminal using Ctrl+Alt+F1. Log in as the affected user
(or root) and run killall -9 nm-applet. Then, switch back to X11 using Ctrl+Alt+F7. Your
system should be able to receive keyboard and mouse input, although Red Hat recommends that
you logout and login again to allow the system to fully recover.
• On Altix systems with an ATI FireMV graphics adapter, the GUI console may not display on one
of the VGA connectors. To workaround this issue, switch to using the other VGA connector on the
dongle.
• It has been determined that 1024 byte objects in kernel slab may be lost when a call to pipe() fails.
The problem occurs because pipe() allocates pipe files, and then tries to get free file descriptors for
them. If the process is out of file descriptors, pipe() fails, but it does not clean up properly. A fix for
this problem is planned for a forthcoming 5.3 kernel update.
To workaround this issue, ensure that the process calling do_pipe has adequate file descriptors
allocated.
This issue has been observed with multipathd in particular. To avoid the problem with multipathd,
calculate the number of file descriptors (FDs) required using the formula: "FDs = Number of Paths
+ 32". If the result is greater than the default value of 1024, then the max_fds value in the defaults
section of multipath.conf should be set to the previously calculated value. For example, if there are
255 LUNs with 8 paths each, the line to be added to the defaults section of multipath.conf would be:
max_fds 2072
• The libcmpiutil-devel package depends on tog-pegasus-devel, which for the Red Hat
Enterprise Linux Desktop product is only available from the Workstation option. Therefore, any

Technology Previews
9
attempt to install the libcmpiutil-devel package on a system that does not have a Subscription
including the Workstation option or is not subscribed to the Workstation channel on the Red Hat
Network, will fail with an unresolved dependency error.
• It is possible in rare circumstances, for makedumpfile to produce erroneous results but not have
them reported. This is due to the fact that makedumpfile processes its output data through a
pipeline consisting of several stages. If makedumpfile fails, the other stages will still succeed,
effectively masking the failure. Should a vmcore appear corrupt, and makedumpfile is in use, it is
recommended that the core be recorded without makedumpfile and a bug be reported.
• An issue may be encountered when using system-config-cluster to configure a Postgres 8
resource agent, resulting in the postgresql service failing to start. To include a Postgres resource
agent in your cluster, please check the man page for the agent, and edit the cluster.conf file in
an editor, then update the cluster with the new configuration file using the appropriate cman_tool
command.
• Due to outstanding driver issues with hardware encryption acceleration, users of Intel WiFi Link
4965, 5100, 5150, 5300, and 5350 wireless cards are advised to disable hardware accelerated
encryption using module parameters. Failure to do so may result in the inability to connect to Wired
Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protected wireless networks after connecting to WiFi Protected Access
(WPA) protected wireless networks.
To do so, add the following options to /etc/modprobe.conf:
alias wlan0 iwlagn
options iwlagn swcrypto50=1 swcrypto=1
(where wlan0 is the default interface name of the first Intel WiFi Link device)
• kdump now restarts when CPUs or DIMMs are hot-added to a system. If multiple items are added
at the same time, several sequential restarts may be encountered. This behavior is intentional, as
it minimizes the time-frame where a crash may occur while memory or processors are not being
tracked by kdump.
1.6. Technology Previews
Software based Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)
The Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) driver (fcoe.ko), along with libfc, provides the ability to
run FCoE over a standard Ethernet card. This capability is provided as a technical preview in Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3.
To enable this feature, you must login by writing the network interface name to the /sys/
module/fcoe/parameters/create file, for example:
echo eth6 > /sys/module/fcoe/parameters/create
To logout, write the network interface name to the /sys/module/fcoe/parameters/destroy
file, for example:

Release Notes
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echo eth6 > /sys/module/fcoe/parameters/destroy
For further information on software based FCoE refer to: http://www.open-fcoe.org/openfc/wiki/
index.php/FCoE_Initiator_Quickstart.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 provides full support for FCoE on three specialized hardware
implementations. These are: Cisco fnic driver, the Emulex lpfc driver, and the Qlogic qla2xx
driver.
iSER Support
iSER support, allowing for block storage transfer across a network, has been added to the scsi-
target-utils package as a Technology Preview. In this release, single portal and multiple
portals on different subnets are supported. There are known bugs when using multiple portals on
the same subnet.
To set up the iSER target component install the scsi-target-utils and libibverbs-devel RPM. The
library package for the InfiniBand hardware that is being used is also required. For example:
host channel adapters that use the cxgb3 driver the libcxgb3 package is needed, and for host
channel adapters using the mthca driver the libmthca package is needed.
There is also a known issue relating to connection timeouts in some situations. Refer to Red Hat
Bugzilla #4706271 for more information on this issue.
2. Installation-Related Notes
This section includes information specific to Anaconda and the installation of Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 5.3.
Red Hat Network can install the new and changed packages and upgrade an existing Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5 system. Alternatively, Anaconda can upgrade an existing Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 system or perform a fresh installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3.
Note: upgrading from beta releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 to this GA release is not
supported.
Further, although Anaconda provides an option for upgrading from earlier major versions of Red
Hat Enterprise Linux to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3, Red Hat does not currently support this. More
generally, Red Hat does not support in-place upgrades between any major versions of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux. (A major version is denoted by a whole number version change. For example, Red
Hat Enteprise Linux 4 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 are both major versions of Red Hat Enterprise
Linux.)
In-place upgrades across major releases do not preserve all system settings, services or custom
configurations. Consequently, Red Hat strongly recommends fresh installations when upgrading from
one major version to another.
2.1. All Architectures
• The Text Mode installation of Anaconda now offers the option of switching to Virtual Network
Computing (VNC) to complete the installation.
1 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=470627

All Architectures
11
• Creating or using encrypted software RAID member disks (i.e. software RAID partitions) is not
supported. However, creating encrypted software RAID arrays (e.g. /dev/md0) is supported.
• The NFS default for RHEL5 is "locking". Therefore, to mount nfs shares from the %post section of
anaconda, use the mount -o nolock,udp command to start the locking daemon before using nfs
to mount shares.
• When installing from CD-ROM or DVD-ROM on a system with an iBFT-configured network device,
Anaconda will not include any iBFT-configured storage devices unless networking is configured. To
enable networking for the installation, use the command linux updates=http://[any] at the
installation boot prompt. Note that [any] can be replaced with any URL.
If your system requires a static IP configuration, use the command linux
updates=http://[any] ip=[IP address] netmask=[netmask] dns=[dns].
• When installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 on a fully virtualized guest, do not use the kernel-
xen kernel. Using this kernel on fully virtualized guests can cause your system to hang.
If you are using an Installation Number when installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 on a fully
virtualized guest, be sure to deselect the Virtualization package group during the installation.
The Virtualization package group option installs the kernel-xen kernel.
Note that paravirtualized guests are not affected by this issue. Paravirtualized guests always use the
kernel-xen kernel.
• If you are using the Virtualized kernel when upgrading from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 to 5.2, you
must reboot after completing the upgrade. You should then boot the system using the updated
Virtualized kernel.
The hypervisors of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 5.2 are not ABI-compatible. If you do not boot
the system after upgrading using the updated Virtualized kernel, the upgraded Virtualization RPMs
will not match the running kernel.
• When upgrading to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 or later from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.6, gcc4
may cause the upgrade to fail. As such, you should manually remove the gcc4 package before
upgrading.
• The firstboot language plugin has been removed, as it does not properly and completely
reconfigure the system when a new language is selected.
• When provisioning guests during installation, the RHN tools for guests option will not be available.
When this occurs, the system will require an additional entitlement, separate from the entitlement
used by dom0.
To prevent the consumption of additional entitlements for guests, install the rhn-
virtualization-common package manually before attempting to register the system to Red Hat
Network.
• Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 on a system with multiple network interfaces and manually
specified IPv6 addresses may result in a partially incorrect networking setup. When this occurs, your
IPv6 settings will not be visible on the installed system.
To work around this, set NETWORKING_IPV6 to yes in /etc/sysconfig/network. Then, restart
your network connection using the command service network restart.

Release Notes
12
• If your system has yum-rhn-plugin-0.5.2-5.el5_1.2 (or an earlier version) installed, you
will be unable to upgrade to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 through yum update. To work around
this, upgrade your yum-rhn-plugin to the latest version (using yum update yum-rhn-plugin)
before running yum update.
• Previously, anaconda could not access more than 8 SmartArray controllers. In this update, this
issue has been resolved.
• A driver disk, supplied by an OEM, is a single image file (*.img), containing potentially multiple
driver packages and kernel modules. These drivers are used during installation to support hardware
that otherwise would not be recognized by Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. Once the driver packages
and kernel modules are installed on the system, they are placed in the initial RAM disk (initrd) so
that they are loaded when the system boots.
With this release, installation can automatically detect a driver disk (based on its file system
label), thereby using the content of that disk during installation. This behavior is controlled by the
installation command line option dlabel=on, which enables the automatic search. dlabel=on is
the default setting for this release.
All block devices with the file system label OEMDRV are examined and drivers are loaded from these
devices in the order by which they are detected.
• Existing encrypted block devices that contain vfat file systems will appear as type foreign in the
partitioning interface; as such, these devices will not be mounted automatically during system boot.
To ensure that such devices are mounted automatically, add an appropriate entry for them to /etc/
fstab. For details on how to do so, refer to man fstab.
2.2. PowerPC Architectures
• The minimum RAM required to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 is 1GB; the recommended RAM
is 2GB. If a machine has less than 1GB RAM, the installation process may hang.
Further, PowerPC-based machines that have only 1GB of RAM experience significant performance
issues under certain RAM-intensive workloads. For a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 system to
perform RAM-intensive processes optimally, 4GB of RAM is recommended. This ensures the
system has the same number of physical pages as was available on PowerPC machines with
512MB of RAM running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 or earlier.
2.3. s390x Architectures
•anaconda now supports both ports on CHPID for OSA Express3 cards. The installer will prompt
for the port number in the initial stage of the installation. The value provided for the port also affects
installed network interface startup script. When port 1 is selected, the value portno=1 is added to
OPTIONS parameter of ifcfg-eth* file.
Note
When installing under z/VM, you can add either PORTNO=0 (to use port 0) or PORTNO=1
(to use port 1) to the CMS configuration file to avoid being prompted for the mode.

ia64 Architecture
13
• Installation on a machine with existing Linux or non-Linux filesystems on DASD block devices may
cause the installer to halt. If this happens, it is necessary to clear out all existing partitions on the
DASD devices you want to use and restart the installer.
2.4. ia64 Architecture
• If your system only has 512MB of RAM, attempting to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 may fail.
To prevent this, perform a base installation first and install all other packages after the installation
finishes.
• Using yum to install packages from the 32-bit Compatibility Layer disc may fail. If it does,
it is because the Red Hat package signing key was not imported into the RPM database. This
happens if you have not yet connected to Red Hat Network and obtained updates. To import the key
manually, run the following command as root:
rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release
Once the Red Hat GPG key is imported, you may now use yum to install packages from the 32-bit
Compatibility Layer disc.
Note that when installing from this disc, it is advisable to use yum instead of rpm to ensure that base
OS dependencies are addressed during installation.
3. Feature Updates
Block Device Encryption
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 includes support for block device encryption using the Linux Unified
Key Setup (LUKS) specification. Encrypting a device protects all data on a block device against
unauthorized access, even if the device has been physically removed from a system. To access
the contents of an encrypted device, a user must provide a passphrase or key as authentication.
For information on setting up disk encryption, refer to Chapter 28 of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Installation Guide at: http://redhat.com/docs/
mac80211 802.11a/b/g WiFi protocol stack (mac80211)
The mac80211 stack (formerly known as the devicescape/d80211 stack) is now a supported
feature in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3. It enables the iwlwifi 4965GN wireless driver for Intel®
WiFi Link 4965 hardware which allows certain wireless devices to connect to any WiFi network.
Although the mac80211 component is supported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3, the symbols are
not included in the symbol whitelist for the kernel.
Global File System 2 (GFS2)
GFS2 is an incremental advancement of GFS. This update applies several significant
improvements that require a change to the on-disk file system format. GFS file systems can be
converted to GFS2 using the utility gfs2_convert, which updates the metadata of a GFS file
system accordingly.
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2, GFS2 was provided as a kernel module for evaluation purposes.
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3, GFS2 is now part of the kernel package. If the Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5.2 GFS2 kernel modules have been installed they must be removed to use
GFS2 in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3.

Release Notes
14
Improvements in Driver Disk Support
A driver disk, supplied by an OEM, is a single image file (*.img), containing potentially multiple
driver RPMs and kernel modules. These drivers are used during installation to support hardware
that otherwise would not be recognized. The RPMs are installed on the system and placed into the
initrd so that they are supported when the machine reboots.
With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3, installation can automatically detect the presence of a driver
disk based on its file system label, and use the content of that disk during installation. This
behavior is controlled by the installation command line option dlabel=on, which enables the
automatic search. All block devices with the file system label OEMDRV are examined and drivers
are loaded from these devices in the order in which they are encountered.
iSCSI Boot Firmware Table
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 now fully supports the iSCSI Boot Firmware Table (iBFT) which
allows for booting from iSCSI devices. This support required that iSCSI disks (nodes) are no
longer marked to start up automatically; the installed system will no longer automatically connect
and login to iSCSI disks when entering runlevel 3 or 5.
iSCSI is usually used for the root filesystem, in which case this change does does not make a
difference as the initrd will connect and login to the needed iSCSI disks even before the runlevel is
entered.
However if iSCSI disks need to be mounted on non root directories, for example /home or /srv,
then this change will impact you, since the installed system will no longer automatically connect
and login to iSCSI disks that are not used for the root filesystem.
Using iSCSI disks mounted on non root directories is still possible, but requires the use of one of
the following workarounds:
1. Install the system without use of iSCSI disks mounted on non root directories and later
configure the relevant disks and mount points manually
2. Boot the installed system into runlevel 1, and mark any iSCSI disks that are not used for the
root filesystem for automatic startup by using the following command once per disk:
iscsiadm -m node -T target-name -p ip:port -o update -n node.startup
-v automatic
rhythmbox
the rhythmbox audio player has been updated to version 0.11.6. This update provides the option
to use proprietary GStreamer plugins.
lftp Rebase
lftp has now been rebased to version 3.7.1. This applies several upstream feature updates and
bug fixes, including:
• A security flaw in the way lftp quoted scripts generated by mirror --script (which could
cause unauthorized privilege escalation) is now fixed.
• Using lftp with the option -c no longer causes lftp to hang.
•lftp no longer corrupts files during a transfer when using sftp.
For more information on lftp updates applied in this release, refer to http://lftp.yar.ru/news.html.

Feature Updates
15
TTY Input Auditing
TTY input auditing is now supported. If a process is marked for TTY input auditing, the data it
reads from TTYs is audited; this will show up on audit records with type TTY.
You can use the pam_tty_audit module to mark a process (and its child processes) for TTY
input auditing. For instructions on how to do this, refer to man pam_tty_audit(8).
The TTY audit records contain the exact keystrokes read by the audited process. To make data
decoding easier, bash audits the exact command line using the record type USER_TTY.
The "TTY" audit records contain all data read by audited processes from the TTY. This includes
data inserted into the input stream by the TIOCSTI ioctl system call.
SystemTap Re-base
SystemTap has been re-based to version 0.7.2. This update of SystemTap introduces several
minor improvements, along with a few major features. These new features include:
• SystemTap now supports symbolic probing on x86, x86-64 and PowerPC architectures. This
enables SystemTap scripts to place probes into user-space applications and shared libraries. As
a result, SystemTap can now provide the same level of debugger probing on some user-space
applications as kernel probing.
For example, if coreutils-debuginfo is installed, you can print a callgraph of the
ls command using /usr/share/doc/systemtap-version/examples/general/
callgraph.stp, as in:
stap para-callgraph.stp 'process("ls").function("*")' -c 'ls -l'
In order to reduce the likelihood of an undetected version mismatch between the binary
and its debuginfo RPMs, Red Hat advises that you set the SYSTEMTAP_DEBUGINFO_PATH
environment variable to the value +:.debug:/usr/lib/debug:build.
SystemTap's support for symbolic probes also extends to markers placed into the kernel of this
release. To use these markers, load the kernel-trace kernel module in /etc/rc.local
(using modprobe kernel-trace).
• SystemTap also supports remote compilation services. This enables a single computer on
the network to act as a debuginfo/compiler server for local SystemTap clients. The clients
auto-locate the server using mDNS (avahi), and only need the systemtap-client and
systemtap-runtime packages to work.
At present, this feature does not use security mechanisms like encryption. As such, it is
advisable to use remote compilation services only within trusted networks. For more information,
refer to man stap-server.
• The kernel update for this release includes a kernel API extension that significantly improves
shutdown of SystemTap scripts. This added kernel API extension eliminates unnecessary
synchronization between individual probe removal operations. As a result, SystemTap scripts
that have hundreds of kernel probes are processed much faster.
This is especially useful for administrators that use scripts with probes containing wildcards that
capture numerous kernel events, such as probe syscall.* {}.
For a complete list of SystemTap updates included in this release, refer to the following URL:

Release Notes
16
http://sources.redhat.com/git/gitweb.cgi?p=systemtap.git;a=blob_plain;f=NEWS;hb=rhel53
Cluster Manager Update
The Cluster Manager utility (cman) has been updated to version 2.0.97. This applies several bug
fixes and enhancements, most notably:
•cman now uses the following firmware versions: APC AOS v3.5.7 and APC rpdu v3.5.6. This
fixes a bug that prevented the APC 7901 from using simple network management protocol
(SNMP) properly.
•fence_drac, fence_ilo, fence_egenera, and fence_bladecenter agents now support
ssh.
•fence_xvmd key files can now be reloaded without restarting.
• A single fence method can now support up to 8 fence devices.
RPM Re-Base
The RedHat Package Manager (RPM) is now re-based to the Fedora 9 upstream version. rpm
now adds secondary architecture-specific macro files on multi-arch systems. In addition, rpm now
meets all certification criteria for inclusion in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
This update also applies several upstream enhancements and bug fixes to rpm, including:
•rpm no longer generates unnecessary .rpmnew and .rpmsave files on multi-arch systems.
• A bug in the rpmgiNext() function of rpm prevented proper error reporting. This update
applies the proper semantics for error reporting, thereby ensuring that rpm returns the correct
exit code in all instances.
Open Fabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) / opensm
opensm has been updated to the upstream version 3.2, including a minor change to the opensm
library API.
• The format of the opensm.conf file has changed. If you have made custom modifications to
your existing opensm.conf, rpm will automatically install the new opensm.conf file as /etc/
ofed/opensm.conf.rpmnew. You will need to migrate your modifications to this file and then
replace the existing opensm.conf file with the result.
• Red Hat closely tracks the upstream Open Fabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) code
base in order to provide a maximal level of enablement for this still evolving technology. As a
consequence, Red Hat can only preserve API/ABI compatibility across minor releases to the
degree that the upstream project does. This is an exception from the general practice in the
development of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Because of this, applications build on top of the OFED stack (listed below), might require
recompilation or even source-level code changes when moving from one minor release of Red
Hat Enterprise Linux to a newer one.
This generally is not required for other applications, built on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux
software stack. The components affected are:
• dapl
• compat-dapl

Feature Updates
17
• ibsim
• ibutils
• infiniband-diags
• libcxgb3
• libehca
• libibcm
• libibcommon
• libibmad
• libibumad
• libibverbs
• libipathverbs
• libmlx4
• libmthca
• libnes
• librmdacm
• libsdp
• mpi-selector
• mpitests
• mstflint
• mvapich
• mvapich2
• ofed-docs
• openib
• openib-mstflint
• openib-perftest
• openib-tvflash
• openmpi
• opensm
• perftest

Release Notes
18
• qlvnictools
• qperf
• rds-tools (future)
• srptools
• tvflash
Net-SNMP Re-Base
Net-SNMP has been re-based to upstream version 5.3.2.2. This update adds Stream Control
Transmission Protocol (SCTP) support (as per RFC 3873, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3873.txt) and
introduces two new configuration options (to be used in /etc/snmpd.conf):
•dontLogTCPWrappersConnects — suppresses logging of connection attempts.
•v1trapaddress — enables administrators to set an agent's IP address inside outgoing SNMP
traps.
This update also features several bug fixes from upstream, including:
• The snmpd daemon now functions properly on systems with more than 255 network interfaces.
In addition, snmpd also reports an error now when it is configured to listen on any port higher
than 65535.
• A race condition that caused the snmpd daemon to leak file descriptors when reading from /
proc is now fixed.
• The snmpd daemon now correctly reports hrProcessorLoad object IDs (OID), even on multi-
CPU hardware. Note, however, that it takes approximately one minute from daemon startup to
calculate the value of the OID.
• The net-snmp-devel package is now dependent on the lm_sensors-devel package.
OpenSSL Re-Base for FIPS Certification
The openssl packages upgrade the OpenSSL library to a newer upstream version, which
is currently undergoing the Federal Information Processing Standards validation process
(FIPS-140-2). The FIPS mode is disabled by default, to ensure that the OpenSSL library maintains
feature parity and ABI compatibility with the previous releases of the openssl packages in Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
This update also applies the following upstream fixes:
• By default, zlib compression is used for SSL and TLS connections. On IBM System z
architectures with Central Processor Assist for Cryptographic Function (CPACF), compression
became the main part of the CPU load, and total performance was determined by the speed
of the compression (not the speed of the encryption). When compression is disabled, the total
performance is much higher. In these updated packages, zlib compression for SSL and TLS
connections can be disabled with the OPENSSL_NO_DEFAULT_ZLIB environment variable. For
TLS connections over a slow network, it is better to leave compression on, so that the amount of
data to be transferred is lower.
• When using the openssl command with the s_client and s_server options, the default
CA certificates file (/etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt), was not read. This resulted in

Feature Updates
19
certificates failing verification. In order for certificates to pass verification, the -CAfile /etc/
pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt option had to be used. In these updated packages, the
default CA certificates file is read, and no longer needs to be specified with the -CAfile option.
yum Re-Base
yum has been re-based to upstream version 3.2.18. This update improves the speed at which
yum operates, thereby alleviating the problem posed by the ever-growing number of packages
included with each minor release. In addition, this update also introduces the reinstall command,
improves the interface for several commands, and applies several bug fixes, including:
• Any yum commands would fail if the -c option was used to specify a configuration file residing
on a web address (http). This bug is now fixed.
• A checkSignal() function in yum called an incorrect exit function; as such, exiting yum would
result in a traceback instead. With this release, yum now exits properly.
flash-plugin Re-Base
The flash-plugin package has been re-based to version 10.0.12.36. This update applies
several security fixes that were included in a previous flash-plugin ASYNC update. Further,
this updated plugin also contains Adobe Flash Player 10, which includes the following bug fixes
and feature enhancements:
• Improved stability on the Linux platform by fixing a race condition issue in sound output.
• New support for custom filters and effects, native 3D transformation and animation, advanced
audio processing, a new, more flexible text engine, and GPU hardware acceleration.
For more information about this update, refer to the Adobe Flash Player 10 release notes at the
following link:
http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/10/
Flash_Player_10_Release_Notes.pdf
gdb Rebase
gdb has now been rebased to version 6.8. This applies several upstream feature updates and
bug fixes, most notably: support for breakpoints inside C++ templates, constructors and inline
functions.
For more information on gdb updates applied in this release, refer to http://sourceware.org/cgi-bin/
cvsweb.cgi/src/gdb/NEWS?rev=1.259.2.1&cvsroot=src.
Instruction Based Sampling on AMD Family10h processors
New hardware profiling support for the AMD Family10h processors has been added for Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3. These new AMD CPUs support Instruction Based Sampling (IBS). IBS
support requires changes to the oProfile driver to gather this information and initialize the new
Model Specific Registers (MSRs) associated with these new features.
This update adds the new IBS_FETCH and IBS_OP profiling samples to the per CPU buffers
and the event buffers of the oProfile driver. New control entries have also been added to /dev/
oprofile to control IBS sampling. These changes are backward compatible with the previous
PMC only version of the driver, and a separate patch is available to oProfile 0.9.3 to use this new
data.

Release Notes
20
For more information on IBS refer to the paper: Instruction-Based Sampling: A New Performance
Analysis Technique for AMD Family 10h Processors, November 19, 20072
Squid Re-base
Squid has been re-based to the latest stable upstream version (STABLE21). This update
addresses several bugs, including:
• The squid init script always incorrectly returned an exit code of 0. This bug is now fixed,
making squid compliant now with Linux Standard Base.
• Using the refresh_stale_hit directive causes error message Clock going backwards
to appear in the squid log file.
• The squid installation process did not set up correct ownership of the /usr/local/squid
directory. With this release, the user squid is now the default owner of /usr/local/squid.
• Whenever squid attempts to use the function hash_lookup(), it could abort with signal 6.
• Using squid_unix_group could cause squid to crash.
Event Multi-Processing Model in Apache
httpd, the Apache HTTP Server package, now includes the experimental event Multi-Processing
Model (MPM). This MPM improves performance by using dedicated threads to handle keepalive
connections.
libgomp re-base
libgomp has been re-based to version 4.3.2-7.el5. The re-base improves OpenMP performance
and adds support for OpenMP version 3.0 when used with the gcc43 compiler.
iSCSI target capability
The iSCSI target capability, delivered as part of the Linux Target (tgt) framework, moves from
Technology Preview to full support in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3. The linux target framework
allows a system to serve block-level SCSI storage to other systems that have a SCSI initiator. This
capability is being initially deployed as a Linux iSCSI target, serving storage over a network to any
iSCSI initiator.
To set up the iSCSI target, install the scsi-target-utils RPM and refer to the instructions in: /usr/
share/doc/scsi-target-utils-[version]/README and /usr/share/doc/scsi-
target-utils-[version]/README.iscsi
4. Driver Updates
4.1. All Architectures
General Driver/Platform Updates
• The Intel High Definition Audio driver in ALSA has been updated.
• High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) audio support on AMD ATI integrated chipsets has
been updated.
2 http://developer.amd.com/assets/AMD_IBS_paper_EN.pdf