5.5 Release Notes
Release Notes
Abstract
1. Installation
Kickstart provides a way for users to automate a Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation. Using kickstart, a system administrator can create a single file containing the answers to all the questions that would normally be asked during a typical installation.
stdout) and standard error (stderr) streams, and logs error messages to anaconda.log (BZ#510636).
bootloader command now supports the --hvargs parameter, allowing Xen hypervisor arguments to be specified during a kickstart installation (BZ#501438).
@Everything and * (wildcard). As of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, both of these options have been deprecated. Attempting to use a select all packages option will fail, unless the kickstart file also includes package negation for conflicting packages. Therefore, to install all packages but conflicting packages, the kickstart file must contain:
%packages @Everything -@Conflicts
The following device drivers are now supported during installation:
Note
2. Virtualization
Note
Note
PCI passthrough allows PCI devices to appear and behave as if they were physically attached to the guest operating system. KVM and Xen hypervisors both support attaching PCI devices on the host system to virtualized guests.
Note
New rules are available in libvirt to enable hugetlbfs (HugePages). When a system is configured with Hugepages, libvirt automatically allocates memory from hugetlbfs to back the virtual guest memory. When combined with extended page tables and nested page tables in hardware, significant performance improvements can be achieved by the guest. (BZ#518099)
3. Kernel
3.1. Kernel Platform Enablement
Boxboro-EX and Boxboro-MC, AMD's new processor family, code-named Magny-Cours and IBM's Power7 processor.
3.2. Kernel Generic Features
Note
In some circumstances, tasks in the kernel may permanently enter the uninterruptible sleep state (D-State), making the system impossible to shut down. With this update, the Detect Hung Task kernel thread has been added, providing the ability to detect tasks permanently stuck in the D-State.
CONFIG_DETECT_HUNG_TASK kernel flag. When set to "y" tasks stuck in the D-State are detected; when set to n it is off. The default value for the CONFIG_DETECT_HUNG_TASK flag is y.
CONFIG_BOOTPARAM_HUNG_TASK_PANIC flag has been added. When set to y, a kernel panic is triggered when a task stuck in the D-State is detected. The default value for the CONFIG_BOOTPARAM_HUNG_TASK_PANIC flag is n.
Starting at Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, all s390 kernel modules are now signed. BZ#483665
4. Device Drivers
hpilo driver for HP iLO/iLO2 management processors has been updated.
i2c device driver for the iic-bus interface has been updated with support for the SB900 SMBus controller. (BZ#516623)
mlx4 driver for Mellanox ConnectX HCA InfiniBand devices has been updated to version 1.4.1 (BZ#514147 BZ#500346)
4.1. Network Device Drivers
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 contains a major updates to wireless drivers and subsystems in the kernel.
iwlwifi drivers for Intel wireless network adapters have been updated. Devices in this hardware line support 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n wireless protocols. This update provides new support for iwl6000 and iwl1000 devices, and enhanced support for iwl5000, iwl4965 and iwl3945 devices.
rt2x00 drivers for wireless devices has been updated. This update refreshes the drivers for the Ralink rt2400pci, rt2500pci, rt2500usb, rt61pciand rt73usb chipsets, and the drivers for the rtl8180 and rtl8187 Realtek chipsets.
ath9k driver for Atheros 802.11n wireless LAN adapters has been enabled.
mac80211 and cfg80211 kernel subsystems have been updated.
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, the Solarflare driver (sfc) has been added (BZ#448856)
- Neterion's X3100 Series 10GbE PCIe driver
- The
vxgedriver for Neterion's X3100 Series 10GbE PCIe devices has been updated (BZ#453683). - ServerEngines BladeEngine2 10Gbps driver
- the
be2netdriver for ServerEngines BladeEngine2 10Gbps network devices has been updated (BZ#549460) - Cisco 10G Ethernet Driver
- QLogic 10 Gigabit PCI-E Ethernet Driver
- the
qlgedriver for QLogic 10 Gigabit PCI-E ethernet devices has been updated to version 1.00.00.23. (BZ#519453) - Broadcom Tigon3 ethernet devices
- the
tg3driver for Broadcom Tigon3 ethernet devices has been updated. (BZ#515312) - Intel Gigabit Ethernet Network Devices
- the
igbdriver for Intel Gigabit Ethernet Network devices has been updated. (BZ#513710) - Intel 10 Gigabit PCI Express Network Devices
- the
ixgbedriver for Intel 10 Gigabit PCI Express Network devices has been updated. (BZ#513707, BZ#514306, BZ#516699) - Intel PRO/1000 Network Devices
- The
e1000driver for Intel PRO/1000 network devices has been updated (BZ#515524) - NetXen Multi port (1/10) Gigabit Network Devices
- The
netxendriver for NetXen Multi port (1/10) Gigabit Network devices has been updated. (BZ#542746) - Broadcom Everest network devices
- The
bnx2xdriver for Broadcom Everest network devices has been updated to version 1.52.1-5.(BZ#515716, BZ#522600) - Broadcom NetXtreme II network devices
- The
bnx2driver for Broadcom NetXtreme II network devices has been updated to version 2.0.2(BZ#517377) - Broadcom NetXtreme II iSCSI
- The
bnx2idriver for Broadcom NetXtreme II iSCSI has been updated. (BZ#516233) - RealTek 8169 ethernet driver
- the
r8169driver for RealTek 8169 ethernet devices has been updated. (BZ#514589)
4.2. Storage Device Drivers
the qla2xxx driver for QLogic Fibre Channel HBAs has been updated to version 8.03.01.04.05.05-k (BZ#519447 BZ#542834 BZ#543057)
The hptiop driver for HighPoint RocketRAID 3xxx/4xxx controllers has been updated, adding support for RR44xx adapters. (BZ#519076)
The lpfc driver for Emulex Fibre Channel HBAs has been updated to version 8.2.0.63.3p. (BZ#515272) BZ#549763
The mpt2sas driver that supports the SAS-2 family of adapters from LSI has been updated to version 02.101.00.00. This update fixes many issues, most notably:
- Sanity checks have been added when volumes are added and removed, ignoring events for foreign volumes.
- driver is now legacy I/O port free
- An issue that may have resulted in a kernel oops at hibernation or resume has been fixed.
The mptque base driver for devices using LSI Fusion MPT firmware has been updated to version 3.4.13rh. This update fixes many issues, most notably:
- The serial attached SCSI (SAS) topology scan has been restructured, adding expander, link status and host bus adapter (HBA) events.
- Intermittent issues caused by SAS cable removal and reinsertion have been fixed.
- An issue where SATA devices received different SAS addresses has been fixed.
- The device firmware now reports the queue full event to the driver and the driver handles the queue full event using the SCSI mid-layer.
The megaraid_sas driver for LSI MegaRAID SAS controllers has been updated to version 4.17-RH1. This update fixes many issues, most notably:
- An issue during firmware boot and initialization has been fixed.
- An issue that resulted in devices hanging during hibernation has been fixed.
- The driver now auto updates the device when added or deleted.
- MegaRAID SAS driver is now legacy I/O port free
5. Filesystem/Storage Management
Some applications (e.g. dump and nfsd) try to improve disk I/O performance by distributing I/O requests to multiple processes or threads. However, when using the Completely Fair Queuing (CFQ) I/O scheduler, this application design negatively affected I/O performance. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, the kernel can now detect and merge cooperating queues. Additionally, the kernel can also detect if the queues stop cooperating, and split them apart again.
This update introduces GFS2 support for the errors= mount command line option, which may assist in troubleshooting. The default option, errors=withdraw results in the filesystem attempting to withdraw from the cluster if an I/O error or metadata error is encountered. The alternative, errors=panic results in a panic in the same situation. (BZ#518106)
The Common Internet File System (CIFS) has been updated in the kernel. (BZ#500838)
6. Tools
6.1. GNU Project debugger (GDB)
Support for the C++ programming language in GDB has been improved. Notable improvements include:
- Many improvements to expression parsing.
- Better handling of type names.
- The need for extraneous quoting has nearly been eliminated
- "next" and other stepping commands work properly even when the inferior throws an exception.
- GDB has a new "catch syscall" command. This can be used to stop the inferior whenever it makes a system call.
GDB now has support for wide and multi-byte characters on the target.
Thread execution now permits debugging threads individually and independently of each other; enabled by new settings "set target-async" and "set non-stop".
6.2. SystemTap
Tracepoints are placed in important sections of the kernel, allowing system administrators to analyze the performance of, and debug portions of code. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, a wide range of tracepoints have been added to the kernel (BZ#475710), including tracepoints for networking (BZ#475457), coredump (BZ#517115) and signal (BZ#517121).
Note
stap -L 'kernel.trace("*")'|sort
Previously, only users with root privileges were able to use SystemTap. This update introduces SystemTap's unprivileged mode, allowing non-root users to still use SystemTap. Detailed information on unprivileged man stap-client manpage.
Important
The C++ program probing improvements also allows better probing of user-space programs.
6.3. Valgrind
Memcheck tool are also improved. Additionally, support for DWARF debugging information has been enhanced.
7. Desktop Updates
OpenOffice.org is an Open Source, multi-platform office productivity suite. It includes key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation manager. OpenOffice.org has been updated, providing many bugfixes and enhancements, including support for Microsoft Office 2007 OOXML formats.
Metacity, the default window manager for the GNOME desktop has been updated, providing enhancements, additional GConf keys to control the the behavior of metacity and bug fixes.
8. New Packages
FreeRADIUS is a high-performance, highly configurable, free Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS) server. It is designed to allow centralized authentication and authorization for a network.
freeradius2) in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5. FreeRADIUS 1 is still available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 in the original freeradius package. Version 2.0 of FreeRADIUS introduces many new features including the programming language unlang, virtual server support., additional directories for improved RFC coverage and full IPv6 support for both attributes & network packets.
Important
freeradius and freeradius2 packages share common files, and cannot be installed together on the same system.
PostgreSQL 8.4 (postgresql84) is now included as a fully supported option in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. New features in PostgreSQL 8.4 include: parallel database restore, per-column permissions and new monitoring tools.
Important
postgres package). Due to this requirement, postgres and postgresql84 contain package level conflicts and only a single version can be installed on a system.
Samba is a suite of programs used by machines to share files, printers, and other information.
Important
| Parameter | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| cups connection timeout | New | 30 |
| idmap config DOM:range | Removed | |
| idmap domains | Removed | |
| init logon delayed hosts | New | "" |
| init logon delay | New | 100 |
| ldap ssl | Changed Default | start tls |
| share modes | Deprecated | |
| winbind reconnect delay | New | 30 |
libsmbclient package. The libsmbclient is included into both samba and samba3x packages to provide client interfaces to other components in the environment.
Important
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 introduces the new gPXE package, an open source Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE) implementation. gPXE provides the ability to boot installation images via a network connection.
A. Revision History
| Revision History | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Revision 0-40.402 | Fri Oct 25 2013 | ||
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| Revision 0-40 | 2012-07-18 | ||
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| Revision 0-0 | Tue Nov 24 2009 | ||
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