5.290. s390utils

Bug Fixes

BZ#747937

Previously, when calculating memory size on systems with less than 256 MB or more than 256 GB of memory, an “Illegal division by zero” error occurred. The code has been fixed and as a result, memory device size calculation now works correctly.

BZ#769416

When the ttyrun tool fails to open a terminal device, an error condition is reported to syslog. Depending on the environment, multiple terminal devices might not be available and, hence, multiple error messages are issued. This update introduces a verbose option to switch on or off syslog messages issued by ttyrun.

BZ#772576

The HiperSockets Network Concentrator xcec-bridge utility issues a warning if the length of a send buffer is different from the specified length of the packet to be sent. The condition check was wrong. This update corrects the code and checking of the packet length to be sent now works correctly.

BZ#783161

Calling the zipl utility changes data in the file system but also writes to the device node. The built-in sync call only flushed file system buffers which did not ensure that data on the device node /dev/dasdX had been written. This could cause an incorrect bootmap to be used during Initial Program Load (IPL) and the wrong kernel to be loaded or result in an unbootable system. This update adds a call to the fsync() function for all writable opened file descriptors. As a result, all the relevant data is written to disk and the problem is solved.

BZ#785761

The qethconf utility searched for an exact match of an IPv6 address. Consequently, an IPv6 address written in capital letters was not deleted. Thus update makes the IPv6 search case insensitive and the problem no longer occurs.

BZ#785762

A service fix added to z/VM 6.1 broke the interface of the Control Program (CP) command for querying a network interface (NIC) and the layer 3 address was not detected automatically under z/VM 6.x. Consequently, configuring a network interface via the znetconf tool failed. This update corrects the problem and the CP command for querying a virtual network interface now works as expected.

BZ#797937

When mounting a disk, the cmsfs-fuse utility tries to use the mmap function on the whole disk. This can fail for very large disks or if the virtual memory is limited. This update adds a fallback to the pread and pwrite commands in case the mmap system call fails.

BZ#800462

Parsing logic only detected the NONROUTER and PRIROUTER option for layer-3 VSWITCHes but not plain IP VSWITCH configurations. Therefore the layer 3 address for a network interface (NIC) was not detected automatically for virtual NICs connected to plain IP VSWITCHes and the virtual NIC was treated as a layer-2 device. Consequently, configuring a virtual NIC using the znetconf tool failed. With this update, the IP option is interpreted as a layer-3 indicator and configuring a virtual NIC using znetconf works as expected.

BZ#809510

The monitor record header for the stop record was incomplete. Consequently, unused monitor records of stopped processes were not stopped correctly and continued to show up in the z/VM monitor stream. This update corrects the problem and a complete header is now specified.

BZ#814311

The zipl helper script calls external programs without an absolute path. Consequently, when zipl is called with an empty PATH environment variable, the zipl helper script that is called by zipl is not able to execute external programs. With this update, the zipl helper script sets the PATH variable so that external programs can be located and executed as expected.

Enhancements

BZ#632347

Automatic calculation of the boot device RAM disk address for System z has been added. With this update, in place of the default address for the initial RAM disk the address is now automatically calculated using the image size. This avoids a possible file overlap for large kernel images.

BZ#633532

Enhancements to the configuration tool for IBM System z network devices have been made. With this update, the System z qethconf tool provides information messages when an attribute did not change as expected.

BZ#738863

The Linux kdump framework has been ported to Linux on System z and is now integrated into the existing System z stand-alone dump tools and shutdown actions framework. This leads to the following enhancements for System z kernel dumps:

• Dump time and size can be reduced using page filtering with the makedumpfile tool.
• Dump disk space sharing is possible for server farms using network dump.
• Dump setup is made easier using existing kdump setup GUIs of Linux distributions.

BZ#738870

Enhanced Direct Access Storage Device (DASD) statistics for Parallel Access Volume (PAV) and High Performance FICON (HPF) has been added. This enhancement adds the dasdstat tool that provides user-friendly access to the enhanced statistics provided by the kernel via the debugfs interface. It enables improved diagnosis of PAV and HPF environments to analyze and tune the DASD performance in a system, for example to give recommendations on the number of alias devices or the usage of Hyper PAV versus Base PAV. For more information about this enhancement, refer to https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/linux390/documentation_dev.html.

BZ#738873

IPv6 support to the qetharp tool has been added. This enhancement adds IPv6 support to the qetharp tool for inspection and modification of the ARP cache of Open Systems Adapter (OSA) cards or HiperSockets (real and virtual) operated in layer-3 mode.