1.116. man-pages

An updated man-pages package that corrects numerous documentation errors and omissions is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The man-pages package provides man (manual) pages from the Linux Documentation Project.

This updated man-pages package addresses the following issues:

* some shells (including bash, the default Red Hat Enterprise Linux shell) have a built-in "time" command. The time man page, however, documents /usr/bin/time, which provides options not available using the shell keyword equivalent. Previously, the time man page did not note this distinction. The time manual's DESCRIPTION section now notes both the existence of built-in time commands and that the man page documents /usr/bin/time and not these built-in shell keywords. (BZ#443059)

* the proc pseudo file system includes a series of process status information directories at /proc/[number]/stat (where [number] is the Process ID or PID). There are 42 status parameters but the proc man page did not document the 42nd, delayacct_blkio_ticks. This parameter, which returns aggregated block I/O delays, is now documented. (BZ#452290)

* the proc man page referenced two external files incorrectly. In the Description section, Memory Type Range Registers (/proc/mtrr) details were referenced to /usr/src/linux/Documentation/mtrr.txt. The See Also section, referenced proc.txt to /usr/src/linux/Documentation/filesystems/. The referenced files are in /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-2.6.18/Documentation/ and the proc man page now reflects this. (BZ#456219)

* the POSIX man pages -- in /usr/share/man/man0p/, /usr/share/man/man1p/ and /usr/share/man/man3p/ -- document applications that are not necessarily included with Red Hat Enterprise Linux but the documentation did not note this. These pages now have a boilerplate PROLOG section added that notes this explicitly. (BZ#468897)

* the syslog facility, LOG_KERN, specified the kernel as the message source but did not note that this facility can be generated only by the kernel. The syslog man page now notes the LOG_KERN facility cannot be generated from user processes. (BZ#471176)

* the pthread_setaffinity_np (part of pthread.h) man page was not included in the man-pages package. It now is. (BZ#474238)

* the /proc/sys/fs/file-nr description in the proc man page still reflected file-nr's use by version 2.4.x of the Linux kernel. This description has been updated to reflect the file's use in version 2.6 of the kernel. (BZ#497197)

* the gai.conf man page included a repeated mis-spelling in its EXAMPLE section: precendence. This has been corrected to "precedence". (BZ#515346)

* zdump, a tool which returns the time in each timezone listed on the command line, includes a "--version" switch which returns zdump's version. The zdump man page did not list this option. The switch is now listed in the SYNOPSIS section as expected. (BZ#517309)

* the statfs man page has been completely updated. As well, "man statfs64" now displays the statfs documentation rather than the statfs64 page, which has been removed. This latter change removes a significant error in the previous (and prototype) statfs64 SYNOPSIS section. (BZ#518984)

* the aliases description in the nsswitch.conf man page was easily misconstrued to suggest aliases were not used at all. A re-written description makes it clear this database is used and clarifies the default SendMail configuration on Linux (which, by default, uses an alias resolution system independent of /etc/nsswitch.conf). (BZ#522761)

* the SOCKET OPTIONS section of the ip man page listed IP_MULTICAST_IF as taking ip_mreqn or ip_addr arguments. This is incorrect: IP_MULTICAST_IF takes arguments with ip_mreqn or in_addr structures. This update corrects the error. (BZ#524246)

* /proc/sys/fs/file-max defines a system-wide limit on the number of open files for all processes. This limit does not, however, apply to a root user (or any user with CAP_SYS_ADMIN privileges). This latter fact was not documented in the proc man page: it now is. (BZ#527196)

All man page users should upgrade to this updated package, which resolves these issues.