1.41. gdbm

An updated gdbm package that fixes a bug is now available.

The gdbm package is a GNU database indexing library, including routines which use extensible hashing.

This updated gdbm package fixes the following bug:

* Prior to this update, some applications performed poorly while using the "dbm_*" calls to perform operations on database files hosted on a NFS share. This was caused by thousands of flock calls made by the "gdbm_*" calls which in turn were called by the "dbm_*()" functions used in applications. These flock calls are inefficient when used over a NFS share since they result in a call being made over the wire and result in the cache on the NFS client being invalidated. This update adds a new environment variable "NDBM_LOCK". The "dbm_open" function now reads the "NDBM_LOCK" environment variable and if this variable is set to false ("NDBM_LOCK=false/no/off/0"), the "dbm_open" function does not lock the database. (BZ#668689)

All users of gdbm are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which resolves this issue.