- EXT3 Enhancement
The maximum capacity of the EXT3 is now 16TB (increased from 8TB). This enhancement was originally included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 as a Technology Preview, and is now fully supported in this update.
- yum-security
It is now possible to limit yum
to install security updates only. To do so, simply install the yum-security
plugin and run the following command:
yum update --security
- Anaconda layer 2 Mode Enhancement
Anaconda now supports connections to a VSWITCH, GuestLAN, or OSA in layer 2
mode. The installer now prompts for the mode in the initial stage of the installation. The value provided for the mode also affects the resulting network interface startup script after installation.
For layer 2
installations, the value OPTIONS="layer2=1"
is written to ifcfg-eth0
; for layer 3
, the value ARP=no
is written.
Note that when installing on a System z guest, you can make the mode persistent. To do so, add either LAYER2=0
or LAYER2=1
to the CMS configration file. Use LAYER2=0
when the OSA is in layer 3
mode, and LAYER2=1
when the OSA is in layer 2
mode.
When specifying LAYER2=1
, you can also specify VSWITCH=1
when connecting to a VSWITCH, or VSWITCH=0
when connecting directly to the OSA. If a VSWITCH is not in use, specify the MAC address in the CMS configuration file using the parameter MACADDR=<MAC address>
.
- Restarting a Resource Independently
It is now possible to restart a resource in a cluster without interrupting its parent service. This can be configured in /etc/cluster/cluster.conf
on a running node using the __independent_subtree="1"
attribute to tag a resource as independent.
For example:
<service name="example">
<fs name="One" __independent_subtree="1" ...>
<nfsexport ...>
<nfsclient .../>
</nfsexport>
</fs>
<fs name="Two" ...>
<nfsexport ...>
<nfsclient .../>
</nfsexport>
<script name="Database" .../>
</fs>
<ip/>
</service>
Here, two file system resources are used: One
and Two
. If One
fails, it is restarted without interrupting Two
. If Two
fails, all components (One
, children of One
and children of Two
) are restarted. At no given time are Two
and its children dependent on any resource provided by One
.
Note that Samba requires a specific service structure, and as such it cannot be used in a service with independent subtrees. This is also true for several other resources, so use the __independent_subtree="1"
attribute with caution.
- Virtualization
The following Virtualization updates are also included in this release:
AMD-V is now supported in this release. This enables live domain migration for fully virtualized guests.
The in-kernel socket API is now expanded. This was done to fix a bug that occurs when running sctp
between guests.
Virtual networking is now part of libvirt
, the virtualization library. libvirt
has a set of commands that sets up a virtual NAT/router and private network for all local guests on a machine. This is especially useful for guests that do not need to be routable from the outside. It is also useful for developers who use Virtualization on laptops.
Note that the virtual networking capability adds a dependency on dnsmasq
, which handles dhcp
for the virtual network.
libvirt
can now manage inactive virtual machines. libvirt
does this by defining and undefining domains without stopping or starting them. This functionality is similar to the virsh define
and virsh undefine
commands.
This enhancement allows the Red Hat Virtual Machine Manager to display all available guests. This allows you to start these guests directly from the GUI.
Installing the kernel-xen
package no longer leads to the creation of incorrect / incomplete elilo.conf
entries.
The xm create
command now has a graphical equivalent in virt-manager
.
Nested Paging (NP) is now supported. This feature reduces the complexity of memory management in virtualized environments. In addition, NP also reduces CPU utilization in memory-intensive guests.
At present, NP is not enabled by default. If your system supports NP, it is recommended that you enable NP by booting the hypervisor with the parameter hap=1
.
- Shared Page Tables
Shared page tables are now supported for hugetlb
memory. This enables page table entries to be shared among multiple processes.
Sharing page table entries among multiple processes consumes less cache space. This improves application cache hit ratio, resulting in better application performance.
- Installing to dm-multipath Devices
Anaconda now has the capability to detect, create, and install to dm-multipath devices. To enable this feature, add the parameter mpath
to the kernel boot line.
This feature was originally introduced in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 as a Technology Preview, and is now fully supported in this release.
Note that dm-multipath
also features inbox support for the Dell MD3000. However, multiple nodes that use dm-multipath
to access the MD3000 cannot perform immediate failback.
Further, it is recommended that you use the interface in Anaconda if your system has both multipath and non-multipath devices. Using in such cases may create both types of devices in the same logical volume groups.
At present, the following restrictions apply to this feature:
If there is only one path to the boot Logical Unit Number (LUN), Anaconda installs to the SCSI device even if mpath
is specified. Even after you enable multiple paths to the boot LUN and recreate the initrd
, the operating system will will boot from the SCSI device instead of the dm-multipath
device.
However, if there are multiple paths to the boot LUN to begin with, Anaconda will correctly install to the corresponding dm-multipath
device after mpath
is specified in the kernel boot line.
By default, user_friendly_names
is set to yes
in multipath.conf
. This is a required setting in the support implementation of the dm-multipath
root device. As such, setting user_friendly_names
to no
and recreating the initrd
will result in a boot failure with the following error:
Checking filesystems
fsck.ext3: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/mapper/mpath0p1
- Booting from Storage Area Network (SAN)
The ability to boot from a SAN disk device is now supported. In this case, SAN refers to a Fibre Channel or iSCSI interface. This capability also features support for system-to-storage connection through multiple paths using dm-multipath
.
In configurations that use multiple host bus adapters (HBA), you may need to set the system BIOS to boot from another adapter if all paths through the current adapter fail.
- Driver Update Program
The Driver Update Program (DUP) was designed to allow third-party vendors (such as OEMs) to add their own device drivers and other Linux Kernel Modules to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 systems using regular RPM packages as the distribution containers.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 applies several updates to the DUP, most notably:
install-time Driver Update RPMs through Driver Update Disks is now supported
bootpath Driver Updates affecting the system bootpath are now supported
support for third-party packaging of Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) is now deprecated
Further, various updates were applied to the approved kernel ABI symbol whitelists. These whitelists are used by packaging drivers to determine which symbols and data structures provided by the kernel can be used in a third-party driver.