Issued:

2009-10-15

Updated:

2010-03-30

RHBA-2009:1508 - pexpect bug fix update

Synopsis

pexpect bug fix update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory (none)

Topic

An updated pexpect package that fixes two bugs is now available.

Description

pexpect is a pure Python module for spawning child applications, controlling them, and responding to expected patterns in their output. Pexpect works like Don Libes' Expect. Pexpect allows your script to spawn a child application and control it as if a human were typing commands. Pexpect can be used for automating interactive applications such as ssh, ftp, passwd, telnet, etc. It can also be used to automate setup scripts for duplicating software package installations on different servers and for automated software testing.

This update addresses the following issues:

• pexpect was previously included in the unsupported Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) repository. It is now a supported package in Red Hat Enterprise Linux but is otherwise unchanged. The initial release of pexpect as a supported package included no changes at all and, as a consequence, did not obsolete the EPEL version. To ensure the supported package properly obsoletes the EPEL package, the Release value for this package was incremented. (BZ#481380)

• previously, the shebang lines in pexpect's python executables pointed to "/usr/bin/env python" rather than explicitly referencing the version of Python installed on the system. This broke these executables in the case of a user installing an alternative Python version. With this update, all shebang lines point explicitly to the system version at /usr/bin/python. (BZ#521891)

All pexpect users should install this updated package, which addresses these issues.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at This content is not included.http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

Updated Packages

• pexpect-2.3-3.el5.noarch.rpm
• pexpect-2.3-3.el5.src.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 481380
• This content is not included.BZ - 521891

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information

• The Red Hat security contact is This content is not included.secalert@redhat.com. More contact details at https://access.redhat.com/security/team/contact/.
• Offline Security Data data is available for integration with other systems. See Offline Security Data API to get started.