Issued:
2011-05-19
Updated:
2011-05-19

RHBA-2011:0564 - seabios bug fix and enhancement update

Synopsis

seabios bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory (none)

Topic

Updated SeaBIOS packages that fix several bugs and add various enhancements are now available.

Description

This SeaBIOS package is a legacy BIOS implementation which can be used as a coreboot payload.

This update contains the following bug fixes and updates:

  • When booting an MS-DOS 6.22 guest on an Intel host, SeaBIOS put the hardware in a state KVM couldn't handle, resulting in a crash. This patch restores segment limits in the handle_1589 code, so it no longer crashes. (BZ#622350)

  • The ability to specify boot order from the qemu command line will allow for better control of a guest's behavior. Qemu should build list of all bootable devices and pass the preferred order into Seabios. This update applies 28 patches in order to do this. These include creating a separate IPL entry for each CD/DVD qemu in seabios, providing full EDD 3.0 information for virtio disk, adding the romfile_name() and strchr() functions, as well as functions for boot device path parsing. It tracks the source of each optionrom deployed, renames add_ordered_drive() to add_drive() and is used in map_hd_drive(), among many others. This will significantly enhance a user's experience and level of control. (BZ#643688)

  • In order to support the above feature SeaBIOS needed to be rebased. Included in this patch are seven Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 local patches that are forward ported: fix resume from S3 with QXL device; set Type 3 (chassis) manufacturer information to "Red Hat"; set system manufacturer/product name to Red Hat/KVM; set BIOS vender/version fields to Seabios/0.5.1; allow vendor/manufacturer/version product names to be set on config.h (*); do not advertise hpet to a guest OS; set CONFIG_S3_RESUME_VGA_INIT to 1. (BZ#666922)

  • Previously, BIOS did not behave according to T13 EDD3.0 spec. This patch adds support for the spec, resulting in more information about interface and device paths. If a guest provides a buffer with enough space for T13 EDD information it will return EDD according to the T13 spec, otherwise it will use the Phoenix one. (BZ#673751)

  • On a Windows virtual machine it was possible to 'Safely Remove' too many devices, including the graphics adapter, the PCI to ISA bridge device, and the PCI RAM controller, resulting in system instability. This patch uses the _RMV method to indicate whether device can be removed, thus fixing the issue. (BZ#671544)

  • When guest was loaded to grub during reboot a "Guest moved using index from 0 to 580" error would occur, then the guest would quit. This update applies an upstream patch which sets vring_virtqueue to be zeroed, preventing old values being reused after reboot, fixing the problem. (BZ#668707)

  • When running 'CHAOS-Concurrent Hardware And OS test', it passes while the child job 'run pwrtest' failed. This update applies a patch that turns RTC_S4 FACP bit to on, fixing the problem (BZ#663240)

All users of SeaBIOS are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which resolves these issues.

Solution

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

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

Affected Products

ProductVersionArch
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop6x86_64

Updated Packages

  • seabios-0.6.1.2-3.el6.src.rpm
  • seabios-0.6.1.2-3.el6.x86_64.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information