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

RHBA-2011:0694 - gpxe bug fix update

Synopsis

gpxe bug fix update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated gpxe packages that fix two bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The gpxe packages provide an open source Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) implementation and bootloader. gPXE also supports additional protocols such as DNS, HTTP, iSCSI and ATA over Ethernet.

This update fixes the following bugs:

  • Devices that did not allow interrupts or required polling were not supported by gPXE UNDI code. This meant that booting did not work when using gPXE images on bare metal with some NICs, such as Emulex 10g. This patch allows the gPXE UNDI code to use polling for underlying devices that do not support interrupts. As a result it is now possible to use gPXE images to boot bare metal hosts using UNDI where it was not possible in some cases. (BZ#661840)

  • Virtual Machines (VM) with virtIO NIC could not access the PXE server, reaching a time out. This was because even though the VM could get an IP address from the DHCP server, it could not reach its own default gateway. The ARP requests that the VM sends were too large and thus not valid, so the default gateway did not answer those ARP requests. A patch has been added that sets the size of the transmitted Ethernet frame to header + data length, allowing the VM to boot via PXE. (BZ#672529)

All gPXE users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs.

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

  • gpxe-roms-0.9.7-6.7.el6.noarch.rpm
  • gpxe-roms-qemu-0.9.7-6.7.el6.noarch.rpm
  • gpxe-bootimgs-0.9.7-6.7.el6.noarch.rpm
  • gpxe-0.9.7-6.7.el6.src.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information