Issued:
2011-12-06
Updated:
2011-12-06

RHBA-2011:1720 - grub bug fix and enhancement update

Synopsis

grub bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory (none)

Topic

An updated grub package that fixes three bugs and adds two enhancements is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The GRUB utility is responsible for booting the operating system kernel.

This update fixes the following bugs:

  • Due to an error in the underlying source code, previous versions of GRUB may have failed to boot in Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) mode. This happened, because GRUB was making UEFI calls without aligning the stack pointer to a 16-byte boundary. With this update, a patch has been applied to correct this error, and GRUB now boots in UEFI mode as expected. (BZ#677468)

  • Prior to this update, an attempt to install GRUB on a CCISS device may have caused the grub-install utility to report the following error:

    expr: non-numeric argument

When this happened, grub-install failed to install GRUB on this device, but incorrectly reported success and returned a zero exit status. This update applies a patch that ensures that GRUB can now be successfully installed on such devices. (BZ#736833)

  • When looking for its configuration file, the previous versions of GRUB did not respect vendor-specific EFI device path. With this update, the underlying source code has been adapted to use the vendor-specific EFI-device path as expected. (BZ#746106)

As well, this update adds the following enhancements:

  • Prior to this update, the GRUB boot loader was unable to boot from boot drives that were larger than 2.2 TB. This update adds support for such devices on UEFI systems. (BZ#629408)

  • On BIOS-based systems, previous versions of GRUB were only able to boot from first eight disk drives. This update allows GRUB to boot from up to 128 disk drives on these systems. (BZ#671355)

All users of grub are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which fixes these bugs and adds these enhancements.

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 Workstation6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop6i386

Updated Packages

  • grub-debuginfo-0.97-75.el6.i686.rpm
  • grub-debuginfo-0.97-75.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • grub-0.97-75.el6.src.rpm
  • grub-0.97-75.el6.i686.rpm
  • grub-0.97-75.el6.x86_64.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information