Issued:
2012-02-20
Updated:
2012-02-20

RHBA-2012:0195 - xenpv-win bug fix update

Synopsis

xenpv-win bug fix update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated xenpv-win package that fixes various bugs is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

Description

The xenpv-win package contains installation images for para-virtualized drivers for guests running Windows XP or later on Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts. Para-virtualized drivers provide significant network and disk I/O performance improvements for fully virtualized guests over the same guests running with fully virtualized drivers.

This updated package provides CD-ROM images containing the para-virtualized network and disk drivers for instances of Windows XP or later, running on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux host.

This update fixes the following bugs:

  • Due to different requirements imposed by Linux and Windows on the implementation of checksum offloading, Windows Server 2003 guests running with para-virtualized drivers previously experienced many TCP retransmissions and showed poor network performance. With this update, checksum offloading has been disabled in the drivers and TCP sessions on Windows Server 2003 guests no longer exhibit problematic behavior. (BZ#718329)

  • Previously, the para-virtualized Xen network driver did not report when it consumed packets. As a result, when using traffic control on virtual networks, Windows virtual machines dropped packets. Now, the driver correctly implements the "rx-notify" feature, packet consumption is reported promptly to the network back end running on domain 0, and traffic control does not cause unexpected packet drops. (BZ#697999)

  • Para-virtualized Xen drives did not handle properly the "MODE SENSE" command. Consequently, Windows guests failed to initialize a mirror or a striped dynamic volume that included a para-virtualized Xen drive, leaving the volume in a failed state. With this update, the "MODE SENSE" command implementation has been fixed and dynamic volumes now work properly with para-virtualized Xen drives. (BZ#692961)

  • A variable was not reset to NULL when Windows XP sent a ScsiStopAdapter control message to the RHELSCSI driver. Consequently, when running the debug version of the drivers on Windows XP, an assertion failure was reported during hibernation. Now, the stored device extension is reset to NULL when the adapter is stopped and the assertion failure no longer occurs. (BZ#685049)

  • Previously, Windows guests did not acknowledge the "xm shutdown -H" command run from a host. Consequently, attempting to turn off a Windows virtual machine with "xm shutdown -H" failed. Furthermore, it prevented "xm shutdown" from working until the virtual machine was rebooted. Now, the para-virtualized Xen network driver triggers a shutdown of a virtual machine when "xm shutdown -H" is sent, thus fixing this bug. (BZ#725342)

  • Due to different requirements imposed by Linux and Windows on the implementation of checksum offloading, Windows guests running with para-virtualized drivers were unable to communicate with other guests running on the same host. With this update, checksum offloading has been disabled in the drivers and communication between Windows guests running on the same host now works correctly. (BZ#657540)

  • Para-virtualized Xen drives did not handle properly the "READ CAPACITY(16)" command. Consequently, the "SCSI compliance test" in the Windows Logo Kit failed. Now, the "READ CAPACITY(16)" command implementation has been fixed and the compliance tests for it no longer fail.

Note that this bug does not cause any known problem in normal operation. (BZ#734813)

All users of xenpv-win are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which fixes 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 Workstation5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation5i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server5i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI5i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop5i386

Updated Packages

  • xenpv-win-debug-1.3.12-3.el5.noarch.rpm
  • xenpv-win-1.3.12-3.el5.noarch.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information