Issued:
2013-02-20
Updated:
2013-02-20

RHBA-2013:0430 - ksh bug fix and enhancement update

Synopsis

ksh bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory (none)

Topic

Updated ksh packages that fix several bugs and add one enhancement are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

KSH-93 is the most recent version of the KornShell by David Korn of AT&T Bell Laboratories. KornShell is a shell programming language which is also compatible with sh, the original Bourne Shell.

This update fixes the following bugs:

  • Originally, ksh buffered output of a subshell, flushing it when the subshell completed. This slowed certain processes that waited for a particular output, because they had to wait for the subshell to complete. Moreover, it made it difficult to determine the order of events. The new version of ksh flushes output of the subshell every time the subshell executes a new command. Thanks to this change, processes waiting for the subshell output receive their data after every subshell command and the order of events is preserved. (BZ#827512)

  • Previously, the sfprints() function was unsafe to be called during the shell initialization, which could corrupt the memory. Consequently, assigning a right-aligned variable to a smaller size could result in inappropriate output format. With this update, the sfprints() call is no longer used in the described scenario, which fixes the format of the output. (BZ#846663)

  • Due to a bug in the typeset command, when executed with the -Z option, output was being formatted to an incorrect width. As a result, exporting a right-aligned variable of a smaller size than the predefined field size caused it to not be prepended with the "0" character. A patch has been provided and the typeset command now works as expected in the aforementioned scenario. (BZ#846678)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancement:

  • With this update, ksh has been enhanced to support logging of the shell output. (BZ#869155)

Users of ksh are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs and add this enhancement.

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 https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/articles/11258

Affected Products

ProductVersionArch
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian6ppc64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems6s390x
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 Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension (for IBM z Systems)6s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems)6s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop6i386

Updated Packages

  • ksh-20100621-19.el6.ppc64.rpm
  • ksh-20100621-19.el6.src.rpm
  • ksh-debuginfo-20100621-19.el6.s390x.rpm
  • ksh-20100621-19.el6.s390x.rpm
  • ksh-20100621-19.el6.i686.rpm
  • ksh-20100621-19.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • ksh-debuginfo-20100621-19.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • ksh-debuginfo-20100621-19.el6.ppc64.rpm
  • ksh-debuginfo-20100621-19.el6.i686.rpm

Fixes

(none)

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information