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

RHBA-2013:0529 - spice-server bug fix and enhancement update

Synopsis

spice-server bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated spice-server packages that fix several bugs and add various enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments (SPICE) is a remote display protocol for virtual environments. SPICE users can access a virtualized desktop or server from the local system or any system with network access to the server. SPICE is used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux for viewing virtualized guests running on the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor or on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisors.

The spice-server package has been upgraded to upstream version 0.12.0, which provides a number of bug fixes and enhancements over the previous version. (BZ#842353)

This update fixes the following bugs:

  • Previously, when the "-spice" command line option of the qemu-kvm command contained invalid parameters, the SPICE server terminated unexpectedly. This behavior has been modified, and SPICE server now returns a proper error value when incorrect parameters are passed. (BZ#787694)

  • Previously, resolution changes run in a loop on a guest virtual machine led the qemu-kvm process to fail with the SIGABRT signal. This was caused by calling the ring _remove() function twice by the red_worker script. This bug has been fixed, and qemu-kvm no longer crashes in the described case. (BZ#824384)

  • Previously, non-RGB images with masks were omitted when rendering the guest user interface with the spice-server package. Consequently, certain icons were rendered incorrectly. This bug has been fixed, and the rendering errors no longer occur. (BZ#864982)

  • Using the LZ compression for server self-created images resulted in incorrect stride values, which caused SPICE server to abort. With this update, the LZ compression is no longer used for these images to prevent SPICE server termination. (BZ#876685)

  • Previously, messages from a client to the spice-vdagent agent were received by SPICE server, even after the agent had already disconnected from the server. These messages were mishandled and in certain circumstances could cause SPICE server to terminate unexpectedly. Now, these messages are dropped by the server, thus preventing this bug. (BZ#881980)

  • When trying to change the settings of the "3D Flying Objects" screen saver, SPICE server was forced to access already freed pointers. Consequently, SPICE server terminated unexpectedly with a segmentation fault. With this update, the sequence of operations has been reordered to prevent the segmentation fault. (BZ#891326)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancements:

  • With this update, a seamless migration of the SPICE server has been enabled to ensure the full data transfer. This change required modifications in the QUEMU emulator and the libvirt library. The "seamless-migration=on" argument has been added to SPICE's QUEMU arguments. In case this argument is not set, SPICE returns to the old migration pathway. (BZ#836123)

  • This update adds support for multiple monitors and arbitrary screen resolutions. (BZ#842310)

All users of spice-server are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs and add 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 https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/articles/11258

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 - Retired Extended Life Cycle Support6x86_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

  • spice-server-0.12.0-12.el6.src.rpm
  • spice-server-debuginfo-0.12.0-12.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • spice-server-devel-0.12.0-12.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • spice-server-0.12.0-12.el6.x86_64.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information