Issued:
2013-08-01
Updated:
2013-11-20

RHBA-2013:1129 - mailx bug fix update

Synopsis

mailx bug fix update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory (none)

Topic

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

Description

The mailx packages contain a mail user agent that is mostly used to manage mail using scripts.

This update fixes the following bugs:

  • Prior to this update, the "mail" utility provided with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 mailx packages was not fully compatible with the utility provided with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 mailx package and packages in earlier releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Consequently, some user scripts written for the mail utility did not work with "mail" in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. Support for multiple versions of the "mail" utility has been added to the mailx packages. This allows the user to install alternative packages providing this utility, for example, bsd-mailx. (BZ#845098)

  • The mailx command did not set the error return code when it failed to send an e-mail because the TMPDIR environment variable was set to an invalid path. As a consequence, error checking was incorrect and therefore not helpful. With this update, the correct return code is set when mailx fails to send an e-mail. The error checking now works properly. (BZ#857120)

Users of mailx 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 https://access.redhat.com/site/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

  • mailx-12.4-7.el6.i686.rpm
  • mailx-12.4-7.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • mailx-debuginfo-12.4-7.el6.i686.rpm
  • mailx-debuginfo-12.4-7.el6.s390x.rpm
  • mailx-debuginfo-12.4-7.el6.ppc64.rpm
  • mailx-12.4-7.el6.s390x.rpm
  • mailx-12.4-7.el6.ppc64.rpm
  • mailx-debuginfo-12.4-7.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • mailx-12.4-7.el6.src.rpm

Fixes

(none)

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information