Issued:

2013-11-20

Updated:

2013-11-20

RHBA-2013:1580 - hdparm bug fix and enhancement update

Synopsis

hdparm bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory (none)

Topic

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

Description

Hdparm is a useful system utility for setting (E)IDE hard drive parameters. For example, hdparm can be used to tweak hard drive performance and to spin down hard drives for power conservation.

The hdparm packages have been upgraded to upstream version 9.43, which provides a number of bug fixes and enhancements over the previous version. These enhancements include creating files with the desired size on the ext4 and xfs filesystems, and a possibility to specify the offset for reading operations when measuring timing performance. Other notable enhancements include an ability to obtain and set the "idle3" timeout value of the Western Digital Green (WDG) hard drive, and an ability to obtain and set the Write-Read-Verify feature for hard drives. (BZ#977800)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, the hdparm utility did not assume that some disk information could be unavailable. As a consequence, hdparm could terminate unexpectedly with no useful output. With this update, proper checks for unsuccessful disk queries have been added, and hdparm now terminates with a more detailed error message. (BZ#639623)

• Prior to this update, the hdparm utility did not assume that some disk information could be unavailable when the user requested information about how much disk space a file occupied. Consequently, hdparm terminated unexpectedly with no useful output in such a scenario. With this update, proper checks for unsuccessful disk queries have been added. As a result, hdparm now terminates with an error message providing detailed information. (BZ#735887)

• Previously, the hdparm utility retrieved the hard drive identification data in a way that could cause errors. As a consequence, hdparm failed to obtain the data on some occasions and displayed an unhelpful error message. With this update, the respective system call has been replaced with one that is more appropriate and robust. As a result, the hard drive identification data is now successfully obtained and printed in the output. (BZ#807056)

• When the hdparm utility is unable to obtain the necessary geometry information about a hard drive, it attempts to download firmware. Previously, due to incorrect control statements, hdparm could terminate unexpectedly with a segmentation fault at such a download attempt. With this update, control statements checking for system call failures have been added. As a result, if hdparm cannot operate on a drive, it displays an error message and exits cleanly. (BZ#862257)

Users of hdparm 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/site/articles/11258

Affected Products

Updated Packages

• hdparm-9.43-4.el6.x86_64.rpm
• hdparm-9.43-4.el6.src.rpm
• hdparm-9.43-4.el6.i686.rpm
• hdparm-debuginfo-9.43-4.el6.i686.rpm
• hdparm-debuginfo-9.43-4.el6.x86_64.rpm
• hdparm-debuginfo-9.43-4.el6.ppc64.rpm
• hdparm-9.43-4.el6.ppc64.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 992922

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information

• The Red Hat security contact is This content is not included.secalert@redhat.com. More contact details at https://access.redhat.com/security/team/contact/.
• Offline Security Data data is available for integration with other systems. See Offline Security Data API to get started.