Issued:

2014-09-16

Updated:

2014-09-16

RHBA-2014:1198 - perl bug fix update

Synopsis

perl bug fix update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated perl packages that fix several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

Description

Perl is a high-level programming language that is commonly used for system administration utilities and web programming.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• When a Perl script was installing a custom signal handler and then received a signal while exiting, the code tried to access the interpreter structure which had already been torn down. As a consequence, Perl terminated with a segmentation fault. With this update, the code resets the signal handler to SIG_DFL before calling the perl_destruct() function, so it does not request thread-specific interpreter structure. Now, Perl scripts no longer crash in the described situation. (BZ#991854)

• An incorrect implementation of the NDBM_File module caused using the exists() function on dbmopen()-bound variables to fail with the following warning:

  AnyDBM_File doesn't define an EXISTS method

The database preference list has been modified to move the NDBM_File module to a less significant place. Now, Perl code which uses dbmopen() defaults to the Berkeley DB database type and no longer fails in the described situation. (BZ#1018721)

• The Perl Locale::Maketext localization framework did not properly translate the backslash () characters. As a consequence, Perl rendered the backslashes as double (\). With this update, Perl no longer escapes the backslashes in literal output strings, and they appear correctly. (BZ#1029016)

• Previously, it was not possible to convert dates beyond year 2038 using the timegm() function on 64-bit systems. After this update, Perl detects 64-bit systems correctly and timegm() successfully converts calendar time into seconds since the Unix epoch. Note that using timegm() with dates beyond year 2038 is still not possible on a 32-bit system, because the time_t type is not large enough. (BZ#1057047)

Users of perl 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

Updated Packages

• perl-debuginfo-5.8.8-42.el5.i386.rpm
• perl-debuginfo-5.8.8-42.el5.s390x.rpm
• perl-suidperl-5.8.8-42.el5.s390x.rpm
• perl-debuginfo-5.8.8-42.el5.ia64.rpm
• perl-suidperl-5.8.8-42.el5.ia64.rpm
• perl-suidperl-5.8.8-42.el5.ppc.rpm
• perl-suidperl-5.8.8-42.el5.i386.rpm
• perl-5.8.8-42.el5.ppc.rpm
• perl-5.8.8-42.el5.x86_64.rpm
• perl-debuginfo-5.8.8-42.el5.x86_64.rpm
• perl-5.8.8-42.el5.ia64.rpm
• perl-5.8.8-42.el5.i386.rpm
• perl-debuginfo-5.8.8-42.el5.ppc.rpm
• perl-5.8.8-42.el5.src.rpm
• perl-5.8.8-42.el5.s390x.rpm
• perl-suidperl-5.8.8-42.el5.x86_64.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 1029016
• This content is not included.BZ - 1057047

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.