Issued:

2014-10-13

Updated:

2014-10-13

RHBA-2014:1529 - system-config-kdump bug fix update

Synopsis

system-config-kdump bug fix update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory (none)

Topic

An updated system-config-kdump package that fixes several bugs is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The system-config-kdump tool is a graphical utility used to configure kernel crash dumping via the kdump and kexec utilities.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• On the IBM System z architecture, the system-config-kdump utility updated bootloader settings only when the kdump service was already running. However, since system-config-kdump does not run when kdump is disabled, it was impossible to enable kdump on the IBM System z architecture. With this update, the bootloader configuration updates regardless of the status of the kdump service, and the kdump feature can now be enabled on this architecture using the system-config-kdump interface. (BZ#962724)

• Prior to this update, the drop-down list of raw devices in the system-config-kdump interface incorrectly included partitions that were already in use. As a consequence, users could choose these partitions as the targets for copying the kdump file, which in turn corrupted the file system. With this update, the system-config-kdump interface only lists unused partitions in the list of raw devices, and it is therefore no longer possible for kdump to cause files system corruption in the described scenario. (BZ#1017611)

• Previously, the kdump parser of kernel parameters did not properly handle entries that contain quoted strings. As a consequence, modifying boot options via system-config-kdump on a system that used quoted strings in the kernel parameters could lead to the system failing to boot. With this update, the parser correctly accounts for quoted strings and kernel parameters with quoted strings are now handled properly. (BZ#987681)

• Prior to this update, the automatic kdump memory thresholds in system-config-kdump did not match their respective values in the kernel. Consequently, selecting the "Automated kdump memory setting" option in the system-config-kdump interface on some systems disabled kdump. The memory thresholds in system-config-kdump have been updated to reflect those in the kernel, and on systems with sufficient memory, "Automated kdump memory settings" no longer disables kdump. However, on systems with not enough memory, this option is disabled and the memory for kdump has to be configured manually. (BZ#1030533)

• Previously, system-config-kdump used an incorrect path to bootloader configuration on EFI systems using the GRUB bootloader on AMD64 and Intel 64 architectures. Consequently, it was not possible to configure kdump memory on these systems. This update adds the correct path to the list of known bootloader configuration paths, and it is now possible to configure kdump memory in the described circumstances. (BZ#977981)

Users of system-config-kdump are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which fixes 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/articles/11258

Affected Products

Updated Packages

• system-config-kdump-2.0.5-18.el6.noarch.rpm
• system-config-kdump-2.0.5-18.el6.src.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 877004

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.