Issued:

2014-10-13

Updated:

2014-10-13

RHBA-2014:1595 - procps bug fix and enhancement update

Synopsis

procps bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory (none)

Topic

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

Description

The procps packages contain a set of system utilities that provide system information. The procps packages include the following utilities: ps, free, skill, pkill, pgrep, snice, tload, top, uptime, vmstat, w, watch, and pwdx.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• The /lib64/libproc.so development symbolic link was present in both the main procps package and its devel sub-package. This caused file conflicts when installing the devel sub-package. This update removes the duplicate symbolic link from the main package so that the devel sub-package can be installed without problems. (BZ#950748)

• The 'free' command always displayed zero in the 'shared' column as the procps-ng library was attempting to read from non-existent 'MemShared' field in /proc/meminfo file. With this update, the 'shared' column is reused for a value representing the 'MemShared' field, thus fixing this bug.

This update also introduces a new '-a' option for the free command that enables a new column that represents a recently added field called 'MemAvailable'. The kernel does not export this field by default, so it needs to be explicitly enabled. Refer to the free(1) man page for more details. (BZ#963799)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancements:

• Previously, only one configuration file could be passed to the 'sysctl' tool with the '-p' option. This update allows users to pass multiple configuration files with this option. As a result, users can perform shell expansion by using braces and wildcard characters. (BZ#977467)

• With this update, the 'top' and 'watch' tools accept floating point numbers representing the polling or refresh intervals. Both widely used floating point separators ('.' and ',') can be applied, regardless of the locale settings in use. (BZ#1105125)

• This update introduces man pages for the openproc(), readproc() and readproctab() functions available in the libproc library. These manuals help writing applications that utilize the aforementioned functions. (BZ#1034337)

• This update introduces a new 'q' option (alternatively '-q' or '--quick-pid') to the 'ps' command. This option is essentially a speed-optimized enhancement of the 'p' option. The new option is recommended in cases where users only need to specify a list of PIDs to be shown, and do not need other selection and sorting options. (BZ#1060681)

• This update also enhances several man pages. (BZ#1011216, BZ#1082877, BZ#1089817)

Users of procps 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/articles/11258

Affected Products

Updated Packages

• procps-debuginfo-3.2.8-30.el6.s390.rpm
• procps-debuginfo-3.2.8-30.el6.i686.rpm
• procps-devel-3.2.8-30.el6.x86_64.rpm
• procps-devel-3.2.8-30.el6.s390x.rpm
• procps-3.2.8-30.el6.s390.rpm
• procps-devel-3.2.8-30.el6.i686.rpm
• procps-3.2.8-30.el6.ppc.rpm
• procps-debuginfo-3.2.8-30.el6.ppc.rpm
• procps-3.2.8-30.el6.src.rpm
• procps-devel-3.2.8-30.el6.ppc64.rpm
• procps-debuginfo-3.2.8-30.el6.x86_64.rpm
• procps-3.2.8-30.el6.s390x.rpm
• procps-3.2.8-30.el6.ppc64.rpm
• procps-3.2.8-30.el6.i686.rpm
• procps-debuginfo-3.2.8-30.el6.ppc64.rpm
• procps-devel-3.2.8-30.el6.ppc.rpm
• procps-debuginfo-3.2.8-30.el6.s390x.rpm
• procps-3.2.8-30.el6.x86_64.rpm
• procps-devel-3.2.8-30.el6.s390.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 950748
• This content is not included.BZ - 1105125

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.