Issued:
2015-07-22
Updated:
2015-07-22

RHBA-2015:1275 - qemu-kvm bug fix and enhancement update

Synopsis

qemu-kvm bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated qemu-kvm packages that fix one bug and add various enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on AMD64 and Intel 64 systems. The qemu-kvm packages provide the user-space component for running virtual machines using KVM.

This update fixes the following bug:

  • When a KVM virtual machine (VM) running on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 host was suspended to disk and then restored, the system time on the VM in some cases did not correctly synchronize with the system time on the host. With this update, the kvm-clock utility has been modified to reliably read the system time on the host, and the described problem no longer happens. (BZ#1115340)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancements:

  • Support has been added for qemu-kvm trace events during the system shutdown process, which allows users to get detailed diagnostics about systems shutdown requests issued by the "virsh shutdown" command or the virt-manager application. This provides users with enhanced capabilities for debugging KVM guest problems during shutdown. (BZ#1149120)

  • The qemu-img tool now uses the fallocate() system call when the "preallocation=full" option is specified. This makes the preallocation operation significantly faster if "preallocation=full" is used, and thus shortens the time necessary to prepare a new guest. (BZ#1040220)

  • With this update, qemu-kvm supports the "cache=directsync" option in the host file, which enables the use of the directsync cache mode on virtual disks. When "cache=directsync" is used, write operations on the guest are only completed when data is safely present on the disk, which increases data security during file transactions between guests. (BZ#1186914)

Users of qemu-kvm are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix this bug and add these enhancements. After installing this update, shut down all running virtual machines. Once all virtual machines have shut down, start them again for this update to take effect.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

For details on how to apply this update, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/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 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 Desktop6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop6i386

Updated Packages

  • qemu-img-0.12.1.2-2.479.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • qemu-kvm-debuginfo-0.12.1.2-2.479.el6.ppc64.rpm
  • qemu-guest-agent-0.12.1.2-2.479.el6.ppc64.rpm
  • qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.479.el6.src.rpm
  • qemu-guest-agent-0.12.1.2-2.479.el6.i686.rpm
  • qemu-guest-agent-0.12.1.2-2.479.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • qemu-kvm-tools-0.12.1.2-2.479.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • qemu-kvm-debuginfo-0.12.1.2-2.479.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • qemu-kvm-debuginfo-0.12.1.2-2.479.el6.i686.rpm
  • qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.479.el6.x86_64.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information