Bug Fix Advisory perl bug fix and enhancement update

Advisory: RHBA-2009:1244-1
Type: Bug Fix Advisory
Severity: N/A
Issued on: 2009-09-02
Last updated on: 2009-09-02
Affected Products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client)
OVAL: N/A

Details

Updated perl packages that fix several bugs and add various enhancements
are now available.

Perl is a high-level programming language with roots in C, sed, awk and
shell scripting. Perl is good at handling processes and files, and is
especially good at handling text.

These updated perl packages provide fixes for the following bugs:

* the Time::HiRes Perl module is incompatible with the latest version of
glibc, which caused setitimer errors to be written to /var/log/dmesg when
the alarm() function of HiRes was called with a time greater than one
second. With this update, the Time::HiRes module calls setitimer with the
correct parameters and no error messages are written to /var/log/dmesg,
thus resolving this issue. (BZ#453327)

* on multilib systems such as AMD64, the libnet.cfg Perl configuration
file, which controls whether CPAN requests use active or passive FTP, was
located in the /usr/lib64/perl5/5.8.5/Net/ directory, where it had no
effect. This has been corrected with this update: libnet.cfg is now located
in the /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.5/Net/ directory, where its active/passive FTP
settings properly affect CPAN requests. (BZ#490107)

* the @INC array is a list of directories that Perl searches when
attempting to load modules. The @INC array became quite large, which
negatively affected performance and led to verbose error messages. Instead
of adding all search paths to the @INC array, this update populates it only
with those paths which actually do exist at the startup of the interpreter,
thus culling nonexistent paths. In this way, performance is improved and
compatibility with installations of older modules is retained. (BZ#489909)

In addition, these updated packages provide the following enhancements:

* the File::Temp module has been updated to version 0.18. (BZ#458851)

* the Scalar::Util and List::Util modules have been updated to version
1.21. (BZ#507378)

Users are advised to upgrade to these updated perl packages, which resolve
these issues and add these enhancements.


Solution

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

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-11259

Updated packages

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server)

SRPMS:
perl-5.8.8-27.el5.src.rpm     b691a0ea9f7ff3f9af357f4aae61d6e4
 
IA-32:
perl-5.8.8-27.el5.i386.rpm     8be745bae8f1337846e303a56198e7d3
perl-suidperl-5.8.8-27.el5.i386.rpm     566d02763224214587e7ce9968230ac9
 
IA-64:
perl-5.8.8-27.el5.ia64.rpm     c9539294616347d284e3164ca41356cf
perl-suidperl-5.8.8-27.el5.ia64.rpm     b42973e7b52c9e7c9707c940ad6b01fb
 
PPC:
perl-5.8.8-27.el5.ppc.rpm     4f2a3c43dab165c25ef40e10a73153ba
perl-suidperl-5.8.8-27.el5.ppc.rpm     4a14605a2cdf927ee775eb0239366880
 
s390x:
perl-5.8.8-27.el5.s390x.rpm     41c3a8b80102dc5738f5d9c9bafa4ef7
perl-suidperl-5.8.8-27.el5.s390x.rpm     3caa0f9dd6de7221d3d3fa01807d50d0
 
x86_64:
perl-5.8.8-27.el5.x86_64.rpm     5ed3a89aa606f1a25a72abefafa40cfa
perl-suidperl-5.8.8-27.el5.x86_64.rpm     b4dde890a5d07e7597f04b90d722e7f3
 
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client)

SRPMS:
perl-5.8.8-27.el5.src.rpm     b691a0ea9f7ff3f9af357f4aae61d6e4
 
IA-32:
perl-5.8.8-27.el5.i386.rpm     8be745bae8f1337846e303a56198e7d3
perl-suidperl-5.8.8-27.el5.i386.rpm     566d02763224214587e7ce9968230ac9
 
x86_64:
perl-5.8.8-27.el5.i386.rpm     8be745bae8f1337846e303a56198e7d3
perl-5.8.8-27.el5.x86_64.rpm     5ed3a89aa606f1a25a72abefafa40cfa
perl-suidperl-5.8.8-27.el5.x86_64.rpm     b4dde890a5d07e7597f04b90d722e7f3
 
(The unlinked packages above are only available from the Red Hat Network)

Bugs fixed (see bugzilla for more information)

453327 - Time::HiRes V1.86 does work correctly with current glibc
489909 - @INC path too large
490107 - perl configuration file libnet.cfg in wrong directory
507378 - update Scalar::Util to the latest cpan release


Keywords

collectl, File::Temp, INC, libnet.cfg, paths, PERL, perl, Time::HiRes


These packages are GPG signed by Red Hat for security. Our key and details on how to verify the signature are available from:
https://www.redhat.com/security/team/key/#package

The Red Hat security contact is secalert@redhat.com. More contact details at http://www.redhat.com/security/team/contact/