- Issued:
- 2004-01-16
- Updated:
- 2004-01-16
RHEA-2004:010 - Product Enhancement Advisory
Synopsis
Updated rpm packages address possible RPM database corruption
Type/Severity
Product Enhancement Advisory
Topic
Updated RPM packages that address possible RPM database corruption issues
are now available.
Description
The RPM Package Manager (RPM) is a powerful command line driven package
management system capable of installing, uninstalling verifying, querying,
and updating software packages.
Recent versions of RPM implemented concurrent database access by utilizing
new locking methods in the embedded db3 database. This new database locking
requires new functionality in the NPTL thread library. If NPTL is disabled,
a private method is used to access the database, and makes an effort to
place a cooperative lock on the database. There may be small windows where
a race condition would allow the RPM database to become corrupted if two
instances of RPM access the database concurrently, but use different access
methods.
Some third party applications require a LinuxThreads environment to
properly function and execute rpm to perform actions on the system. In
order to accommodate these applications, this release of RPM restarts
itself in an NPTL environment if the RPM_FORCE_NPTL environment variable is
set.
Users who are installing third party applications that require an
LD_ASSUME_KERNEL environment variable to be set during installation are
advised to upgrade to these erratum packages.
Solution
Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.
To update all RPMs for your particular architecture, run:
rpm -Fvh [filenames]
where [filenames] is a list of the RPMs you wish to upgrade. Only those
RPMs which are currently installed will be updated. Those RPMs which are
not installed but included in the list will not be updated. Note that you
can also use wildcards (*.rpm) if your current directory *only* contains the
desired RPMs.
Please note that this update is also available via Red Hat Network. Many
people find this an easier way to apply updates. To use Red Hat Network,
launch the Red Hat Update Agent with the following command:
up2date
This will start an interactive process that will result in the appropriate
RPMs being upgraded on your system.
If up2date fails to connect to Red Hat Network due to SSL
Certificate Errors, you need to install a version of the
up2date client with an updated certificate. The latest version of
up2date is available from the Red Hat FTP site and may also be
downloaded directly from the RHN website:
Affected Products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 3 x86_64
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 3 ia64
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 3 i386
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 3 x86_64
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 3 ia64
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 3 i386
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 3 s390x
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 3 s390
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 3 ppc
Fixes
(none)CVEs
(none)
References
(none)
The Red Hat security contact is secalert@redhat.com. More contact details at https://access.redhat.com/security/team/contact/.