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Optional update for Linux kernel (k_smp)

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(Last modified: 04JAN2003)

solutions Optional update for Linux kernel (k_smp) SuSE Linux Maintenance Web (23acbbfccab362b6cd7e2cba558af990)

Applies to

Product(s): SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 for x86
SuSE Linux Openexchange Server 4

Package: k_smp
Release: 20030104
Obsoletes: none

Indications

Kernel update for Oracle certification.
This article applies to systems with the k_smp kernel package installed, please use the appropriate kernel package if you are using a different kernel:
You can find out which kernel package you are using with
rpm -qf /boot/vmlinuz

Contraindications

If you use 3rd party binary-only kernel modules first check with your vendor for compatibility.

Description

This kernel contains several bugfixes and driver updates. Use of this kernel is mandatory when you plan to run Oracle on UnitedLinux 1.0 based systems and recommended in all other cases.
Fixes
  • Fix fractured block problem (implemented by adding blk-atomic feature).
  • Add several performance and scalability improvements for SMP systems.
  • Fix a longstanding TCP problem that can lead to hanging SSH sessions.
  • Fix possible data exposure and data corruption caused by abusing O_DIRECT.
  • Prevent statfs overflow for huge NFS filesystems.
  • Enable support for more than 256 SCSI hard disks by default on SMP systems.
  • Fix problem in O_DIRECT implementation when reading files with holes in it.
  • Fix possible lockup on full reiserfs when blocksize != pagesize.
  • Fix possible oops when trying to free pages in async-I/O.
  • Fix longstanding off-by-one error in keventd initialization that can lead to system freeze.
  • Fix MD RAID1 oops when a disk has failed.
  • Fix possible data loss on umount when the filesystem is mounted with "data=journal" option.
  • Prevent possible ETXTBSY errors.
  • Fix scheduler problem where an RT task can hang the system.
  • Fix O_DIRECT for filesystems with a blocksize less than 4k.
  • Fix system crash when using bigpages under certain circumstances.
  • Add workaround for AMD errata #56 for 768MPX chipset.
  • Fix problem in SCSI midlayer that leads to inferior performance for some AIC7xxx adapters.
  • Fix handling of Unisys ES7000 interrupt override for PCI range.
  • Fix file mark handling bug in osst that breaks some backup programs.
  • Fix LVM major checking in XFS.
  • xfs ACLs: return ERANGE instead of E2BIG if number of entries overflows.
Driver updates
  • IBM ServeRaid driver downgraded to 5.11. Some machines seem to have problems when firmware version and driver version don't match (there is no firmware version 6.00 available yet). Use newer driver version 6.0.0 only on IA64..
  • Update cciss driver to 2.4.42.
  • Update megaraid driver to 1.18e.

Solution

Please install the updates provided at the location noted below.

Installation notes

This update is provided as an RPM package that can easily be installed onto a running system by using these commands:
rpm -Uvh k_smp.rpm mkinitrd
In case you are using lilo, please make sure that you also execute the command
lilo
after installing the update and running mkinitrd for the system to remain bootable.
Finally, reboot the system with
shutdown -r now
to load the new kernel (replace "now" with the appropriate amount of time to allow local users to cleanly log out, for example "+5" for five minutes.)

links to download packages

Download Source Packages

Download the source code of the patches for maintained products.

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