FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE Errata

The FreeBSD Project

$FreeBSD: - src/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/errata/article.sgml,v - 1.9.2.4 2003/01/14 18:12:50 roam Exp $
+ src/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/errata/article.sgml,v 1.18 + 2003/01/16 23:58:28 bmah Exp $

This document lists errata items for FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE, containing significant information discovered after the release. This information includes security advisories, as well as news relating to the software or documentation that could affect its operation or usability. An up-to-date version of this document should always be consulted before installing this version of FreeBSD.

This errata document for FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE will be maintained until the release of FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE.

1 Introduction

This errata document contains ``late-breaking news'' about FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE. Before installing this version, it is important to consult this document to learn about any post-release discoveries or problems that may already have been found and fixed.

Any version of this errata document actually distributed with the release (for example, on a CDROM distribution) will be out of date by definition, but other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be consulted as the ``current errata'' for this release. These other copies of the errata are located at http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/, plus any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this location.

Source and binary snapshots of FreeBSD 5-CURRENT also contain up-to-date copies of this document (as of the time of the snapshot).

For a list of all FreeBSD CERT security advisories, see http://www.FreeBSD.org/security/ or ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/CERT/.

2 Security Advisories

No active security advisories.

3 Late-Breaking News

The + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=geom&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> geom(4)-based disk partitioning code in the kernel will not allow an open partition to be overwritten. This usually prevents the use of disklabel -B to update the boot blocks on a disk because the a partition overlaps the space where the boot blocks are stored. A suggested workaround is to boot from an alternate disk, a CDROM, or a fixit floppy.

When using disk media with sector sizes larger than 512 bytes (for instance, + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gbde&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> gbde(4) encrypted disks), the + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=dump&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> dump(8) program fails to respect the larger sector size and cannot dump the partition. One possible workaround is to copy the entire file system in raw format and dump the copy. It is, for instance, possible to dump a file system stored in a regular file:

     # dd if=/dev/ad0s1d.bde of=/junk/ad0.dd bs=1m
     # dump 0f - /junk/ad0.dd | ...

A simpler workaround is to use + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=tar&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> tar(1) or + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=cpio&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> cpio(1) to make backup copies.

Hangs have been reported during FreeBSD 5.0 snapshot installations when installing to + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mly&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> mly(4)-supported RAID arrays, in hardware configurations that appear to work fine under FreeBSD 4.7-RELEASE.

NETNCP and nwfs appear to be as-yet unadapted for KSE, and hence not working.

During installation, the + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=iir&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> iir(4) controller appears to probe correctly, but finds no disk devices.

+ href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=truss&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> truss(1) appears to contain a race condition during the start-up of debugging, which can result in + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=truss&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> truss(1) failing to attach to the process before it exists. The symptom is that + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=truss&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> truss(1) reports that it cannot open the + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=procfs&sektion=5&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> procfs(5) node supporting the process being debugged. A bug also appears to exist wherein + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=truss&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> truss(1) will hang if + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=execve&sektion=2&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> execve(2) returns ENOENT A further race appears to exist in which + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=truss&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> truss(1) will return ``PIOCWAIT: Input/output error'' occasionally on startup. The fix for this sufficiently changes process execution handling that it has been deferred until after 5.0.

Some bugs have been reported in + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sysinstall&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> sysinstall(8) disk partitioning. One observed problem on the i386 is that + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sysinstall&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> sysinstall(8) cannot recalculate the free space left on a disk after changing the type of an FDISK-type partition.

In some case, documentation (such as the FAQ or Handbook) has not been updated to take into account FreeBSD - 5.0-RELEASE features. Examples of areas where documentation + 5.0-CURRENT features. Examples of areas where documentation is still needed include + href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gbde&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+5.0-current"> gbde(8) and the new ``fast IPsec'' implementation.

+ +

Attempting to unmount smbfs shares may fail with ``Device busy'' errors even when the + mount-point is not really busy. A workaround is to keep + trying to unmount the share until it eventually succeeds. + This bug has been fixed in 5.0-CURRENT.

+ +

Forcefully unmounting (umount + -f) smbfs shares may cause a kernel panic. This bug + has been fixed in 5.0-CURRENT.

+ +

When called on a connected socket file descriptor, + fstat(2) is + supposed to return the number of bytes available to read in + the st_size member of struct stat. However, st_size is always erroneously reported + as 0 on TCP sockets. This bug has + been fixed in 5.0-CURRENT.

+ +

The + kqueue(2) EVFILT_READ filter erroneously + indicates that 0 bytes are + available to be read on TCP sockets, regardless of the + number of bytes that are actually available. The NOTE_LOWAT flag for EVFILT_READ is also broken on TCP + sockets. This bug has been fixed in 5.0-CURRENT.

+ +

FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE introduced support for POSIX named + semaphores but the implementation contains a critical bug + that causes + sem_open(3) to + incorrectly handle the opening of the same semaphore + multiple times by the same process, and that causes + sem_close(3) to + crash calling programs. This bug has been fixed in + 5.0-CURRENT.

+ +

FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE has a minor bug in how the + permissions of /dev/tty are + handled. This can be triggered by logging in as a non-root, non-tty group user, and using + su(1) to switch to + a second non-root, non-tty group user. + ssh(1) will fail + because it cannot open /dev/tty. + This bug has been fixed in 5.0-CURRENT.

+ +

+ growfs(8) no longer + works on + vinum(4) volumes + (and presumably, on + geom(4) entities) + since these subsystems no longer fake disklabels, but + growfs(8) insists + on examining a label.

This file, and other release-related documents, can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/.

All users of FreeBSD 5-CURRENT + should subscribe to the <current@FreeBSD.org> + mailing list.