Oracle Linux 6.1 Release Notes

Updated June. 2011

Introduction

This document covers the following topics regarding Oracle Linux 6.

For the latest updates please refer to the online version of release notes available at:

http://oss.oracle.com/ol6/docs/

NOTE: An upgrade of Oracle Linux from a beta release is not supported. Further, an in-place upgrade between major versions of Oracle Linux is not supported. Oracle does not recommend an upgrade from earlier major versions of Oracle Linux even though anaconda provides an option to do this upgrade.A fresh installation is strongly recommended rather than a system upgrade between major versions. Customers who want to use new features in Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel can do so without upgrading to Oracle Linux 6 as Oracle Linux 5.6 already includes Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel.

Changes from the Upstream Release

Packages modified from upstream release

The following packages are modified from the upstream release. All changes are trademark and look/feel related unless otherwise noted below under the specific package.

Packages removed from upstream release

The following packages have been removed.

New Packages added by Oracle

The following packages have been added to the base release

Kernel

Oracle Linux 6 ships with two sets of kernel packages:

Note:Oracle Linux 6.1 includes both a 32 bit and a 64 bit Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. By default, both the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel and the Red Hat Compatible Kernel are installed, and the system boots the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel by default. If needed, /etc/grub.conf can be modified to make the system boot with the Red Hat Compatible Kernel by default.

Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel

The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel is based on the upstream kernel 2.6.32.21 stable source tree with additional performance improvements, including:

Oracle Linux 6.1 includes both a 32 bit and a 64 bit Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel is the default kernel after installation.

Driver Updates

Network Drivers updates

Storage Drivers updates

Infiniband

Features

Known Issues

  1. Hardware virtualized (HVM) guests with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel always use paravirtualized (PV) drivers
  2. Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel version kernel-uek-2.6.32-100.34.1 adds support for paravirtualized drivers in a HVM guest on Oracle VM. Starting with this kernel version, the default is to present only paravirtualized drivers when running in a hardware virtualized guest. To run kernel-uek --including the drivers-- fully hardware virtualized, an additional kernel boot parameter "xen_emul_unplug=never" must be added to the boot parameters in /etc/grub.conf:
    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-100.34.1.el6uek ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00  xen_emul_unplug=never
    
    Adding this kernel boot parameter makes the kernel also present the emulated drivers as it did before (e.g. the 8139cp network driver).

  3. Incorrect package count (11684244)
  4. Selecting all packages in certain groups during installation might not show the correct count.
  5. Default reverse path filtering mode affects certain Oracle products (10649976)
  6. Oracle Linux 6 defaults to strict reverse path filtering. Some Oracle products and network storage devices work more reliably when using loose reverse path filtering. To enable loose mode reverse path filtering, issue the following command (assuming you are changing settings for the network interface called eth1). The default setting is 1.
      sysctl net.ipv4.conf.eth1.rp_filter=2 
    
  7. Receive Packet Steering errors for certain network operations (11071685)
  8. Certain network operations that utilize receive packet steering could cause errors on the system.
  9. Spurious udev messages during restore of a failed path (11682171)
  10. When failed paths are restored in a multipath configuration, you may see udevd-work error messages in /var/log/messages. The failed paths do get restored despite these messages.
  11. Default NFS v4 mount options
  12. The default NFS mount option has changed to NFS v4. To mount an NFS volume using NFS v3 (the default in Oracle Linux 5), use the following mount options:
    -o vers=3,mountproto=tcp
    
  13. Setting serial console in a hardware virtualized (HVM) guest
  14. To set the serial console a hardware virtualized (HVM) guest use following settings in the guest:
  15. Unbreakable Linux Network
  16. After an install of Oracle Linux 6, the screens after the first reboot will guide you to register your system to the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN). If you did not configure your network during the initial installation, the registration process to ULN will not succeed. In this case, you should configure your network by running NetworkManager first (as root). Then restart the ULN registration by running uln_register (as root).
  17. Console appears to hang while booting on certain systems (10094052)
  18. On some hardware, the console may appear to hang during the boot process after starting udev. But the system does boot up properly and is accessible. A workaround to this problem is to add nomodeset as a kernel boot parameter in /etc/grub.conf:
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-100.34.1.el6uek.x86_64 ro root=/dev/sd0 nomodeset
    
  19. Default IO scheduler
  20. For the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, the default IO scheduler is the 'deadline' scheduler.
    For the Red Hat Compatible Kernel, the default IO scheduler is the 'cfq' scheduler.
  21. sched_yield() settings for CFS
  22. For the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, kernel.sched_compat_yield=1 by default.
    For the Red Hat Compatible Kernel, kernel.sched_compat_yield=0 by default.
  23. High IO loads on NFS using mmap may fail (11071875)
  24. In some instances, large IO loads on NFS that use mmap may fail and cause the kernel to panic with a message like:
        kernel BUG at mm/truncate.c:469!
    
  25. Warning message when kdump starts
  26. When kdump starts, you may see the following warning message:
        WARNING: No modules scsi_mod found for kernel 2.6.32-100.34.1.el6uek.x86_64, continuing anyway
    
    This warning can be ignored. The kdump service does get started and a vmcore does get generated.
Technology Preview Features

The following Technology Preview features are currently not supported under Oracle Linux 6 and may not be functionally complete:

These features are not suitable for production use. However, these features are included to provide the feature with wider exposure.

Unbreakable Linux Support

Oracle Linux 6 not longer contains up2date for access to Unbreakable Linux Network. Instead packages are managed using Yum. To register with ULN, use the following command:

To access Linux updates via Unbreakable Linux Network, you must purchase a Linux support subscription. For more information please visit http://linux.oracle.com