Oracle® Linux

Release Notes for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 Quarterly
Update 3

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   E55611-01

   August 2014

   Abstract

   This document contains information on Quarterly Update 3 to
   the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3. This document
   may be updated after it is released. To check for updates to
   this document, and to view other Oracle documentation, refer
   to the Documentation section on the Oracle Technology Network
   (OTN) Web site:

   http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/

   This document is intended for users and administrators of
   Oracle Linux. It describes potential issues and the
   corresponding workarounds you may encounter while using the
   Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 with Oracle Linux 6
   or Oracle Linux 7. Oracle recommends that you read this
   document before installing or upgrading the Unbreakable
   Enterprise Kernel Release 3.

   Document generated on: 2014-08-22 (revision: 2187)
     ________________________________________________________

Preface

   The Oracle Linux Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release Notes
   provides a summary of the new features, changes, and fixed
   and known issues in the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release
   3.

Audience

   This document is written for "system administrators" who want
   to use the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel with Oracle Linux.
   It is assumed that readers have a general understanding of
   the Linux operating system.

Documentation Accessibility

   For information about Oracle's commitment to accessibility,
   visit the Oracle Accessibility Program website at
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   if you are hearing impaired.

Related Documents

   The latest version of this document and other documentation
   for this product are available at:

   http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/linux/docume
   ntation/index.html.

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Chapter 1 New Features and Changes

   The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 (UEK R3) is
   Oracle's third major release of its heavily tested and
   optimized operating system kernel for Oracle Linux 6 and 7 on
   the x86-64 architecture. It is based on the mainline Linux
   kernel version 3.8.13.

   The 3.8.13-44 release is the third quarterly update release
   for UEK R3. It includes security and bug fixes, as well as
   driver updates.

   Oracle actively monitors upstream checkins and applies
   critical bug and security fixes to UEK R3.

   UEK R3 uses the same versioning model as the mainline Linux
   kernel version. It is possible that some applications might
   not understand the 3.x versioning scheme. If an application
   does require a 2.6 context, you can use the uname26 wrapper
   command to start it. However, regular Linux applications are
   usually neither aware of, nor affected by, Linux kernel
   version numbers.

1.1 Notable Changes


     * Enhancements to the Huge Translation Lookaside Buffer
       (HugeTLB) to improve page-fault scalability.

     * Added support for the SO_REUSEPORT socket option.

     * Added support for XFS extended attributes.

     * Added support for Intel Avoton and Haswell-EX CPUs.

     * Updated intel_idle driver to support Intel Atom Processor
       C2000, N2000, and Bay Trail series.

     * Bug fixes to support Oracle Linux guests running on
       Microsoft Azure or Hyper-V.

     * Bug fixes for ext4, btrfs, and OCFS2 file systems.

1.2 Driver Updates

   The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel supports a wide range of
   hardware and devices. In close cooperation with hardware and
   storage vendors, several device drivers have been updated by
   Oracle.

1.2.1 Storage Adapter Drivers

   LSI

     * MegaRAID Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) driver (megaraid_sas)
       updated to 06.803.02.00-rc1.

     * MPT Fusion Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 2.0 driver
       (mpt2sas) updated to 18.100.00.00.

     * MPT Fusion Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 3.0 driver
       (mpt3sas) updated to 04.100.00.00.

   QLogic

     * iSCSI host bus adapter (HBA) driver (qla4xxx) updated to
       5.04.00.06.06.02-uek3.

1.2.2 Network Adapter Drivers

   Intel

     * PRO/1000 PCI Express Gigabit network adapter driver
       (e1000e) updated to 3.1.0.2-NAPI.

     * Gigabit Ethernet network adapter driver (igb) updated to
       5.2.5.

     * 10 Gigabit PCI Express network adapter driver (ixgbe)
       updated to 3.21.2.

     * 10 Gigabit PCI Express Virtual Function driver (ixgbevf)
       updated to 2.14.2.

   QLogic

     * 1/10 GbE Converged/Intelligent Ethernet adapter driver
       (qlcnic) updated to 5.3.59.

1.2.3 Miscellaneous Drivers


     * Added the Random Number Generator (RNG) driver (tpm-rng)
       for Trusted Platform Module (TPM) devices (Oracle Linux 7
       only).

1.3 Technology Preview

   The following features included in the Unbreakable Enterprise
   Kernel Release 3 are still under development, but are made
   available for testing and evaluation purposes.

     * DRBD (Distributed Replicated Block Device)
       A shared-nothing, synchronously replicated block device
       (RAID1 over network), designed to serve as a building
       block for high availability (HA) clusters. It requires a
       cluster manager (for example, pacemaker) for automatic
       failover.

     * Kernel module signing facility
       Applies cryptographic signature checking to modules on
       module load, checking the signature against a ring of
       public keys compiled into the kernel. GPG is used to do
       the cryptographic work and determines the format of the
       signature and key data.

     * Transcendent memory
       Transcendent Memory (tmem) provides a new approach for
       improving the utilization of physical memory in a
       virtualized environment by claiming underutilized memory
       in a system and making it available where it is most
       needed. From the perspective of an operating system, tmem
       is fast pseudo-RAM of indeterminate and varying size that
       is useful primarily when real RAM is in short supply. To
       learn more about this technology and its use cases, see
       the Transcendent Memory project page at
       http://oss.oracle.com/projects/tmem/.

1.4 Compatibility

   Oracle Linux maintains user-space compatibility with Red Hat
   Enterprise Linux, which is independent of the kernel version
   running underneath the operating system. Existing
   applications in user space will continue to run unmodified on
   the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 and no
   re-certifications are needed for RHEL certified applications.

   To minimize impact on interoperability during releases, the
   Oracle Linux team works closely with third-party vendors
   whose hardware and software have dependencies on kernel
   modules. The kernel ABI for UEK R3 will remain unchanged in
   all subsequent updates to the initial release. In this
   release, there are changes to the kernel ABI relative to UEK
   R2 that require recompilation of third-party kernel modules
   on the system. Before installing UEK R3, verify its support
   status with your application vendor.

1.5 Header Packages for Development

   The kernel-headers packages provide the C header files that
   specify the interface between user-space binaries or
   libraries and UEK or RHCK. These header files define the
   structures and constants that you need to build most standard
   programs or to rebuild the glibc package.

   The kernel-devel and kernel-uek-devel packages provide the
   kernel headers and makefiles that you need to build modules
   against UEK and RHCK.

Chapter 2 Fixed and Known Issues

   This chapter describes the fixed and known issues for the
   Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3.
   Important

   Run the yum update command regularly to ensure that the
   latest bug fixes and security errata are installed on your
   system.

2.1 Fixed Issues

   The following issues have been fixed in this update.

   bnx2x Driver

     * When using the bnx2x driver in a bridge, the bug that
       required you to disable Transparent Packet Aggregation
       (TPA) by including the statement options bnx2x
       disable_tpa=1 in /etc/modprobe.conf has been fixed. (Bug
       ID 14626070)

   btrfs

     * The btrfs subvolume delete command no longer displays
       "Directory not empty" error when you try to delete the
       default subvolume. (Bug ID 17661944)

   CIFS

     * If an error occurs on a mounted CIFS file system, the
       error no longer prevents a Linux system from shutting
       down. (Bug ID 18447168)

   DTrace

     * DOF ELF objects generated using the -G option to the
       dtrace command no longer get the EXEC flag set for the
       stack. (Bug ID 19217436)

     * Order-only prerequisites are now supported in the kernel
       module build process when generating the sdtstub file for
       SDT probes in modules. (Bug ID 18906444)

   ext4

     * The bug that caused hangs with intensive direct random
       writing to files opened for synchronous I/O (O_DIRECT,
       O_SYNC) with unwritten extent conversions has been fixed.
       (Bug ID 18389351)

   OCFS2

     * OCFS2 no longer hangs as the result of lost pending
       messages in the TCP queue, when the idle timeout triggers
       a TCP disconnect and reconnect. (Bug ID 18363396)

   XFS

     * Attempting to add many extended attributes to a file in
       an XFS file system under UEK R3 no longer results in a
       kernel panic or a system reboot. (Bug ID 18504299).

     * Reading from or writing to a special file, such as
       /dev/null, that resides on an XFS file system no longer
       results in an error. (Bug ID 19207712)

2.2 Known Issues

   This section describes the known issues in this update.

ACPI

   The following messages indicate that the BIOS does not
   present a suitable interface, such as _PSS or _PPC, that the
   acpi-cpufreq module requires:
kernel: powernow-k8: this CPU is not supported anymore, using acpi-cpu
freq instead.
modprobe: FATAL: Error inserting acpi_cpufreq

   There is no known workaround for this error. (Bug ID
   17034535)

btrfs


     * If you use the --alloc-start option with mkfs.btrfs to
       specify an offset for the start of the file system, the
       size of the file system should be smaller but this is not
       the case. It is also possible to specify an offset that
       is higher than the device size. (Bug ID 16946255)

     * The usage information for mkfs.btrfs reports raid5 and
       raid6 as possible profiles for both data and metadata.
       However, the kernel does not support these features and
       cannot mount file systems that use them. (Bug ID
       16946303)

     * The btrfs filesystem balance command does not warn that
       the RAID level can be changed under certain
       circumstances, and does not provide the choice of
       cancelling the operation. (Bug ID 16472824)

     * Converting an existing ext2, ext3, or ext4 root file
       system to btrfs does not carry over the associated
       security contexts that are stored as part of a file's
       extended attributes. With SELinux enabled and set to
       enforcing mode, you might experience many permission
       denied errors after reboot, and the system might be
       unbootable. To avoid this problem, enforce automatic file
       system relabeling to run at bootup time. To trigger
       automatic relabeling, create an empty file named
       .autorelabel (for example, by using touch) in the file
       system's root directory before rebooting the system after
       the initial conversion. The presence of this file
       instruct SELinux to recreate the security attributes for
       all files on the file system. If you forget to do this
       and rebooting fails, either temporarily disable SELinux
       completely by adding selinux=0 to the kernel boot
       parameters, or disable enforcing of the SELinux policy by
       adding enforcing=0. (Bug ID 13806043)

     * Commands such as du can show inconsistent results for
       file sizes in a btrfs file system when the number of
       bytes that is under delayed allocation is changing. (Bug
       ID 13096268)

     * The copy-on-write nature of btrfs means that every
       operation on the file system initially requires disk
       space. It is possible that you cannot execute any
       operation on a disk that has no space left; even removing
       a file might not be possible. The workaround is to run
       sync before retrying the operation. If this does not
       help, remount the file system with the -o nodatacow
       option and delete some files to free up space. See
       https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ENOSPC.

     * Btrfs has a limit of 237 or fewer hard links to a file
       from a single directory. The exact limit depends on the
       number of characters in the file name. The limit is 237
       for a file with up to eight characters in its file name;
       the limit is lower for longer file names. Attempting to
       create more than this number of links results in the
       error Too many links. You can create more hard links to
       the same file from another directory. Although the
       limitation of the number of hard links in a single
       directory has been increased to 65535, the version of
       mkfs.btrfs that is provided in the btrfs-progs package
       does not yet support the compatibility flag for this
       feature. (Bug ID 16285431)

     * If you run the btrfs quota enable command on a non-empty
       file system, any existing files do not count toward space
       usage. Removing these files can cause usage reports to
       display negative numbers and the file system to be
       inaccessible. The workaround is to enable quotas
       immediately after creating the file system. If you have
       already written data to the file system, it is too late
       to enable quotas. (Bug ID 16569350)

     * The btrfs quota rescan command is not currently
       implemented. The command does not perform a rescan and
       returns without displaying any message. (Bug ID 16569350)

     * When you overwrite data in a file, starting somewhere in
       the middle of the file, the overwritten space is counted
       twice in the space usage numbers that btrfs qgroup show
       displays. (Bug ID 16609467)

     * If you run btrfsck --init-csum-tree on a file system and
       then run a simple btrfsck on the same file system, the
       command displays a Backref mismatch error that was not
       previously present. (Bug ID 16972799)

     * If you use the -s option to specify a sector size to
       mkfs.btrfs that is different from the page size, the
       created file system cannot be mounted. By default, the
       sector size is set to be the same as the page size. (Bug
       ID 17087232)

     * The btrfs subvolume delete command may result in a
       "Directory not empty" error. This error message is
       incorrect. The actual reason that the subvolume cannot be
       deleted is that the subvolume is configured as the
       default subvolume. The default subvolume is the subvolume
       that is mounted when no subvolume is specified with the
       mount command. Before you can delete the subvolume, you
       need to configure a different default subvolume using the
       btrfs subvolume set-default command. (Bug ID 17661944)

     * Defragmentation can break data block sharing. Due to the
       copy-on-write design of btrfs, snapshots initially share
       the same data blocks of the original subvolume. However,
       when either the snapshot or the subvolume is
       defragmented, this sharing can be undone, resulting in a
       higher disk space usage.

CPU Microcode Update Failures on PVM or PVHVM Guests

   When running Oracle Linux 6 with UEK R3, you might see error
   messages in dmesg or /var/log/messages similar to this one:
microcode: CPU0 update to revision 0x6b failed.

   You can ignore this warning. You do not need to upgrade the
   microcode for virtual CPUs as presented to the guest. (Bug ID
   12576264, 13782843)

DHCP Lease is not Obtained at Boot Time

   If DHCP lease negotiation takes more than 5 seconds at boot
   time, the following message is displayed:
ethX: failed. No link present. Check cable?

   If the ethtool ethX command confirms that the interface is
   present, edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ethX and
   set LINKDELAY=N, where N is a value greater than 5 seconds
   (for example, 30 seconds). Alternatively, use NetworkManager
   to configure the interface. (Bug ID 16620177)

dm-nfs Module Obsolete

   In UEK R2, the dm-nfs module provided the ability to create a
   loopback device for a mounted NFS file or file system. For
   example, the feature allowed you to create the shared storage
   for an Oracle 3 VM cluster on an NFS file system. The dm-nfs
   module provided direct I/O to the server and bypassed the
   loop driver to avoid an additional level of page caching. The
   dm-nfs module is not provided with UEK R3. The loop driver
   can now provide the same I/O functionality as dm-nfs by
   extending the AIO interface to perform direct I/O. To create
   the loopback device, use the losetup command instead of
   dmsetup.

DTrace


     * Using kill -9 to terminate dtrace can leave breakpoints
       outstanding in processes being traced, which might sooner
       or later kill them.

     * Argument declarations for probe definitions cannot be
       declared with derived types such as enum, struct, or
       union.

     * The following compiler warning can be ignored for probe
       definition arguments of type string (which is a D type
       but not a C type):
provider_def.h:line#: warning: parameter names (without types) in func
tion declaration

ERST Message

   You can safely ignore the following message that might be
   displayed in syslog or dmesg:
ERST: Failed to get Error Log Address Range.

   The message indicates that the system BIOS does not support
   an Error Record Serialization Table (ERST). (Bug ID 17034576)

Ext4

   The inline data feature that allows the data of small files
   to be stored inside their inodes is not yet available. The -O
   inline_data option to the mkfs.ext4 and tune2fs commands is
   not supported. (Bug ID 17210654)

Firmware Warning Message

   You can safely ignore the following firmware warning message
   that might be displayed on some Sun hardware:
[Firmware Warn]: GHES: Poll interval is 0 for generic hardware error s
ource:
1, disabled.

   (Bug ID 13696512)

Huge Pages

   One-gigabyte (1 GB) huge pages are not currently supported
   for the following configurations:

     * HVM guests

     * PV guests

     * Oracle Database

   Two-megabyte (2 MB) huge pages have been tested and work with
   these configurations.

   (Bug ID 17299364, 17299871, 17271305)

I/O Scheduler

   The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel uses the deadline scheduler
   as the default I/O scheduler. For the Red Hat Compatible
   Kernel, the default I/O scheduler is the cfq scheduler.

ioapic Failure Messages

   You can safely ignore messages such as ioapic: probe of
   0000:00:05.4 failed with error -22. Such messages are the
   result of the ioapic driver attempting to re-register I/O
   APIC PCI devices that were already registered at boot time.
   (Bug ID 17034993)

InfiniBand


     * You might see the following warning messages if you use
       the ibportstate disable command to disable a switch port:
ibwarn: [2696] _do_madrpc: recv failed: Connection timed out
ibwarn: [2696] mad_rpc: _do_madrpc failed; dport (Lid 38)
ibportstate: iberror: failed: smp set portinfo failed
       You can safely ignore these warnings. (Bug ID 16248314)

     * The Internet Protocol over InfiniBand (IPoIB) driver
       supports the use of either connected mode or datagram
       mode with an interface, where datagram mode is the
       default mode. Changing the mode of an InfiniBand
       interface by echoing either connected or datagram to
       /sys/class/net/ibN/mode is not supported. It is also not
       possible to change the mode of an InfiniBand interface
       while it is enabled.
       To change the IPoIB mode of an InfiniBand interface:

         1. Edit the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ibN
            configuration file, where N is the number of the
            interface:
               o To configure connected mode, specify
                 CONNECTED_MODE=yes in the file.
               o To configure datagram mode, either specify
                 CONNECTED_MODE=no in the file or do not specify
                 this setting at all (datagram mode is enabled
                 by default).
            Note
            Before saving your changes, make sure that you have
            not specified more than one setting for
            CONNECTED_MODE in the file.

         2. To enable the specified mode on the interface, use
            the following commands to take down the interface
            and bring it back up:
# ifdown ibN
# ifup ibN
       (Bug ID 17479833)

     * When the rds_ib_srq parameter for the rds_rdma module is
       enabled and the module is in use (for example when
       running the rds-stress tool), restarting the rdma service
       (which reloads the rds_rdma module) generates error
       messages visible in dmesg or /var/log/messages. (Bug ID
       18243427)

Linux Containers (LXC)


     * The correct operation of containers might require that
       you completely disable SELinux on the host system. For
       example, SELinux can interfere with container operation
       under the following conditions:

          + Running the halt or shutdown command from inside the
            container hangs the container or results in a
            permission denied error. (An alternate workaround is
            to use the init 0 command from inside the container
            to shut it down.)

          + Setting a password inside the container results in a
            permission denied error, even when run as root.

          + You want to allow ssh logins to the container.
       To disable SELinux on the host:

         1. Edit the configuration file for SELinux,
            /etc/selinux/config and set the value of the SELINUX
            directive to disabled.

         2. Shut down and reboot the host system.

     * The root user in a container can affect the configuration
       of the host system by setting some /proc entries. (Bug ID
       17190287)

     * Using yum to update packages inside the container that
       use init scripts can undo changes made by the Oracle
       template.

     * Migrating live containers (lxc-checkpoint) is not yet
       supported.

     * Oracle Database is not yet supported for use with Linux
       Containers. The following information is intended for
       those who want to experiment with such a configuration.
       The following /proc parameter files may only be set on
       the host and not for individual containers:

          + /proc/sys/fs/aio-max-nr

          + /proc/sys/net/core/rmem_default

          + /proc/sys/net/core/rmem_max

          + /proc/sys/net/core/wmem_default

          + /proc/sys/net/core/wmem_max

          + /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range
       Setting the parameters in the host to the Oracle
       recommended values sets them for all containers and
       allows the Oracle database to run in a container. For
       more information, see Configuring Kernel Parameters and
       Resource Limits
       (http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e24326/t
       oc.htm#BHCCADGD). (Bug ID 17217854)

     * If a Device or resource busy - failed to set
       memory.use_hierarchy to 1 error message is displayed when
       you start a container, edit the /etc/cgconfig.conf file
       and add the following:
group . {
memory {
memory.use_hierarchy = "1";
}
}
       (Bug ID 19237222)

Missing Documentation for PCIe Kernel Parameters

   The following documentation for some PCIe kernel parameters
   is not included in the kernel-parameters.txt file in the
   kernel-uek-doc package:

   pcie_bus_tune_off
          Disable PCIe MPS (Max Payload Size) tuning and use the
          BIOS-configured MPS defaults.

   pcie_bus_safe
          Set every device's MPS to the largest value supported
          by all devices below the root complex.

   pcie_bus_perf
          Set device MPS to the largest allowable MPS based on
          its parent bus. Also set MRRS (Max Read Request Size)
          to the largest supported value (no larger than the MPS
          that the device or bus can support) for best
          performance.

   pcie_bus_peer2peer
          Set every device's MPS to 128B, which every device is
          guaranteed to support. This configuration allows
          peer-to-peer DMA between any pair of devices, possibly
          at the cost of reduced performance. This also
          guarantees that hot-added devices will work.

   (Bug ID 18706504)

RDMA Does Not Load the mlx4_ib Module

   If you enable the OFED stack and the RDMA service but the
   version of the RDMA package is lower than
   rdma‑3.10‑3.0.2.el6, the RDMA service does not load the
   mlx4_ib module automatically.

   To configure the RDMA service to load the mlx4_ib module at
   boot time:

    1. Edit /etc/rdma/rdma.conf and set the entry MLX4_LOAD=yes
       in this file.

    2. To make the change take effect, restart the RDMA service
       or reboot the system.

sched_yield() Settings for CFS

   For the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel,
   kernel.sched_compat_yield=1 is set by default. For the Red
   Hat Compatible Kernel, kernel.sched_compat_yield=0 is used by
   default.

Slow Performance With Multipath Devices

   Starting with UEK R2, the device mapper has had the
   capability to check whether the underlying storage device has
   advertised the need to flush the data that resides in the
   device's cache to its non-volatile storage. For a data
   integrity operation, such as fsync and sync, the operation
   will now need to include the time to flush the device's cache
   (if it is advertised). Such an operation will appear to be
   slower when compared to a previous older kernel, however this
   is the correct behavior. (Bug ID 17823743)

Soft Lockup Errors When Booting

   When upgrading or installing the UEK R3 kernel on fast
   hardware, usually with SAN storage attached, the kernel can
   fail to boot and BUG: soft lockup messages are displayed in
   the console log. The workaround is to increase the baud rate
   from the default value of 9600 by amending the kernel boot
   line in /boot/grub/grub.conf to include an appropriate
   console setting, for example:
console=ttyS0,115200n8

   A value of 115200 is recommended as smaller values such as
   19200 are known to be insufficient for some systems (for
   example, see
   http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19045-01/blade.x6220/820-0048-18/s
   p.html#0_pgfId-1002490). If the host implements an integrated
   system management infrastructure, such as ILOM on Sun and
   Oracle systems or iLO on HP systems, configure the integrated
   console baud rate to match the setting for the host system.
   Otherwise, the integrated console is likely to display
   garbage characters. (Bug ID 17064059, 17252160)

Transparent Huge Pages

   This release removes the Transparent Huge Pages (THP)
   feature. Following extensive benchmarking and testing, Oracle
   found that THP caused a performance degradation of between 5
   and 10% for some workloads. This performance degradation was
   a result of a slower memory allocator code path being used
   even when the applications were not using THP. When the fact
   that huge pages are not swappable was taken into account, the
   positive effect that THP should provide was outweighed by its
   negative effects.

   After installing this UEK release, you cannot enable THP (for
   example, by specifying kernel boot parameters). The THP
   settings under /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage have also
   been removed. A future update might contain an updated THP
   implementation which resolves the performance issue.
   Note

   This change does not affect support for applications that use
   explicit huge pages (for example, Oracle Database).

   (Bug ID 16823432)

User Namespaces

   The kernel functionality (CONFIG_USER_NS) that allows
   unprivileged processes to create namespaces for users inside
   which they have root privileges is not currently implemented
   because of a clash with the implementation of XFS. This
   functionality is primarily intended for use with Linux
   Containers. As a result, the lxc-checkconfig command displays
   User namespace: missing. (Bug ID 16656850)

Virtualization


     * When booting UEK R3 as a PVHVM guest, you can safely
       ignore the following kernel message:
register_vcpu_info failed:
          err=-38
       (Bug ID 13713774)

     * Under Oracle VM Server 3.1.1, migrating a PVHVM guest
       that is running the UEK R3 kernel causes a disparity
       between the date and time as displayed by date and
       hwclock. To prevent this from occurring, upgrade to
       Oracle VM Server 3.2.1 or later. The workaround post
       migration is either to run the command hwclock --hctosys
       on the guest or to reboot the guest. (Bug ID 16861041)

     * On virtualized systems that are built on Xen version 3,
       including all releases of Oracle VM 2 including 2.2.2 and
       2.2.3, disk synchronization requests for ext3 and ext4
       file systems result in journal corruption with kernel
       messages similar to the following being logged:
blkfront: barrier: empty write xvda op failed
blkfront: xvda: barrier or flush: disabled
       In addition, journal failures such as the following might
       be reported:
Aborting journal on device xvda1
       The workaround is to add the mount option barrier=0 to
       all ext3 and ext4 file systems in the guest VM before
       upgrading to UEK R3. For example, you would change a
       mount entry such as:
UUID=4e4287b1-87dc-47a8-b69a-075c7579eaf1  /  ext3  defaults  1 1
       so that it reads:
UUID=4e4287b1-87dc-47a8-b69a-075c7579eaf1  /  ext3  defaults,barrier=0
  1 1
       This issue does not apply to Xen 4 based systems, such as
       Oracle VM 3. (Bug ID 17310816)

X.509 Certificates for Module Verification

   The system reports a message similar to the following if
   there is a problem loading an in-kernel X.509 module
   verification certificate at boot time:
Loading module verification certificates
X.509: Cert 0c21da3d73dcdbaffc799e3d26f3c846a3afdc43 is not yet valid
MODSIGN: Problem loading in-kernel X.509 certificate (-129)

   This error occurs because the hardware clock lags behind the
   system time as shown by hwclock, for example:
# hwclock
Tue 20 Aug 2013 01:41:40 PM EDT -0.767004 seconds

   The solution is to set the hardware clock from the system
   time by running the following command:
# hwclock --systohc

   After correcting the hardware clock, no error should be seen
   at boot time, for example:
Loading module verification certificates
MODSIGN: Loaded cert 'Slarti: Josteldalsbreen signing key:
0c21da3d73dcdbaffc799e3d26f3c846a3afdc43'

   (Bug ID 17346862)

XFS


     * In some circumstances, xfsdump can fail when the file
       system to be backed up is specified as a mount point, for
       example:
xfsdump: ERROR: /mnt/myxfs/ does not identify a file system
       The workaround is to specify the file system by its
       device name, for example /dev/sdb. (Bug ID 18483275)

     * In a virtual machine, the intensive direct I/O on files
       which are being fragmented by fallocate and punch_hole in
       parallel may result, in some circumstances, in data
       corruption with the error Invalid or incomplete multibyte
       or wide character. (Bug ID 18711409)

     * The following message might be displayed when you use the
       xfs_growfs command:
 xfs_growfs: cannot find mount point for path `mount_point': Success
       The message is caused by an incorrect mounted project
       path listed in the XFS project quota initialization file,
       /etc/projects. If you are not using project quotas,
       remove the /etc/projects file. (Bug ID 18886520)

Chapter 3 Installation and Availability

   Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 (UEK R3) is only
   supported on the x86-64 architecture.

Oracle Linux 7

   UEK R3 is the default boot kernel for fresh installations of
   Oracle Linux 7.

Oracle Linux 6

   You can install UEK R3 on Oracle Linux 6 Update 4 or later,
   running either the Red Hat compatible kernel or a previous
   version of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. If you are
   still running an older version of Oracle Linux, first update
   your system to the latest available update release.

   Starting with Oracle Linux 6 Update 5 for x86-64, UEK R3 is
   the default boot kernel for fresh installations of Oracle
   Linux 6.

   For systems that are currently running a previous version of
   the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK R2) or the Red Hat
   compatible kernel (RHCK), you can switch to UEK R3 at any
   time. For details, see:

     * Section 3.2, "Switching an Oracle Linux 6 System to UEK
       R3 (ULN)"

     * Section 3.3, "Switching an Oracle Linux 6 System to UEK
       R3 (Public Yum)"

Kernel Source Code

   The kernel's source code is available from a public git
   source code repository at:
   https://oss.oracle.com/git/?p=linux-uek3-3.8.git.

3.1 Upgrading to the Latest UEK Release

   For systems that are currently running UEK R3, you upgrade to
   the latest UEK release as follows:

    1. Ensure the system is configured to receive updates from
       the correct channels or repositories.
       For Oracle Linux 6, subscribe to either the
       ol6_x86_64_UEKR3_latest channel on ULN, or the
       ol6_UEKR3_latest repository on the Oracle public yum
       server.
       For Oracle Linux 7, subscribe to either the
       ol7_x86_64_UEKR3 channel on ULN, or the ol7_UEKR3
       repository on the Oracle public yum server.

    2. Upgrade all packages on the system, including kernel
       packages.
# yum update
       By default, the boot manager automatically enables the
       most recent kernel version so you do not need to change
       your GRUB or GRUB 2 configuration.

    3. Reboot the system.
       Oracle Linux 6:
# shutdown -r now
       Oracle Linux 7:
# systemctl reboot

3.2 Switching an Oracle Linux 6 System to UEK R3 (ULN)

   If you have a subscription to Oracle Unbreakable Linux
   support, you can obtain the packages for Unbreakable
   Enterprise Kernel Release 3 (UEK R3) by registering your
   system with the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) and
   subscribing it to additional channels.

   Before you begin:

     * Ensure the system is registered with ULN.
       For information about registering with ULN, see the
       Oracle Linux Unbreakable Linux Network User's Guide
       (http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37670_01/E39381/html/index.ht
       ml).

     * Check that the system meets the requirements for
       installing UEK R3.
       For details, see Chapter 3, "Installation and
       Availability."

     * Remove some of the existing OpenFabrics Enterprise
       Distribution (OFED) packages.
       You only need to do this if you have installed any OFED
       packages on your system and you want to replace them with
       the latest OFED tools packages. The packages have to be
       removed manually, see Section 3.4, "Upgrading OFED
       Packages on Oracle Linux 6 Systems."

   To Switch a System to UEK R3:

    1. Using a browser, log in at http://linux.oracle.com with
       the ULN user name and password that you used to register
       the system.

    2. On the Systems tab, click the link named of your system
       in the list of registered machines.

    3. On the System Details page, click Manage Subscriptions.

    4. On the System Summary page, select each required channel
       in the Available Channels list and click the right arrow
       to move the channel to the Subscribed Channels list.
       The kernel image and user-space packages are available on
       the following ULN channels:

   Channel Name and Label
   Description
   Oracle Linux 6 Latest (x86_64)
   ol6_x86_64_latest
   All packages released for Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64) including
   the latest errata packages. (x86_64).
   Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 for Oracle Linux 6
   (x86_64) - Latest
   ol6_x86_64_UEKR3_latest
   Latest packages for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3
   for Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64).
   Contains the kernel-uek*,
   dtrace-modules-*, libdtrace-*, and uname26 packages.
   Oracle Linux 6 Dtrace Userspace Tools (x86_64) - Latest
   ol6_x86_64_Dtrace_userspace_latest
   The latest DTrace userspace tools for Oracle Linux 6
   (x86_64).
   Contains the dtrace-utils* packages.
   OFED supporting tool packages for Unbreakable Enterprise
   Kernel on Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64)
   ol6_x86_64_ofed_UEK
   Latest OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) supporting
   tools for the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) on Oracle
   Linux 6 (x86_64).
   HA Utilities for MySQL and Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64)
   ol6_x86_64_mysql-ha-utils
   Management Utilities for MySQL HA with Oracle Linux 6.
   Contains the drbd84-utils package.
       As a minimum, you should subscribe the system to the
       ol6_x86_64_latest and the ol6_x86_64_UEKR3_latest
       channels. If required, you can also add the channels for
       the DTrace, OFED, and DRBD packages.
       Caution
       Take care not to select the ol6_x86_64_UEK_BETA channel.
       Because you are switching to the latest UEK kernel, you
       no longer need to subscribe the system to the previous
       UEK R2 (ol6_x86_64_UEK_latest) channel.

    5. When you have finished selecting channels, click Save
       Subscriptions and log out of ULN.

    6. Log in as root on the system.

    7. Upgrade all packages on the system, including kernel
       packages.
# yum update
       By default, the boot manager automatically enables the
       most recent kernel version so you do not need to change
       your GRUB configuration.

    8. Reboot the system.
# shutdown -r now

3.3 Switching an Oracle Linux 6 System to UEK R3 (Public Yum)

   If your system is not registered with ULN, you can obtain
   most of the packages for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel
   Release 3 (UEK R3) from Oracle Public Yum by subscribing it
   to additional repositories.

   Before you begin:

     * Check that the system meets the requirements for
       installing UEK R3.
       For details, see Chapter 3, "Installation and
       Availability."

     * Remove some of the existing OpenFabrics Enterprise
       Distribution (OFED) packages.
       You only need to do this if you have installed any OFED
       packages on your system and you want to replace them with
       the latest OFED tools packages. The packages have to be
       removed manually, see Section 3.4, "Upgrading OFED
       Packages on Oracle Linux 6 Systems."

   To Switch a System to UEK R3:

    1. Log in as root on the system.

    2. Change directory to /etc/yum.repos.d.
# cd /etc/yum.repos.d
       Note
       This assumes that yum on your system is configured to
       find repository files in the default /etc/yum.repos.d
       directory.

    3. Download the Oracle Linux 6 repository configuration
       file, http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol6.repo.
       For example:
# wget http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol6.repo
       The /etc/yum.repos.d directory is updated with the
       repository configuration file.

    4. Enable the required repositories by editing the
       public-yum-ol6.repo file.
       You enable or disable repositories in the file by setting
       the value of the enabled directive to 1 or 0 as required.
       The kernel image and user-space packages are available on
       the following Oracle Public Yum repositories:

   Repository
   Description
   ol6_latest
   All packages released for Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64) including
   the latest errata packages.
   ol6_UEKR3_latest
   Latest packages for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3
   for Oracle Linux 6.
   Contains the kernel-uek*, dtrace-modules-*, libdtrace-*, and
   uname26 packages.
   ol6_ofed_UEK
   Latest OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) supporting
   tools for the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) on Oracle
   Linux 6 (x86_64).
       As a minimum, you should enable the ol6_latest and the
       ol6_UEKR3_latest repositories.
       Note
       The DTrace utility and DRBD packages are not available on
       Public Yum.
       Because you are switching to the latest UEK kernel, you
       can disable the previous UEK R2 (ol6_UEK_latest)
       repository.
       In the following example, the ol6_UEKR3_latest repository
       is enabled, and the ol6_UEK_latest repository is
       disabled:
[ol6_UEKR3_latest]
name=Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux $releasever
 ($basearch)
baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/UEKR3/latest
/$basearch/
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1

[ol6_UEK_latest]
name=Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux $releasever
 ($basearch)
baseurl=http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/UEK/latest/$
basearch/
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle
gpgcheck=1
enabled=0

    5. Upgrade all packages on the system, including kernel
       packages.
# yum update
       By default, the boot manager automatically enables the
       most recent kernel version so you do not need to change
       your GRUB configuration.

    6. Reboot the system.
# shutdown -r now

3.4 Upgrading OFED Packages on Oracle Linux 6 Systems

   If you have enabled the ol6_ofed_UEK channel, you must remove
   any existing OFED packages for the 32-bit x86 architecture
   before you can upgrade the remaining OFED packages on your
   system. You must also completely remove and reinstall the
   ibutils packages. The latest version of the ibutils package
   no longer depends on an ibutils-libs package as the libraries
   are now included in ibutils itself.

   Use the following command to remove any non-upgradable
   packages for the x86 architecture:
# rpm -e infiniband-diags \
libibcm \
libibcm-devel \
libibmad \
libibmad-devel \
libibumad \
libibumad-devel \
libibverbs \
libibverbs-devel \
libmlx4 \
librdmacm \
librdmacm-devel \
opensm-devel \
opensm-libs \
ibacm-devel

   Use the following commands to remove the existing ibutils and
   ibutils-libs packages and install the new ibutils package:
# rpm -e ibutils ibutils-libs
# yum install ibutils

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