Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 Beta Expands Virtualization

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 Beta Expands Virtualization

มีอะไรใหม่ และ update บ้างไปดูกัน

1. Installation
Kickstart Improvements
Hardware Support

2. Virtualization
Run-time memory allocation for KVM guests
PCI passthrough improvements

3. Kernel
3.1. Kernel Platform Enablement
3.2. Kernel Generic Features

4. Device Drivers
4.1. Network Device Drivers
Solarflare driver
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, the Solarflare driver (sfc) has been added (BZ#448856)

Neterion's X3100 Series 10GbE PCIe driver
The vxge driver for Neterion's X3100 Series 10GbE PCIe devices has been updated (BZ#453683).
ServerEngines BladeEngine2 10Gbps driver
the be2net driver for ServerEngines BladeEngine2 10Gbps network devices has been updated (BZ#549460)
Cisco 10G Ethernet Driver
the enic driver for Cisco 10G Ethernet devices has been updated to version 1.1.0.100. (BZ#519086 BZ#550148)
QLogic 10 Gigabit PCI-E Ethernet Driver
the qlge driver for QLogic 10 Gigabit PCI-E ethernet devices has been updated to version 1.00.00.23. (BZ#519453)
QLogic Fibre Channel HBA Driver
The qla2xx driver for QLogic Fibre Channel HBA devices has been updated. (BZ#542834 BZ#543057)
Broadcom Tigon3 ethernet devices
the tg3 driver for Broadcom Tigon3 ethernet devices has been updated. (BZ#515312)
Intel Gigabit Ethernet Network Devices
the igb driver for Intel Gigabit Ethernet Network devices has been updated. (BZ#513710)
Intel 10 Gigabit PCI Express Network Devices
the ixgbe driver for Intel 10 Gigabit PCI Express Network devices has been updated. (BZ#513707, BZ#514306, BZ#516699)
Intel PRO/1000 Network Devices
The e1000 driver for Intel PRO/1000 network devices has been updated (BZ#515524)
NetXen Multi port (1/10) Gigabit Network Devices
The netxen driver for NetXen Multi port (1/10) Gigabit Network devices has been updated. (BZ#542746)
Broadcom Everest network devices
The bnx2x driver for Broadcom Everest network devices has been updated to version 1.52.1-5.(BZ#515716, BZ#522600)
Broadcom NetXtreme II network devices
The bnx2 driver for Broadcom NetXtreme II network devices has been updated to version 2.0.2(BZ#517377)
Broadcom NetXtreme II iSCSI
The bnx2i driver for Broadcom NetXtreme II iSCSI has been updated. (BZ#516233)
RealTek 8169 ethernet driver
the r8169 driver for RealTek 8169 ethernet devices has been updated. (BZ#514589)

4.2. Storage Device Drivers
QLogic Fibre Channel Host Bus
the qla2xxx driver for QLogic Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters has been updated to version 8.03.01.02.05.05-k (BZ#519447)
HighPoint RocketRAID 3xxx/4xxx
The hptiop driver for HighPoint RocketRAID 3xxx/4xxx controllers has been updated, adding support for RR44xx adapters. (BZ#519076)
Emulex Fibre Channel Host Bus
The lpfc driver for Emulex Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters has been updated to version 8.2.0.52. (BZ#515272) BZ#549763
LSI SAS-2 family of adapters
the mpt2sas driver that supports the SAS-2 family of adapters from LSI has been updated to version 02.101.00.00. This update fixes many issues, most notably:

*
Sanity checks have been added when volumes are added and removed, ignoring events for foreign volumes.
*
driver is now legacy I/O port free
*
An issue that may have resulted in a kernel oops at hibernation or resume has been fixed.

(BZ#516702)
LSI Fusion MPT
The mptque base driver for devices using LSI Fusion MPT firmware has been updated to version 3.4.13rh. This update fixes many issues, most notably:

*
The serial attached SCSI (SAS) topology scan has been restructured, adding expander, link status and host bus adapter (HBA) events.
*
Intermittent issues caused by SAS cable removal and reinsertion have been fixed.
*
An issue where SATA devices received different SAS addresses has been fixed.
*
The device firmware now reports the queue full event to the driver and the driver handles the queue full event using the SCSI mid-layer.

(BZ#516710)
LSI MegaRAID SAS controllers
The megaraid_sas driver for LSI MegaRAID SAS controllers has been updated to version 4.17-RH1. This update fixes many issues, most notably:

* An issue during firmware boot and initialization has been fixed.
* An issue that resulted in devices hanging during hibernation has been fixed.
* The driver now auto updates the device when added or deleted.
* MegaRAID SAS driver is now legacy I/O port free

BZ#518243

5. Filesystem/Storage Management
Improved CFQ I/O scheduler performance
Some applications (e.g. dump and nfsd) try to improve disk I/O performance by distributing I/O requests to multiple processes or threads. However, when using the Completely Fair Queuing (CFQ) I/O scheduler, this application design negatively affected I/O performance. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, the kernel can now detect and merge cooperating queues. Additionally, the kernel can also detect if the queues stop cooperating, and split them apart again.
New GFS2 mount option
This update introduces GFS2 support for the errors= mount command line option, which may assist in troubleshooting. The default option, errors=withdraw results in the filesystem attempting to withdraw from the cluster if an I/O error or metadata error is encountered. The alternative, errors=panic results in a panic in the same situation. (BZ#518106)
CIFS Update
The Common Internet File System (CIFS) has been updated in the kernel. (BZ#500838)

6. Tools
6.1. GNU Project debugger (GDB)
The GNU Project debugger (normally referred to as GDB) debugs programs written in C, C++, and other languages by executing them in a controlled fashion, and then printing out their data.
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, GDB has been updated to version 7.0.1. For a detailed listing of changes refer to the GDB section of the Technical Notes.
Enhanced C++ support
Support for the C++ programming language in GDB has been improved. Notable improvements include:

* Many improvements to expression parsing.
* Better handling of type names.
* The need for extraneous quoting has nearly been eliminated
* "next" and other stepping commands work properly even when the inferior throws an exception.
* GDB has a new "catch syscall" command. This can be used to stop the inferior whenever it makes a system call.

Wide and multi-byte character support
GDB now has support for wide and multi-byte characters on the target.
Independent thread debugging
Thread execution now permits debugging threads individually and independently of each other; enabled by new settings "set target-async" and "set non-stop".

6.2. SystemTap
SystemTap is a tracing and probing tool that allows users to study and monitor the activities of the operating system (particularly, the kernel) in fine detail. It provides information similar to the output of tools like netstat, ps, top, and iostat; however, SystemTap is designed to provide more filtering and analysis options for collected information.
New Kernel Tracepoints
Tracepoints are placed in important sections of the kernel, allowing system administrators to analyze the performance of, and debug portions of code. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, a wide range of tracepoints have been added to the kernel (BZ#475710), including tracepoints for networking (BZ#475457), coredump (BZ#517115) and signal (BZ#517121).

7. Desktop Updates
Open Office
OpenOffice.org is an Open Source, multi-platform office productivity suite. It includes key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation manager. Open Office has been updated, providing many bugfixes and enhancements, including support for Microsoft Office 2007 OOXML formats.
Metacity
Metacity, the default window manager for the GNOME desktop has been updated, providing enhancements, additional GConf keys to control the the behavior of metacity and bug fixes.

8. Interoperability
FreeRADIUS
FreeRADIUS is a high-performance, highly configurable, free Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS) server. It is designed to allow centralized authentication and authorization for a network.
FreeRADIUS 2.0 is available as a new package (freeradius2) in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5. FreeRADIUS 1 is still available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 in the original freeradius package. Version 2.0 of FreeRADIUS introduces many new features including the programming language unlang and virtual server support.

Samba
Samba is a suite of programs used by machines to share files, printers, and other information.
This update includes a newer version of Samba in the Samba3x package, adding support to interoperate with the latest operating systems of the Microsoft family, Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2 server, Windows Vista and Windows 7. This version of samba also provides many bugfixes and enhancements, including support for building clustered servers using the CTDB framework.

Refer:
http://www.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5.5.b1/html/Release_Notes/