(RHSA-2010:0907) Important: kernel security and bug fix update

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux
operating system.

This update fixes the following security issue:

• Buffer overflow flaws were found in the Linux kernel’s implementation of
  the server-side External Data Representation (XDR) for the Network File
  System (NFS) version 4. An attacker on the local network could send a
  specially-crafted large compound request to the NFSv4 server, which could
  possibly result in a kernel panic (denial of service) or, potentially, code
  execution. (CVE-2010-2521, Important)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• A race condition existed when generating new process IDs with the result
  that the wrong process could have been signaled or killed accidentally,
  leading to various application faults. This update detects and disallows
  the reuse of PID numbers. (BZ#638865)

• In a two node cluster, moving 100 files between two folders using the
  lock master was nearly instantaneous. However, not using the lock master
  resulted in considerably worse performance on both GFS1 (Global File System

1. and GFS2 (Global File System 2) file systems. With this update, not
   using the lock master does not lead to worsened performance on either of
   the aforementioned file systems. (BZ#639071)

• The device naming changed after additional devices were added to the
  system and caused various problems. With this update, device naming remains
  constant after adding any additional devices. (BZ#646764)

• On some bnx2-based devices, frames could drop unexpectedly. This was
  shown by the increasing “rx_fw_discards” values in the “ethtool
  –statistics” output. With this update, frames are no longer dropped and
  all bnx2-based devices work as expected. (BZ#649254)

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported
patches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for this
update to take effect.