Red Hat Enterprise Linux Release Notebook: Version 5.0

News

6/5/07 Satellite Server updated and ready for testing.

6/18/07 Satellite Server configured to auto-subscribe all RHEL 5 registrants to all sub channels so that packages that used to be "just there" will once again be "just there".

7/11/07 Problem with ATI Radeon X1300 traced to problem introduced into vm86.c in the kernel to silence audit error messages. Work around is to put:

 Option "Int10Backend" "x86emu"

in the ServerLayout section of xorg.conf. Red Hat is moving forward to craft a long term fix.

8/16/07 TSM 5.4 Release completed. RHEL 5 is tested and supported.

8/30/07 All is in place for official go-live of the updated RHN service.

9/6/07 RHN Service upgrade go-live announced.

10/5/07 Discovered that the updated McAfee scan engine (5200) linked against libstdc++-libc6, which is in compat-libstdc++-296, which is an ancient Red Hat 7.3 c++ library. We hope to get McAfee to correct their problem so that VirusScan 5.10 will continue to work under RHEL 5 after it takes an update.

10/24/07 We have a fix for the VirusScan Issue. It was the un-supported use of update.ini by we, outside of McAfee that was the root cause. We've updated naiupdt.pl and crafted a release of VirusScan 5.20 for RHEL 5.

10/24/07 We have MultiOS as part of the license now. It's lack has been DELETED from the known issues.

?/?/07 News Item.

Announcements

Countdown to retiring Red Hat Enterprise 3 at MIT
9/13/06

Red Hat Enterprise 5.0 Release Effort Underway
4/17/07

Virus Scan 5.10 Release Announcement
6/13/07

MIT Red Hat Network Service Upgraded to Accommodate RHEL 5
9/6/07

RHEL 5 apps available for early adopter testing
10/5/07

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 Release Announcement
10/30/07

VirusScan, TechTime, and mit-lprng updated for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
11/6/07

Key Decisions

• 7/11/07 Issue with ATI Radeon X1300 on Dell is under control
• 7/16/07 As with RHEL 4 we will locally replicate the Red Hat documentation. (If Red Hat has done away with the documentation DVD this will be a bit more work.)
• 7/16/07 We will instruct customers to ignore installation numbers, and skip over the steps that use them in the install.
• 7/16/07 We will punt Zephyr with RHEL 5 and focus on Jabber. (We need to sort out whether to provide configs for gaim or pidgin. Both are present, but which one is right?)
• 7/16/07 We plan to punt LPRng as well, and focus on CUPS. This may involve a separate small release effort.
• 7/16/07 As with RHEL 4 OpenAFS will be a separate release effort.
• 8/13/07 Actually AFS looks much easier this time round. Maybe we CAN roll it out at the same time.
• 8/13/07 We did not get that much value from the OpenAFS installer that fetched the real OpenAFS via the net. So RHEL 5 OpenAFS RPM will contain all the actual bits. (Yes, it still may build kernel modules either at boot time or on demand from the user.)
• 8/27/07 We will proceed with a mini-release of TechTime 10 for Linux.
• 9/13/07 We will not put early adopter app software onto the Software Download Page. Instead there will be a test directory for early adopters in the ist-linux locker. This will minimize confusion about support status.
• 9/13/07 Archive all RHEL 3 specific docs because we've ended support back in January.
• 9/17/07 Found 5 stock answers we could kill off as part of our review: Hardware SA's from RHEL 3, and partitioning advice that is either redundant or ill advised these days.
• 9/18/07 We discovered that although we wanted to not write an install doc at all, we needed to tell people to register for RHN with us, not with Red Hat. Since there were a few other important points, we wrote a SMALL install document.
• 9/27/07 We have a new approach for LPRng that co-exists with CUPS instead of replacing it. Customers will use the programs "mit-lpr" instead of "lpr" to use LPRng. This approach needs to be back-ported to RHEL 4.
• 9/27/04 The updated TechTime 10 should be back-ported to RHEL 4.
• 9/27/04 Testing of VirusScan is in scope.
• 9/27/04 We will create a local mirror of RHEL 5 documentation and point at it rather than the docs hosted at redhat.com. (Too many docs move and break links without warning.)
• 9/27/04 Testing of upgrade from RHEL 4 WS to RHEL 5 Server is in scope for completeness sake.
• 9/27/04 Only Adobe Reader will be put into the MIT Supported Software Channel at this time. We'll pilot something else after RHEL 5 go-live.
• 10/5/04 Mini Release of OpenOffice 2.x is in scope.
• 10/5/04 After RHEL 5 go-live we will investigate the costs and benefits of offering the "unsupported Technology Preview" openoffice2 from Red Hat to RHEL 4 users.
• 10/5/04 We will target 10/30/07 for RHEL 5 go-live.
• 10/19/04 VirusScan not working is not a blocker to RHEL 5 go-live.
• 10/19/04 Resolution of the Supplementary Channel issue is not a blocker to go-live because we now know how to easily bulk subscribe systems to the sub-channel.
• 10/19/04 A sanity check test of basic operation of the 64 bit apps by wdc will be sufficient testing for go-live.
• 10/25/07The 64 bit apps have all tested out OK. We're good to go.
• 10/25/07 We CAN incorporate VirusScan5.20 mini-release into RHEL 5 before go-live.
• 10/29/07 All software is tested and docs are at final revision. We're good to go.
• 11/20/07 Policy for pidgin/gaim: pidgin is RHEL 5 only. gaim is RHEL 4 only.
• 12/6/07 OpenAFS for RHEL 5 will be a separate project.
• 12/6/07 Supplementary channel will be done by wdc (Linux Platform Coordinator) outside of the project.
• 12/6/07 The Pilot of additional software in the ISandT Supported Linux Software Channel will be done outside of this project.

Notable Features

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is available as the following products: AS, ES, WS and Desktop

• Re-arrangement of product offerings from AS, ES, WS and Desktop to a diverse array of variations on a Client and a Server product.
• Significant re-arrangement of what packages are included in which version. (For example, Server comes without OpenOffice.)
• Change from the up2date protocol to yum for Red Hat Network updates.
• Integration of the Xen virtualization system into RHEL 5 Server, and the Multi-OS option for RHEL 5 Client.
• Updates to hardware device drivers, security fixes, performance enhancements, bug fixes, and updated applications and services.
• New versions of included applications of interest to MIT Users:
  • Kerberos 1.5
  • OpenSSH 4.3
  • Evolution 2.8
  • Open Office 2.0
• New versions of IS&T supplied applications:
  • Techtime 10.1
  • LPRng which will co-exist with the CUPS infrastructure. (Use "mit-lpr" for LPRng, and "lpr" for CUPS).
  • TSM 5.4
  • VirusScan 5.20

For more information about Red Hat Enterprise, please review the documentation: Red Hat Enterprise 5 Documentation.

System Requirements

Below are the tentative requirements needed in order to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux at MIT on a x86 based system.

• Computer/Processor: Intel Pentium III or faster processor (Pentium IV or better recommended)
• Memory: 256 MB
• Disk Space: 5 GB Minimum, 7+ GB Recommended

For the latest IS hardware recommendations, see Linux at MIT .

Testing

Client OS install: Works (wdc).

Server OS install: Works (jdreed, blang).

Update from RHEL4 AS to Server: Works (jdreed).

Update from WS to Client: Works (jdreed). Seems to take longer than an AS to Server update.

Update from RHEL 5 Server to RHEL 5 Client: This option is offered by the installer. It seems to work.

Update from RHEL 5 Client to RHEL 5 Server: This option is offered by the installer. It seems to work.

Update from WS to Server: Works (wdc). Unfortunately OpenOffice behavior after the update is non-intuitive. Although the menus to start OpenOffice are still present, start-up fails. Command line startup gives the error, "no suitable windowing system found. exiting." So the OpenOffice 1.1.5 left by the update is broken.

RHN: We have modified the MIT activate script to bypass code in the Red Hat bootstrap script that gives a superfluous error. We have set the activation default to NOT take an initial update. We have identified the documentation changes to deal with the change from "up2date" to "yum". We believe RHN is now tested and ready for release as soon as the docs are changed.

Kerberos: Works. Possible new behavior: prompting for Kerberos password at the beginning of a GNOME desktop session if there are no tickets.

OpenSSH: Connecting from RHEL 5 to any other machine using kerberos authentication requires configuration changes which we will document. (This behavior is consistent with what other platforms, such as Apple MacOS X have adopted.)

Acrobat Reader: Works when fetched via RHN/yum on clean install. Further testing to confirm one tester's core dump is a case customers will not experience. If it is a real issue we will document the work around.

Evolution: blang tested basic IMAP operation, and the Evolution 2.8 that comes with RHEL5 seems to work just fine.

OpenOffice: Version 2.0.4 ships with RHEL 5 Client, but has been carefully removed from Server, and this fact is noted in the Known Issues doc. Tested OpenOffice with a few illustrative docs and updated the testing page. We've nuked the old "OpenOffice at MIT" OLH page because it was too basic, and not worth revising from its 1.1 focus. Instead we've added some useful stock answers on start-up and printer configuration.

Pine: Works when rebuilt from source. No document changes needed. It turned out that RHEL5 moved hesinfo into a separate RPM, and did not install it by default. To make Pine more platform independent we will redid the start-up script to use DNS instead of hesinfo. This duplicates a subtle change also made in mit-LPRng.

TechTime: Works when we work around an Oracle Installer bug. We need to report this problem upstream to Oracle. The compat-libstdc++-33 compatibility library, and the libXp ,Xpm, and Xmu toolkit libraries which are not installed by default are required. Documentation will be revised.

VPN: Works when rebuilt from source. No document changes needed. wdc agrees.

VirusScan: Works. The compat-libstdc++-33 compatibility library is required for RHEL5. This has been documented. The naiupdt.pl script needed modification to deal with changes in update.ini at the McAfee update site. The script is making an unsupported use of that file, so it's a harsh reality of life that it breaks sometimes. naiupdt.pl for RHEL 4 will need to be updated. Although there is a 64 bit binary available, the 32 bit version is just fine, and will auto-update. Enhancement requests have been filed with McAfee to make automated updating of the engine more graceful.

Gaim / Pidgin: gaim is installed but then removed and replaced with Pidgin on the first update. We will create PFD, Version page, and clones of gaim docs for Pidgin.

Xwrits: Works when re-built from source.

Zephyr: We plan to punt zephyr for RHEL 5.

OpenAFS: Build from source needed. Seems to work. jdreed will build an RPM for early adopters. This will be a separate release project.

Known Issues

All known issues are published in an itinfo article: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0: Known Issues

Documentation

• OS-related Documentation
• Red Hat Network
• Kerberos
• OpenSSH
• Pidgin
• Evolution
• Firefox
• Open Office
• LPRng
• TechTime
• VPN
• Virus Scan
• Xwrits
• Acrobat Reader
• Pine
• TSM (Tivoli Storage Manager)
• OpenAFS

OS-related Documentation

Red Hat Network

Kerberos (version 1.5 for RHEL 5)

OpenSSH (version 4.3 for RHEL 5)

Pidgin (version 2.0 for RHEL 5)

Evolution

Firefox

Open Office

LPRng (We need to back-port our new LPRng approach to RHEL 4.)

TechTime (10.x for RHEL 5 and back port to RHEL 4.)

VPN

VirusScan (v. 5.20)

Xwrits (v. 2.22)

Acrobat Reader

Pine

TSM (Tivoli Storage Manager)
See also: TSM 5.4 for Linux Release Notebook

OpenAFS

Release Team

	Bill Cattey - SDIT
	Linux Platform Coordinator and Product Release Coordinator
	Deb Bowser - SWRT
	Quality Assurance Coordinator
	Heather Anne Harrison - Pubs
	Documentation Coordinator
	Bob Lang -TH
	Tech Help Representative
	Dan Logcher - Operations
	Technical Lead for RHN Proxy Server
	Jonathan Reed - Athena Consulting
	Testing, Installer development
	Andrew Boardman - SDIT
	Testing, Debugging.

If you would like to contact the team, please send email to rhe-release@mit.edu.

Meeting Minutes

• Meeting Minutes, 7/16/07
• Meeting Minutes, 8/13/07
• Meeting Minutes, 8/27/07
• Status report in lieu of meeting 9/7/07
• Status report in lieu of meeting 9/14/07
• Status report in lieu of meeting 9/27/07
• Status report in lieu of meeting 10/5/07
• Status report in lieu of meeting 10/19/07
• Status report in lieu of meeting 11/2/07
• Status report in lieu of meeting 11/27/07
• Follow-up / Closeout meeting 12/6/07

Support

For Red Hat Enterprise Linux support, please contact the Computing Help Desk at computing-help@mit.edu or x3-1103.