BZ 428701 Introduced rate limiting into the audit code for its use of printk. This code makes it very easy to panic the box assuming the user chose to panic on audit failure. The most likely scenario? Load more than about 12 rules and try to reboot. auditd shuts down before the rules are unloaded so the audit system switches to using printk. We emit a message for every rule loaded so we emit more than 10 messages (the printk ratelimit default burst) thus we lose a message. If the user selected to panic on lost message the box will panic! I submitted an RFC upstream: http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-audit@redhat.com/msg01940.html and hopefully noone will object....
Patch was accepted into mainline kernel as: commit b29ee87e9b441e72454efd1be56aa1a05ffb2f58
in kernel-2.6.18-88.el5 You can download this test kernel from http://people.redhat.com/dzickus/el5
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on the solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2008-0314.html