Hide Forgot
Description of problem: Some applications cannot deal with a Linux kernel version of the form 3.x.y. A 2.6 personality patch has been added to the MRG Realtime kernel which alters the data returned by the uname(2) system call, such that the the revision string gets transformed to: 2.6.40 + (minor release number) Using the personality patch, a process running on a 3.1.0 kernel would get a uname -r report of: 2.6.41 Activating the personality patch requires a wrapper program that calls into the kernel to turn on the 2.6 personality, then execs the actual application. An upstream wrapper executable has been created named uname26.c. This BZ is a request to package uname26 for inclusion with the MRG 2.1 release (for use by the MRG realtime kernel). The source for uname26.c is attached.
Created attachment 531013 [details] source code for uname26 wrapper program
Verified in bug #749575
Technical note added. If any revisions are required, please edit the "Technical Notes" field accordingly. All revisions will be proofread by the Engineering Content Services team. New Contents: Some applications use flawed versioning logic that cannot recognize new Linux kernel versions in the format of "3.x.y". As a workaround to this bug in external applications, the new uname26 utility has been added to MRG Realtime 2.1 kernel. This utility activates the 2.6 personality kernel patch to transform data returned by the uname(2) system call to the format of "2.6.40.[minor_release_number]", and then executes the actual application. (BZ#750336)
(In reply to comment #4) . This utility activates the 2.6 personality kernel patch to > transform data returned by the uname(2) system call to the format of > "2.6.40.[minor_release_number]", and then executes the actual application. > (BZ#750336) More correctly, it returns a version of the form: 2.6.40 + minor_release_number so a 3.0 kernel becomes 2.6.40, a 3.1 kernel becomes 2.6.41, a 3.2 kernel becomes 2.6.42, etc.
Since the problem described in this bug report should be resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated files, follow the link below. If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2012-0047.html