Details

CentOS 5.6 Release Notes

Last updated: Apr 13th, 2011

1. Translations

Translations of these release notes are available in the following languages:

• Brazilian Portuguese (Português do Brasil) - Cleber Paiva de Souza

• Simplified Chinese (简体中文) - Timothy Lee

• Traditional Chinese (繁體中文) - Timothy Lee

• Czech (Česky) - David Hrbáč

• Japanese (日本語) - Tadashi Jokagi, Akemi Yagi

• French (Français) - Fabian Arrotin

• Romanian (Romana) - Manuel Wolfshant

• Spanish (Español) - Hardy Beltran

2. Introduction

Welcome to the CentOS 5.6 release. CentOS is an Enterprise-class Linux Distribution derived from sources freely provided to the public by our Upstream OS Provider (UOP)¹.

CentOS conforms fully with the upstream vendors redistribution policy and aims to be 100% binary compatible. (CentOS mainly changes packages to remove upstream vendor branding and artwork.) CentOS is a Free Operating System.

CentOS 5.6 is the sixth update to the CentOS 5 distribution series. It contains a lot of bugfixes, updates and new functionality. Before reading any further we advise you to read the UOP Release Notes and Technical Notes. The rest of this document is an addendum and primarily covers CentOS-specific issues.

3. Install Media and sha1sum

--------------------------------------------
i386 media and their sha1sums are:

90bede4d0fd898b5c707c1286090e104c7549e65  CentOS-5.6-i386-bin-1of7.iso
55d2e6715f20321f3133260e00626275a04ce135  CentOS-5.6-i386-bin-2of7.iso
e2456baf35f444d8ae31656e7879b7bcf6b5ad80  CentOS-5.6-i386-bin-3of7.iso
165531a4dec87215379732c0ab8caa5689bf6044  CentOS-5.6-i386-bin-4of7.iso
ee084789533a5db41e96d064af2dc071976a09c6  CentOS-5.6-i386-bin-5of7.iso
7669dabc486450315ccce87ab945e508252b02ca  CentOS-5.6-i386-bin-6of7.iso
ed9bf4539a68d7a86408e1cc56c37f68b1941df8  CentOS-5.6-i386-bin-7of7.iso
e44a55ef06293c3958a2b6aae3c3ce2d13580627  CentOS-5.6-i386-bin-DVD.iso
5ff43eb45051f804219d7e795b4f830dd2aa815c  CentOS-5.6-i386-netinstall.iso
bfa3146fecbe5dd6820f8261851baa4951b80cb6  CentOS-5.6-i386-LiveCD.iso
--------------------------------------------
x86_64 media and their sha1sums are:

2b16a64a0b4d68a6b4263bffdbc5f99c3daf9070  CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-1of8.iso
d7e112eae4ee24538d41ec7955747526c71329ad  CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-2of8.iso
3c36e8d2b211455efb418f3b221395b39bbed9f4  CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-3of8.iso
68bfccf66bc0464ef4aded146320792ab22a2d3c  CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-4of8.iso
9287112b062f4c26de2cf65eddfba121e485c852  CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-5of8.iso
f8fed9a75ff845a0a2b77126099ae9af9c24f29e  CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-6of8.iso
0ccafbcfd28f71db18752d58ffe3b4efd97d6f0d  CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-7of8.iso
4061355f409cab0f6c9cc4b4c52e6f4edb41b0c8  CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-8of8.iso
99d97759316b0bec729fc85fcb4df33310d9eeb3  CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-DVD-1of2.iso
e28d90718d591c833d07d0b86f0d3d3486dc454c  CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-DVD-2of2.iso
6b8ff7f955ba9c0f86ab0a1d71aaee8e3b4c6976  CentOS-5.6-x86_64-netinstall.iso
1770511af5791256f9d87fb8f76bb02cd2bccd9c  CentOS-5.6-x86_64-LiveCD.iso

--------------------------------------------

4. Known Issues

• As of CentOS 5.5, x86_64 is split into two DVDs. If you need the additional language packs for OpenOffice (OOo), you can no longer just loop mount the DVD iso and run an install from it. You will either need to do a 'cp -al' and regenerate the metadata or install the langpack packages after the rest of the system. Installs not requiring the additional OOo language packs should run using only DVD#1.

• If upgrading from a CentOS 5 release earlier than 5.5 the following procedure is advised:

  yum clean all
  yum update glibc\*
  yum update yum\* rpm\* pyth\*
  yum clean all
  yum update mkinitrd nash
  yum update selinux\*
  yum update
  shutdown -r now
  

• Because of this bug httpd fails to start after existing systems are updated from an older CentOS 5 release to CentOS 5.6. The workaround is described here. This only happens when you have SSL enabled and mod_nss installed for your webserver.

• An encounter with upstream bug #674394 with scsi-target-utils for iscsi clients accessing large volumes has been reported by a forum user. The recommended workaround is to downgrade scsi-target-utils to the 5.5 version.

• If you are using the qcow2 disk image type on your KVM virtual machines, you may need to edit the XML file for your virtual machine (<VM_Name>.xml file in/etc/libvirt/qemu/). You want to look in the <disk type='file' device='disk'> section of the file and find any type="raw" and change it to type="qcow2".

• A forum user encountered a hang on kernel-PAE during a yum upgrade and has posted a solution.

• It has been reported on the ML that sound stopped working with an Intel 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (snd-hda-intel) after updating. Use of the ELRepo kmod-alsa kABI-tracking module corrected the issue.

• A CentOS Virtualization ML user reported that VMware Server 2 failed to work after an upgrade. Another user reported that the solution is the removal of the old glibc recommended for use in CentOS Bug# 3884.

• A forum user noted a problem installing nspr-devel. The versions of the 5.6 packages appear to yum to be older than those from 5.5 updates.

• There is a problem with the distributed conga stack luci/ricci packages, as reported in CentOS Bug #4799 which also provides a workaround.

5. Resolved Issues

• Up to (and including) CentOS 5.5 the installer offered the option to enable the CentOS Extras repository by activating a preset menu entry. Unfortunately an Anaconda installation bug made the installer crash if this option was enabled. In CentOS 5.6 this predefined menu entry has been removed. CentOS Extras can still be used during the installation but it must be manually introduced just like any other additional repository.

6. Changes

6.1. New repositories

Starting with CentOS 5.6, the centos-release package includes the required configuration files needed to access the debuginfo and vault repositories which previously had to be downloaded separately. CentOS-Debuginfo.repo contains the debuginfo packages (needed among other uses for systemtap) while CentOS-Vault.repo contains the previous (and no longer supported) minor releases of CentOS 5.

6.2. New packages in 5.6 that were not present in 5.5

• bind97
• hplip3
• php53

6.3. Packages that have been upgraded in 5.6 since the 5.5 release

• mod_nss-1.0.8-3.el5
• python-2.4.3-27.el5_5.3

Note: The python package has been split in 3 subpackages (python-libs, python and python-devel instead of the former python and python-devel split).

6.4. Packages removed by upstream in 5.6 that were present in 5.5

6.5. Packages released as 5.5 updates with older packages on the 5.6 install media

• tzdata-2011b-1.el5.i386.rpm
• tzdata-java-2011b-1.el5.i386.rpm
• nspr-4.8.6-1.el5_5.x86_64.rpm
• nspr-devel-4.8.6-1.el5_5.x86_64.rpm

These packages are now in the updates repository for CentOS 5.6.

7. Changes made by CentOS

7.1. Packages modified by CentOS

• anaconda
• anacron
• basesystem
• bluez-utils
• brltty
• busybox
• centos-release
• Cluster_Administration
• clustermon
• comps-extras
• conga
• crash
• Deployment_Guide
• desktop-backgrounds
• eclipse
• filesystem
• firefox
• firstboot
• gdm
• geronimo-specs
• Global_File_System
• gnome-desktop
• gnome-session
• gzip
• httpd
• initscripts
• kdebase
• kdelibs
• kudzu
• nautilus-sendto
• nss
• ntp
• pango
• pirut
• pm-utils
• procmail
• python-virtinst
• redhat-artwork
• redhat-logos
• redhat-lsb
• redhat-rpm-config
• rgmanager
• rhdb-utils
• rhgb
• setuptool
• specspo
• squirrelmail
• system-config-bind
• tftp
• thunderbird
• Virtualization_Guide
• xorg-x11-proto-devel
• yum
• yum-utils

Note: Details of changes can be found in the package changelog. It's also important to keep in mind that most of these packages are only changed to remove upstream branding, as required by their terms of use.

7.2. Packages removed from CentOS that are included upstream

• redhat-release-5Client
• redhat-release-5Server
• redhat-release-notes
• rhel-instnum
• rhn-check
• rhn-client-tools
• rhnlib
• rhnsd
• rhn-setup
• rhn-setup-gnome
• yum-rhn-plugin

7.3. Packages added by CentOS that are not included upstream

8. How to help and get help

As a CentOS user there are various ways you can help out with the CentOS community. Take a look at our Contribute page for further information on how to get involved.

8.1. Special Interest Groups

CentOS consists of different Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that bring together people with similar interests. The following SIGs already exist:

• Artwork - create and improve artwork for CentOS releases and promotion

• Promotion - help promoting CentOS online or at events

• Virtualization - unite people around virtualization in CentOS

And we encourage people to join any of these SIGs or start up a new SIG, e.g.

• Alpha, S390, Sparc and PPC port - help with porting CentOS to other architectures
• Hardware compatibility - provide feedback about specific hardware
• RPM Packaging - contribute new useful RPM packages
• Translation - help translating the documentation, website and wiki content

8.2. Mailinglists and Fora

Another way you can help others in the community is by actively helping and resolving problems that users come up against in the mailinglists and the fora.

8.3. Wiki and Website

Even as an inexperienced CentOS user we can use your help. Because we like to know what problems you encountered, if you had problems finding specific information, how you would improve documentation so it becomes more accessible. This kind of feedback is as valuable to others as it would have been to you so your involvement is required to make CentOS better.

So if you want to help out and improve our documentation and wiki, register on the wiki or subscribe to the centos-docs mailinglist.

9. Further Reading

The following websites contain large amounts of information to help people with their CentOS systems :

• Upstream release notes and documentation : http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5/index.html

• http://www.centos.org/

• http://wiki.centos.org/

• http://lists.centos.org/

• http://bugs.centos.org.

• http://planet.centos.org/

• http://mirrors.kernel.org/redhat/redhat/linux/enterprise/5Client/en/os/SRPMS/

• http://mirrors.kernel.org/redhat/redhat/linux/enterprise/5Server/en/os/SRPMS/

10. Thanks

We thank everyone involved for helping us produce this product.

Copyright (C) 2011 The CentOS Project