---
title: "FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE Errata"
sidenav: download
---

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<h3 class="CORPAUTHOR">The FreeBSD Project</h3>

<p class="COPYRIGHT">Copyright &copy; 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 The FreeBSD
Documentation Project</p>

<p class="PUBDATE">$FreeBSD: src/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/errata/article.sgml,v
1.69.2.15 2004/11/22 17:20:42 hrs Exp $<br />
</p>

<div class="LEGALNOTICE"><a id="TRADEMARKS" name="TRADEMARKS"></a>
<p>FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.</p>

<p>Intel, Celeron, EtherExpress, i386, i486, Itanium, Pentium, and Xeon are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and
other countries.</p>

<p>AMD, Athlon, Opteron, and Geode are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. in the United States
and other countries.</p>

<p>Sparc, Sparc64, SPARCEngine, and UltraSPARC are trademarks of SPARC International, Inc
in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based
upon architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.</p>

<p>Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their
products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this document, and
the FreeBSD Project was aware of the trademark claim, the designations have been followed
by the ``&trade;'' or the ``&reg;'' symbol.</p>
</div>

<hr />
</div>

<blockquote class="ABSTRACT">
<div class="ABSTRACT"><a id="AEN20" name="AEN20"></a>
<p>This document lists errata items for FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE, containing significant
information discovered after the release or too late in the release cycle to be otherwise
included in the release documentation. This information includes security advisories, as
well as news relating to the software or documentation that could affect its operation or
usability. An up-to-date version of this document should always be consulted before
installing this version of FreeBSD.</p>

<p>This errata document for FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE will be maintained until the release of
FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>

<div class="SECT1">
<hr />
<h2 class="SECT1"><a id="INTRO" name="INTRO">1 Introduction</a></h2>

<p>This errata document contains ``late-breaking news'' about FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE. Before
installing this version, it is important to consult this document to learn about any
post-release discoveries or problems that may already have been found and fixed.</p>

<p>Any version of this errata document actually distributed with the release (for
example, on a CDROM distribution) will be out of date by definition, but other copies are
kept updated on the Internet and should be consulted as the ``current errata'' for this
release. These other copies of the errata are located at <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/"
target="_top">http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/</a>, plus any sites which keep up-to-date
mirrors of this location.</p>

<p>Source and binary snapshots of FreeBSD 5-STABLE also contain up-to-date copies of this
document (as of the time of the snapshot).</p>

<p>For a list of all FreeBSD CERT security advisories, see <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/security/"
target="_top">http://www.FreeBSD.org/security/</a> or <a
href="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/CERT/"
target="_top">ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/CERT/</a>.</p>
</div>

<div class="SECT1">
<hr />
<h2 class="SECT1"><a id="SECURITY" name="SECURITY">2 Security Advisories</a></h2>

<p>(1 Dec 2004) A bug in <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=procfs&sektion=5&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">procfs</span>(5)</span></a> and <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=linprocfs&sektion=5&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">linprocfs</span>(5)</span></a>
which could cause a malicious local user could perform a local denial of service attack
by causing a system panic, or the user could read parts of kernel memory, has been fixed.
For more information, see security advisory <a
href="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/CERT/advisories/FreeBSD-SA-04:17.procfs.asc"
target="_top">FreeBSD-SA-04:17</a>.</p>

<p>(18 Nov 2004) A bug in the <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=fetch&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">fetch</span>(1)</span></a> utility
which allows a malicious HTTP server to cause arbitrary portions of the client's memory
to be overwritten, has been fixed. For more information, see security advisory <a
href="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/CERT/advisories/FreeBSD-SA-04:16.fetch.asc"
target="_top">FreeBSD-SA-04:16</a>.</p>
</div>

<div class="SECT1">
<hr />
<h2 class="SECT1"><a id="OPEN-ISSUES" name="OPEN-ISSUES">3 Open Issues</a></h2>

<p>(31 Oct 2004) The <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=re&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable"><span
 class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">re</span>(4)</span></a> and <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=em&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable"><span
 class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">em</span>(4)</span></a> drivers may
behave poorly under heavy load. In particular, there are reports of <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=em&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable"><span
 class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">em</span>(4)</span></a> on the IBM
ThinkPad T40 locking up under such conditions.</p>

<p>(31 Oct 2004) There are reports of the <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sk&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable"><span
 class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">sk</span>(4)</span></a> driver locking
up under heavy load, especially when ASUStek on-board NICs are used. To clear the
condition, bringing the interface down then back up and/or rebooting the system may be
needed.</p>

<p>(31 Oct 2004) The <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=burncd&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">burncd</span>(8)</span></a>
utility is functional but may behave erratically on some systems. Reported symptoms
include that <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=burncd&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">burncd</span>(8)</span></a> can
appear to hang and never complete while the operation actually does complete, and the
progress indicator does not show the correct value. Workarounds include:</p>

<ul>
<li>
<p>Eject and re-insert the media after burning a CD.</p>
</li>

<li>
<p>Press Ctrl-C when <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=burncd&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">burncd</span>(8)</span></a>
appears to hang up while the access LED goes inactive.</p>
</li>
</ul>

<p>(31 Oct 2004) When the user/group rule clauses in <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=pf&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable"><span
 class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">pf</span>(4)</span></a> and <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ipfw&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">ipfw</span>(4)</span></a> are
used, the loader tunable <var class="VARNAME">debug.mpsafenet</var> must be set to <var
class="LITERAL">0</var> (this is <var class="LITERAL">1</var> by default). For example,
the following rules are affected:</p>

<p>for <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ipfw&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">ipfw</span>(4)</span></a>:</p>

<pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
count ip from any to 192.168.2.1 uid root
</pre>

<p>for <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=pf&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable"><span
 class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">pf</span>(4)</span></a>:</p>

<pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
block log quick proto { tcp, udp } all user root
</pre>

<p>To set <var class="VARNAME">debug.mpsafenet</var> to <var class="LITERAL">0</var> on
every boot, add the following line into <tt class="FILENAME">/boot/loader.conf</tt>:</p>

<pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
debug.mpsafenet=0
</pre>

<p>More specifically, the <var class="LITERAL">group</var> and <var
class="LITERAL">user</var> filter parameters in <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=pf&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable"><span
 class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">pf</span>(4)</span></a>, and the <var
class="LITERAL">gid</var>, <var class="LITERAL">jail</var>, and <var
class="LITERAL">uid</var> rule options in <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ipfw&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">ipfw</span>(4)</span></a> are
affected. If <var class="VARNAME">debug.mpsafenet</var> is set to <var
class="LITERAL">1</var>, the system can hang when the rule is evaluated due to a lock
order reversal with the socket layer. More details can be found in the <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ipfw&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">ipfw</span>(8)</span></a> and <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=pf.conf&sektion=5&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">pf.conf</span>(5)</span></a>
manual pages.</p>

<p>(31 Oct 2004, updated on 12 Nov 2004) The <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=vinum&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">vinum</span>(4)</span></a>
subsystem works on 5.3, but it can cause a system panic at boot time. As a workaround you
can add <var class="LITERAL">vinum_load="YES"</var> to <tt
class="FILENAME">/boot/loader.conf</tt>.</p>

<p>As an alternative you can also use the new <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=geom&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">geom</span>(4)</span></a>-based <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=vinum&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">vinum</span>(4)</span></a>
subsystem. To activate the <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=geom&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">geom</span>(4)</span></a>-aware
vinum at boot time, add <var class="LITERAL">geom_vinum_load="YES"</var> to <tt
class="FILENAME">/boot/loader.conf</tt> and remove <var
class="LITERAL">start_vinum="YES"</var> in <tt class="FILENAME">/etc/rc.conf</tt> if it
exists.</p>

<p>While some uncommon configurations, such as multiple vinum drives on a disk, are not
supported, it is generally backward compatible. Note that for the <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=geom&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">geom</span>(4)</span></a>-aware
vinum, its new userland control program, <tt class="COMMAND">gvinum</tt>, should be used,
and it is not yet feature-complete.</p>

<p>(31 Oct 2004) The results of <tt class="COMMAND">netstat -m</tt> can become incorrect
on SMP systems when <var class="VARNAME">debug.mpsafenet</var> is set to <var
class="LITERAL">1</var> (default). This is an error in the statistics gathering because
of a race condition in the counters, not an actual memory leak.</p>

<p>(31 Oct 2004, updated on 5 Nov 2004) For FreeBSD/i386 and FreeBSD/amd64, when
installing FreeBSD 5.3 using an USB keyboard the keyboard will stop working once the
kernel boots, because a PS/2 keyboard is always considered to be attached. As a
workaround, select ``Escape to loader prompt'' in the boot loader menu and enter the
following lines at the prompt:</p>

<pre class="SCREEN">
set hint.atkbd.0.flags="0x1"
boot
</pre>

<p>Note that if you use the boot floppies, this is set by default.</p>

<p>After the installation, add the following line to <tt
class="FILENAME">/boot/loader.conf</tt>:</p>

<pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
hint.atkbd.0.flags="0x1"
</pre>

<p>(1 Nov 2004) The ULE scheduler described in the release notes has been completely
disabled to discourage its use because it has stability problems.</p>

<p>(1 Nov 2004) Programs linked with <b class="APPLICATION">libpthread</b> may not report
any CPU usage statistics according to <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=top&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable"><span
 class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">top</span>(1)</span></a>, while those
linked with <b class="APPLICATION">libthr</b> show the correct statistics.</p>

<p>(1 Nov 2004) ATA RAID support for the CMD649 and SiI0680 ATA controllers is
non-functional in this release. When such a controller is brough up under <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ata&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable"><span
 class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">ata</span>(4)</span></a> (ataraid) on
5.3, the RAID configuration stored under 5.2 or prior may be corrupted.</p>

<p>(3 Nov 2004) For FreeBSD/i386 and FreeBSD/amd64, SMP support in the <tt
class="FILENAME">GENERIC</tt> kernel has been disabled by default because the SMP kernel
can degrade the performance on UP machines. A kernel configuration file <tt
class="FILENAME">SMP</tt>, which can be used to enable SMP support, has been added. More
details on building the custom kernel can be found at <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/kernelconfig.html"
target="_top">http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/kernelconfig.html</a>.</p>

<p>(4 Nov 2004) The <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=tar&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable"><span
 class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">tar</span>(1)</span></a> utility (also
known as <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=bsdtar&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">bsdtar</span>(1)</span></a>) does
not detect the end of media such as tape and floppy disk properly when it is specified
with the <var class="OPTION">-f</var> option. As an alternative <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gtar&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">gtar</span>(1)</span></a> (<b
class="APPLICATION">GNU tar</b>) can be used.</p>

<p>(9 Nov 2004) The <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=geom&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">geom</span>(4)</span></a>-aware <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=vinum&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">vinum</span>(4)</span></a>
subsystem does not work for RAID5 volumes on machines with a single processor. The
configurations other than RAID5 (such as RAID1) should work correctly. This problem has
been fixed on the RELENG_5 branch.</p>

<p>(9 Nov 2004) The FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE Migration Guide should have stated that <tt
class="FILENAME">/usr/sbin/nslookup</tt> and <tt class="FILENAME">/usr/sbin/nsupdate</tt>
included in <b class="APPLICATION">BIND 8</b> have to be removed during the source-based
upgrade procedure.</p>

<p>(9 Nov 2004) The FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE Release Notes should have stated that <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/url.cgi?ports/net/mpd/pkg-descr"><tt
class="FILENAME">net/mpd</tt></a> which was compiled on the old systems prior to
5.3-RELEASE must be recompiled.</p>

<p>(10 Nov 2004) The FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE Release Notes should have stated explicitly that
ports/packages which were built on the old systems prior to 5.3-RELEASE and linked with
the old POSIX thread libraries (<b class="APPLICATION">libc_r</b> or <b
class="APPLICATION">libkse</b>) can cause an error ``Spinlock called when not threaded.''
at run time. This happens when the program is linked with multiple different threading
libraries (typically the older ports will be linked with <b
class="APPLICATION">libc_r</b>, while newer ports will be linked with <b
class="APPLICATION">libpthread</b>). Either recompile the ports/packages or add the
necessary lines to <tt class="FILENAME">/etc/libmap.conf</tt>. More details can be found
in <tt class="FILENAME">/usr/src/UPDATING</tt> (20040303 and 20040130).</p>

<p>(12 Nov 2004) The <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=em&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-stable"><span
 class="CITEREFENTRY"><span class="REFENTRYTITLE">em</span>(4)</span></a> driver behaves
incorrectly when the VLAN support and promiscuous mode are enabled at the same time. A
fix is being tested and will be merged to the 5.3 errata branch.</p>
</div>

<div class="SECT1">
<hr />
<h2 class="SECT1"><a id="LATE-NEWS" name="LATE-NEWS">4 Late-Breaking News</a></h2>

<p>No news.</p>
</div>
</div>

<hr />
<p align="center"><small>This file, and other release-related documents, can be
downloaded from <a
href="http://snapshots.jp.FreeBSD.org/">http://snapshots.jp.FreeBSD.org/</a>.</small></p>

<p align="center"><small>For questions about FreeBSD, read the <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/docs.html">documentation</a> before contacting &#60;<a
href="mailto:questions@FreeBSD.org">questions@FreeBSD.org</a>&#62;.</small></p>

<p align="center"><small>All users of FreeBSD 5-STABLE should subscribe to the &#60;<a
href="mailto:stable@FreeBSD.org">stable@FreeBSD.org</a>&#62; mailing list.</small></p>

<p align="center"><small>For questions about this documentation, e-mail &#60;<a
href="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">doc@FreeBSD.org</a>&#62;.</small></p>
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