3.2 What's New in Oracle VM Release 3.4.3?

The new features and enhancements in Oracle VM Release 3.4.3 include:

Installation and Upgrades

Simplified UEFI PXE Boot for Oracle VM Server

As of this release, you do not need to manually build the GRUB 2 boot loader to install Oracle VM Server on UEFI-based systems in a PXE boot environment. The Oracle VM Server ISO image file provides the /EFI/BOOT/grubx64.efi boot loader for UEFI-based systems. See Installing Oracle VM Server for x86 from PXE Boot in the Oracle VM Installation and Upgrade Guide.

Note

If you plan to install Oracle VM Server on BIOS-based systems, you use the pxelinux.0 boot loader from the syslinux package on Oracle Linux.

Infrastructure

Support for Software RAID Devices with Oracle VM Server

You can now create kickstart configurations that assemble software RAID devices during the Oracle VM Server installation. See Software RAID Partitions in the Oracle VM Installation and Upgrade Guide.

You can also create software RAID devices in dom0 after installation. Oracle VM Server then presents those software RAID devices to Oracle VM Manager so that you can use them as storage repositories or for virtual disks. See Configuring Software RAID for Storage in the Oracle VM Administrator's Guide.

Important

The following notes apply to using software RAID devices with Oracle VM Server in this release:

  • Oracle VM Server supports installation on software RAID devices on BIOS-based systems only.

  • You should not attempt to install Oracle VM Server on a software RAID if a disk that is 2 TB or larger is a member of the array. Due to a limitation with the Master Boot Record (MBR), Oracle VM Server cannot boot from disks that are 2 TB or larger in a software RAID configuration.

  • As a best practice, you should use software RAID devices as storage repositories in a test environment before using them in a production environment.

  • In environments where you use software RAID devices as storage repositories for server pools, unexpected behavior can occur with certain virtual machine migration operations. For example, if you clone a virtual machine and then attempt to live migrate it to an instance of Oracle VM Server in the same server pool, the migration fails with an error that indicates the virtual machine disk does not exist. In this case, you must stop the virtual machine and then move it to the appropriate instance of Oracle VM Server.

Support for Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clustering

Microsoft Windows Server guests can now use SCSI-3 persistent reservation to form a Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) with Oracle VM Paravirtual Drivers for Microsoft Windows Release 3.4.2 or later. See Oracle VM Paravirtual Drivers for Microsoft Windows for information about failover cluster capabilities on specific Microsoft Operating System versions.

Update to Oracle VM Agent for SPARC

As of this release, Oracle VM Agent for SPARC is updated to run Python 2.7.

Update to the dom0 Kernel

The dom0 kernel is updated to a newer Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 4 (UEK R4) version kernel-uek-4.1.12-61.40.1.el6uek.x86_64.rpm.

Note

This UEK R4 kernel update is a quarterly update 2 (QU2) errata version.

If you received a one-off version of UEK R4 QU2 before this release, you should upgrade Oracle VM Server to UEK R4 QU4 after you upgrade to Oracle VM Release 3.4.3. Upgrading the kernel ensures your Oracle VM Servers include any bug fixes that were included in the one-off version of UEK R4 QU2.

If you are upgrading from an earlier release of Oracle VM, such as Release 3.4.2, and you have a mainstream version of UEK R4, you can optionally upgrade Oracle VM Server to UEK R4 QU4 after you upgrade to Oracle VM Release 3.4.3.

The UEK R4 QU4 version of the kernel is available on the Oracle Linux Yum Server for all Oracle VM Release 3.4.3 users.

Package Additions and Updates

The full list of package additions and updates is beyond the scope of this document, but the following list includes the notable package updates that are included in this release:

  • The tzdata package is updated to tzdata-2017b-1.el6.noarch.rpm.

  • The Netscape Portable Runtime (NSPR) package is updated to nspr-4.11.0-1.el6.x86_64.rpm.

  • The ovmport package is updated to ovmport-1.0-6.el6.x86_64.rpm.

Updates to Multipath Configuration for Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance

  • This release includes the Oracle Sun ZFS Storage.* product in the multipath.conf file, which includes the ZFS Storage 7350 and ZFS Storage 7330 products.

  • The default value for the multipath configuration parameter no_path_retry is updated to 180. This new default setting enhances the performance of the multipath daemon, multipathd, and improves response times when issuing the multipath -ll command.

Performance and Scalability

Oracle VM Manager Performance Enhancements

  • Improved Job completion performance: Reduction in the time taken to complete certain jobs, for example cloning a virtual machine or template.

  • Improved Storage refresh performance: Rescanning physical disks is enhanced to ensure that local storage on an Oracle VM Server is refreshed in a timely manner.

Improved Performance With Multiple Concurrent Connections to the Oracle VM Manager Command Line Interface

This release improves Oracle VM performance when there are multiple concurrent connections to the Oracle VM Manager Command Line Interface.

Usability

Password Modification for the MySQL root user

Oracle VM now lets you change the password for the MySQL root user that the Oracle VM Manager Administrator Tool uses to connect to the MySQL database instance. See Changing the Password for the MySQL Root User in the Oracle VM Administrator's Guide.

Documentation

The following changes apply to the Oracle VM Release 3.4.3 documentation library:

  • The Oracle VM Manager Online Help has been updated in the Oracle VM Manager Web Interface.

  • CentOS 7 is added to the list of supported guest operating systems in the Oracle VM Release Notes. See Chapter 5, Supported Guest Operating Systems.

  • The Oracle VM Installation and Upgrade Guide has been corrected and no longer includes a statement that you cannot boot Oracle VM Server from SAN.

Security

  • Oracle MySQL patch update: This release of Oracle VM includes the January 2017 Critical Patch Update for MySQL. (23087157)

  • Oracle WebLogic patch update: This release of Oracle VM includes the January 2017 Critical Patch Update for WebLogic. (23087146)

  • Oracle Java patch update: This release of Oracle VM includes the January 2017 Critical Patch Update for Java. (23087165).

  • Xen security advisories: The following Xen security advisories are included in this release:

    • XSA-184 (CVE-2016-5403)

    • XSA-190 (CVE-2016-7777)

    • XSA-191 (CVE-2016-9386)

    • XSA-192 (CVE-2016-9382)

    • XSA-193 (CVE-2016-9385)

    • XSA-195 (CVE-2016-9383)

    • XSA-197 (CVE-2016-9381)

    • XSA-198 (CVE-2016-9379, CVE-2016-9380)

    • XSA-199 (CVE-2016-9637)

    • XSA-200 (CVE-2016-9932)

    • XSA-202 (CVE-2016-10024)

    • XSA-204 (CVE-2016-10013)

    • XSA-206 (no CVE yet assigned)

    • XSA-207 (no CVE yet assigned)

    • XSA-208 (CVE-2017-2615)

    • XSA-209 (CVE-2017-2620)

    • XSA-211 (CVE-2016-9603)

    • XSA-212 (CVE-2017-7228)

    • XSA-213 (CVE-2017-8903)

    • XSA-214 (CVE-2017-8904)

    • XSA-215 (CVE-2017-8905)

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