Red Hat 7.2 RHSA-2017-0501-01 Important: Kernel Privileges Elevated

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system.
Security Fix(es):
* A use-after-free flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP) implementation freed SKB (socket buffer) resources for a DCCP_PKT_REQUEST packet when the IPV6_RECVPKTINFO option is set on the socket. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to alter the kernel memory, allowing them to escalate their privileges on the system. (CVE-2017-6074, Important)
Red Hat would like to thank Andrey Konovalov (Google) for reporting this issue.
Bug Fix(es):
* Previously, running the "ethtool -S" command to get the statistics of a Brocade Network Adapter (BNA) sometimes caused a kernel panic. This update applies a set of patches to the bna driver, and the kernel panic no longer occurs in the described scenario. (BZ#1408130)
* Use of a multi-threaded workload with high memory mappings sometimes caused a kernel panic, due to a race condition between the context switch and the pagetable upgrade. This update fixes the switch_mm() by using the complete asce parameter instead of the asce_bits parameter. As a result, the kernel no longer panics in the described scenario. (BZ#1410865)
* Previously, the kernel was sending a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) window which had a size of zero for a socket with an empty receive queue. Consequently, the TCP session became unresponsive. This update fixes the ibmveth driver to set correct values of the gso_size and gso_type variables and to calculate the value of the gso_segs variable for large packets. As a result, the TCP session no longer hangs in the described scenario. (BZ#1411381)
* Previously, booting a kdump kernel in some cases failed with this error:
Kernel panic - not syncing: Watchdog detected hard LOCKUP on CPU 0.
This update ensures that the hpet timer software counters, including hpet_default_delta and hpet_t1_cmp, are initialized before an interrupt request is registered, and the kdump kernel now boots without the mentioned error message. (BZ#1404183)
* When one of the drives became unresponsive, all other drives intermittently hung, because the megaraid_sas driver incorrectly sent a reset request to the PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC). This update fixes megaraid_sas, and thus the hang of one drive no longer leads to intermittent loss of access to all drives on the system. (BZ#1398174)