RHBA-2012:1144 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated libuser packages that fix multiple bugs are now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5.

Description

The libuser packages provide a library to implement a standardized interface for
manipulating and administering user and group accounts. The library uses
pluggable back ends to interface to its data sources. Sample applications
modeled after those included with the shadow password suite are included.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Prior to this update, libuser could not signal the name service caching daemon

(nscd) to refresh the cache. As a consequence, delays in the name service could
occur when the user account information was changed. With this update, the
libuser signals nscd to rebuild its cache. Now, changes that affect the name
service take effect more quickly.(BZ#506628)

• Prior to this update, libuser used the value of the "gecos" attribute for the

"cn" attribute by default when creating a user account with the Lightweight
Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). As a consequence, an invalid value for "cn"
was used and the user account was not created if the "gecos" attribute was
empty. With this update, the user name of the account is stored in the "cn"
attribute if the "gecos" attribute is empty, thus allowing successful creation
of the user account. (BZ#670279)

• Prior to this update, libuser could attempt to access unallocated virtual

memory when searching for account information in files of certain sizes. As a
consequence, libuser could terminate unexpectedly with a segmentation fault when
looking for user or group account information. This update modifies modifies the
libuser library to only access memory related to the file being processed.
(BZ#758117)

All users of libuser are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix
these bugs.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously-released errata relevant
to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red
Hat Network to apply this update are available at
https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 670279 - Traceback when adding user via ldap

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)