RHBA-2014:1469 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated libselinux packages that fix several bugs are now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The libselinux packages contain the core library of an SELinux system. The
libselinux library provides an API for SELinux applications to get and set
process and file security contexts, and to obtain security policy decisions. It
is required for any applications that use the SELinux API, and used by all
applications that are SELinux-aware.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• When attempting to run the virt-manager utility over SSH X11 forwarding,

SELinux prevented the D-Bus system from performing actions even if SELinux was
in permissive mode. As a consequence, such attempts failed and an AVC denial
message was logged. With this update, a patch has been provided to fix this bug,
and SELinux in permissive mode no longer blocks D-Bus in the described scenario.
(BZ#753675)

• Prior to this update, the selinux(8) manual page contained outdated

information. This manual page has been updated, and SELinux is now documented
correctly. (BZ#1011109)

• The Name Server Caching Daemon (nscd) uses SELinux permissions to check if a

connecting user is allowed to query the cache. However, two permissions,
NSCD__GETNETGRP and NSCD__SHMEMNETGRP, were missing from the SELinux list of
permissions. Consequently, the netgroup caching worked only when SELinux was
running in permissive mode. The missing permissions have been added to the list,
and the netgroup caching now works as expected. (BZ#1025507)

• Previously, the matchpathcon utility did not handle non-existent files or

directories properly; the "matchpathcon -V" command verified the files of
directories instead of specifying that they did not exist. The underlying source
code has been modified to fix this bug, and matchpathcon now correctly
recognizes non-existent files or directories. As a result, an error message is
returned when a file or directory do not exist. (BZ#1091857)

• It was not possible to add a new user inside a Docker container because

SELinux in enforcing or permissive mode incorrectly blocked an attempt to modify
the /etc/passwd file. With this update, when the /selinux/ or /sys/fs/selinux/
directories are mounted as read-only, the libselinux library acts as if SELinux
is disabled. This behavior stops SELinux-aware applications from attempting to
perform SELinux actions inside a container, and /etc/passwd can now be modified
as expected. (BZ#1096816)

Users of libselinux 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/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems) 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension (for IBM z Systems) 6 s390x

Fixes

• BZ - 753675 - DBus will not allow selinux-alerted actions even in selinux permissive mode.
• BZ - 913115 - selinuxdefcon doesn't print end of line
• BZ - 1011109 - Typo in security_compute_av manpage
• BZ - 1011145 - Old selinux man page and missing some additional info about switching the policy
• BZ - 1096816 - useradd within EL6 container fails: failure while writing changes to /etc/passwd

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)