RHSA-2007:0229 - Security Advisory

Topic

An updated gdb package that fixes a security issue and various bugs is now
available.

This update has been rated as having low security impact by the Red Hat
Security Response Team.

Description

GDB, the GNU debugger, allows debugging of programs written in C, C++, and
other languages by executing them in a controlled fashion and then printing
their data.

Various buffer overflows and underflows were found in the DWARF expression
computation stack in GDB. If a user loaded an executable containing
malicious debugging information into GDB, an attacker might be able to
execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user. (CVE-2006-4146)

This updated package also addresses the following issues:

• Fixed bogus 0x0 unwind of the thread's topmost function clone(3).
• Fixed deadlock accessing invalid address; for corrupted backtraces.
• Fixed a race which occasionally left the detached processes stopped.
• Fixed 'gcore' command for 32bit debugged processes on 64bit hosts.
• Added support for TLS 'errno' for threaded programs missing its '-debuginfo' package..
• Suggest TLS 'errno' resolving by hand if no threading was found..
• Added a fix to prevent stepping into asynchronously invoked signal handlers.
• Added a fix to avoid false warning on shared objects bfd close on Itanium.
• Fixed segmentation fault on the source display by ^X 1.
• Fixed object names keyboard completion.
• Added a fix to avoid crash of 'info threads' if stale threads exist.
• Fixed a bug where shared libraries occasionally failed to load .
• Fixed handling of exec() called by a threaded debugged program.
• Fixed rebuilding requirements of the gdb package itself on multilib systems.
• Fixed source directory pathname detection for the edit command.

All users of gdb should upgrade to this updated package, which contains
backported patches to resolve these issues.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied. Use Red Hat
Network to download and update your packages. To launch the Red Hat
Update Agent, use the following command:

up2date

For information on how to install packages manually, refer to the
following Web page for the System Administration or Customization
guide specific to your system:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 4 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 185337 - p errno does not work when stopped at a breakpoint
• BZ - 193763 - Buffer overrun in add_minsym_members
• BZ - 195429 - info threads crashes if zombie threads exist
• BZ - 202682 - print call foo where foo is in library SEGV
• BZ - 202689 - Cannot find user-level thread for LWP 4256: generic error
• BZ - 204841 - CVE-2006-4146 GDB buffer overflow

CVEs

• CVE-2006-4146

References

• http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#low