RHSA-2007:1104 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix various security issues and several bugs
in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 kernel are now available.

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

Description

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux
operating system.

These updated packages fix the following security issues:

A flaw was found in the handling of IEEE 802.11 frames, which affected
several wireless LAN modules. In certain situations, a remote attacker
could trigger this flaw by sending a malicious packet over a wireless
network, causing a denial of service (kernel crash).
(CVE-2007-4997, Important)

A memory leak was found in the Red Hat Content Accelerator kernel patch.
A local user could use this flaw to cause a denial of service (memory
exhaustion). (CVE-2007-5494, Important)

Additionally, the following bugs were fixed:

• when running the "ls -la" command on an NFSv4 mount point, incorrect

file attributes, and outdated file size and timestamp information were
returned. As well, symbolic links may have been displayed as actual files.

• a bug which caused the cmirror write path to appear deadlocked after a

successful recovery, which may have caused syncing to hang, has been
resolved.

• a kernel panic which occurred when manually configuring LCS interfaces on

the IBM S/390 has been resolved.

• when running a 32-bit binary on a 64-bit system, it was possible to

mmap page at address 0 without flag MAP_FIXED set. This has been
resolved in these updated packages.

• the Non-Maskable Interrupt (NMI) Watchdog did not increment the NMI

interrupt counter in "/proc/interrupts" on systems running an AMD Opteron
CPU. This caused systems running NMI Watchdog to restart at regular
intervals.

• a bug which caused the diskdump utility to run very slowly on devices

using Fusion MPT has been resolved.

All users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which resolve
these issues.

Solution

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

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_58_10188

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 for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 4.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 4.6 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 4.6 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 IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 4.6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 4.6 s390
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 4 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 4.6 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 315051 - CVE-2007-5494 open(O_ATOMICLOOKUP) leaks dentry
• BZ - 346341 - CVE-2007-4997 kernel ieee80211 off-by-two integer underflow
• BZ - 371551 - NFS problem#3 of IT 106473 - 32-bit jiffy wrap around - NFS inode
• BZ - 399661 - cmirror write path appears deadlocked after recovery is successful
• BZ - 400801 - LTC39618-kernel panic making lcs interfaces online on LPAR
• BZ - 400811 - [RHEL4] Odd behaviour in mmap
• BZ - 404741 - [RHEL4] NMI Watchdog Not Working in RHEL 4 U6 Opteron Systems
• BZ - 404781 - RHEL4.6 [REGRESSION] diskdump works with mpt fusion too slow.

CVEs

• CVE-2007-4997
• CVE-2007-5494

References

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