RHSA-2007:1128 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated autofs packages are now available to fix a security flaw for Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

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

Description

The autofs utility controls the operation of the automount daemon, which
automatically mounts and unmounts file systems after a period of
inactivity.

There was a security issue with the default installed configuration of
autofs version 5 whereby the entry for the "hosts" map did not specify the
"nosuid" mount option. A local user with control of a remote nfs server
could create a setuid root executable within an exported filesystem on the
remote nfs server that, if mounted using the default hosts map, would allow
the user to gain root privileges. (CVE-2007-5964)

Due to the fact that autofs always mounted hosts map entries suid by
default, autofs has now been altered to always use the "nosuid" option when
mounting from the default hosts map. The "suid" option must be explicitly
given in the master map entry to revert to the old behavior. This change
affects only the hosts map which corresponds to the /net entry in the
default configuration.

Users are advised to upgrade to these updated autofs packages, which
resolve this issue.

Red Hat would like to thank Josh Lange for reporting this issue.

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 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.1 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.1 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.1 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 IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 5.1 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 5.1 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 410031 - CVE-2007-5964 autofs defaults don't restrict suid in /net

CVEs

• CVE-2007-5964

References

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