RHSA-2008:0055 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix several security issues and a bug 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 kernel packages fix the following security issues:

A flaw was found in the virtual filesystem (VFS). A local unprivileged
user could truncate directories to which they had write permission; this
could render the contents of the directory inaccessible. (CVE-2008-0001,
Important)

A flaw was found in the implementation of ptrace. A local unprivileged user
could trigger this flaw and possibly cause a denial of service (system
hang). (CVE-2007-5500, Important)

A flaw was found in the way the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 kernel handled
page faults when a CPU used the NUMA method for accessing memory on Itanium
architectures. A local unprivileged user could trigger this flaw and cause
a denial of service (system panic). (CVE-2007-4130, Important)

A possible NULL pointer dereference was found in the chrp_show_cpuinfo
function when using the PowerPC architecture. This may have allowed a local
unprivileged user to cause a denial of service (crash).
(CVE-2007-6694, Moderate)

A flaw was found in the way core dump files were created. If a local user
can get a root-owned process to dump a core file into a directory, which
the user has write access to, they could gain read access to that core
file. This could potentially grant unauthorized access to sensitive
information. (CVE-2007-6206, Moderate)

Two buffer overflow flaws were found in the Linux kernel ISDN subsystem. A
local unprivileged user could use these flaws to cause a denial of
service. (CVE-2007-6063, CVE-2007-6151, Moderate)

As well, these updated packages fix the following bug:

• when moving volumes that contain multiple segments, and a mirror segment

is not the first in the mapping table, running the "pvmove /dev/[device]
/dev/[device]" command caused a kernel panic. A "kernel: Unable to handle
kernel paging request at virtual address [address]" error was logged by
syslog.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 users are advised to upgrade to these updated
packages, which contain 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.

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 - 179665 - CVE-2007-4130 panic caused by set_mempolicy with MPOL_BIND
• BZ - 382161 - CVE-2007-5500 kernel hang via userspace PTRACE+waitid
• BZ - 392101 - CVE-2007-6063 Linux Kernel isdn_net_setcfg buffer overflow
• BZ - 396751 - CVE-2007-6694 /proc/cpuinfo DoS on some ppc machines
• BZ - 396861 - CVE-2007-6206 Issue with core dump owner
• BZ - 425111 - CVE-2007-6151 I4L: fix isdn_ioctl memory issue
• BZ - 428637 - pvmove causes kernel panic
• BZ - 428791 - CVE-2008-0001 kernel: filesystem corruption by unprivileged user via directory truncation

CVEs

• CVE-2008-0001
• CVE-2007-6206
• CVE-2007-4130
• CVE-2007-6063
• CVE-2007-6151
• CVE-2007-6694
• CVE-2007-5500

References

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