Synopsis

Important: kernel security and bug fix update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory: Important

Topic

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

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:

• the absence of a protection mechanism when attempting to access a
  critical section of code has been found in the Linux kernel open file
  descriptors control mechanism, fcntl. This could allow a local unprivileged
  user to simultaneously execute code, which would otherwise be protected
  against parallel execution. As well, a race condition when handling locks
  in the Linux kernel fcntl functionality, may have allowed a process
  belonging to a local unprivileged user to gain re-ordered access to the
  descriptor table. (CVE-2008-1669, Important)
  
• on AMD64 architectures, the possibility of a kernel crash was discovered
  by testing the Linux kernel process-trace ability. This could allow a local
  unprivileged user to cause a denial of service (kernel crash).
  (CVE-2008-1615, Important)
  
• the absence of a protection mechanism when attempting to access a
  critical section of code, as well as a race condition, have been found
  in the Linux kernel file system event notifier, dnotify. This could allow a
  local unprivileged user to get inconsistent data, or to send arbitrary
  signals to arbitrary system processes. (CVE-2008-1375, Important)
  

Red Hat would like to thank Nick Piggin for responsibly disclosing the
following issue:

• when accessing kernel memory locations, certain Linux kernel drivers
  registering a fault handler did not perform required range checks. A local
  unprivileged user could use this flaw to gain read or write access to
  arbitrary kernel memory, or possibly cause a kernel crash.
  (CVE-2008-0007, Important)
  
• the possibility of a kernel crash was found in the Linux kernel IPsec
  protocol implementation, due to improper handling of fragmented ESP
  packets. When an attacker controlling an intermediate router fragmented
  these packets into very small pieces, it would cause a kernel crash on the
  receiving node during packet reassembly. (CVE-2007-6282, Important)
  
• a flaw in the MOXA serial driver could allow a local unprivileged user
  to perform privileged operations, such as replacing firmware.
  (CVE-2005-0504, Important)
  

As well, these updated packages fix the following bugs:

• multiple buffer overflows in the neofb driver have been resolved. It was
  not possible for an unprivileged user to exploit these issues, and as such,
  they have not been handled as security issues.
  
• a kernel panic, due to inconsistent detection of AGP aperture size, has
  been resolved.
  
• a race condition in UNIX domain sockets may have caused "recv()" to
  return zero. In clustered configurations, this may have caused unexpected
  failovers.
  
• to prevent link storms, network link carrier events were delayed by up to
  one second, causing unnecessary packet loss. Now, link carrier events are
  scheduled immediately.
  
• a client-side race on blocking locks caused large time delays on NFS file
  systems.
  
• in certain situations, the libATA sata_nv driver may have sent commands
  with duplicate tags, which were rejected by SATA devices. This may have
  caused infinite reboots.
  
• running the "service network restart" command may have caused networking
  to fail.
  
• a bug in NFS caused cached information about directories to be stored
  for too long, causing wrong attributes to be read.
  
• on systems with a large highmem/lowmem ratio, NFS write performance may
  have been very slow when using small files.
  
• a bug, which caused network hangs when the system clock was wrapped
  around zero, has been resolved.
  

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 Server - Extended Update Support 4.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support 4.6 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - 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 - 404291 - CVE-2007-6282 IPSec ESP kernel panics
• BZ - 423111 - CVE-2005-0504 Buffer overflow in moxa driver
• BZ - 428961 - CVE-2008-0007 kernel: insufficient range checks in fault handlers with mremap
• BZ - 431430 - CVE-2008-1615 kernel: ptrace: Unprivileged crash on x86_64 %cs corruption
• BZ - 435122 - [RHEL4.6] In unix domain sockets, recv() may incorrectly return zero
• BZ - 436102 - Fake ARP dropped after migration leading to loss of network connectivity
• BZ - 436129 - LTC41942-30 second flock() calls against files stored on a NetApp while using NFS
• BZ - 436499 - libata: sata_nv may send commands with duplicate tags
• BZ - 436749 - HP-Japan Network stack hang after service network restart
• BZ - 437788 - NFS: Fix directory caching problem - with test case and patch.
• BZ - 438345 - [2.6.9-55.9] VM pagecache reclaim patch causes high latency on systems with large highmem/lowmem ratios
• BZ - 438477 - Since "Patch2037: linux-2.6.9-vm-balance.patch" my NFS performance is poorly
• BZ - 439754 - CVE-2008-1375 kernel: race condition in dnotify (local DoS, local roothole possible)
• BZ - 443433 - CVE-2008-1669 kernel: add rcu_read_lock() to fcheck() in both dnotify, locks.c and fix fcntl store/load race in locks.c

CVEs

• CVE-2005-0504
• CVE-2008-1669
• CVE-2008-0007
• CVE-2008-1375
• CVE-2007-6282
• CVE-2008-1615

References

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

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4

SRPM
x86_64
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
ia64
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
i386
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support 4.6

SRPM
x86_64
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
ia64
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
i386
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4

SRPM
x86_64
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
ia64
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
i386
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4

SRPM
x86_64
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
i386
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4

SRPM
s390x
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
s390
kernel-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.s390.rpm	SHA-256: 13436849e865c588ce46c0a4700aee3d8e07f5610a324b8cafea602d29e5ff51
kernel-devel-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.s390.rpm	SHA-256: c78a4c728db740f67dddd20ef554239715315cafd9b1089746a9cbfc9714bf50
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 4.6

SRPM
s390x
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255
s390
kernel-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.s390.rpm	SHA-256: 13436849e865c588ce46c0a4700aee3d8e07f5610a324b8cafea602d29e5ff51
kernel-devel-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.s390.rpm	SHA-256: c78a4c728db740f67dddd20ef554239715315cafd9b1089746a9cbfc9714bf50
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 4

SRPM
ppc
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 4.6

SRPM
ppc
kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.noarch.rpm	SHA-256: edbc9ce8a83e0f89e4b1d5c741224aa489ffa82001a1ae10b36ce6dd645d4255