RHSA-2009:0053 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix several security issues and several bugs
are now available for Red Hat Enterprise MRG 1.1.

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 address the following security issues:

• a flaw was found in the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) subsystem. A

local, unprivileged user could use the flaw to listen on the same socket
more than once, possibly causing a denial of service. (CVE-2008-5079,
Important)

• a buffer overflow flaw was found in the libertas driver. This could,

potentially, lead to a remote denial of service when an invalid beacon or
probe response was received. (CVE-2008-5134, Important)

• a race condition was found in the Linux kernel "inotify" watch removal

and umount implementation. This could allow a local, unprivileged user
to cause a privilege escalation or a denial of service. (CVE-2008-5182,
Important)

• the sendmsg() function in the Linux kernel did not block during UNIX

socket garbage collection. This could, potentially, lead to a local denial
of service. (CVE-2008-5300, Important)

• a buffer overflow was found in the Linux kernel Partial Reliable Stream

Control Transmission Protocol (PR-SCTP) implementation. This could,
potentially, lead to a denial of service if a Forward-TSN chunk is received
with a large stream ID. (CVE-2009-0065, Important)

• a deficiency was found in the libATA implementation. This could,

potentially, lead to a denial of service. By default, the "/dev/sg*"
devices are accessible only to the root user. (CVE-2008-5700, Low)

These updated packages also address numerous bugs, including the following:

• a race condition caused the timer to stop responding. This was fixed by

correcting the behavior of the alloc_posix_timer() function.

• the kernel was behaving differently for varying file capabilities. This

was resolved by ensuring the get_file_caps() function was preceded by
clearing bprm->caps_*.

• a check was included on the limit of the shadow.bytes array, to prevent

value outside the limits being written and over riding other data areas.

• the kernel-rt-2.6.24.7-81.el5rt kernel displayed a warning on boot

stating that the hwclock failed. This was due to a compatibility problem
with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 file system. It was resolved by adding
a new udev rule that ensured /dev was set up correctly.

• the GPS clock daemon was becoming unstable due to a problem in adjtimex.

The issue was located and corrected.

• the events_trace tracer was providing bad parameters to syscalls on i386

machines. This was due to the sys_call interface needing to use the
assembly linked annotation and the edx register being used before it was
stored on the stack. Both these issues were corrected.

All Red Hat Enterprise MRG users should install this update which addresses
these vulnerabilities and fixes these bugs. For this update to take effect,
the system must be rebooted.

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/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

• MRG Realtime 1 x86_64
• MRG Realtime 1 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 472325 - CVE-2008-5182 kernel: fix inotify watch removal/umount races
• BZ - 473259 - CVE-2008-5300 kernel: fix soft lockups/OOM issues with unix socket garbage collector
• BZ - 473696 - CVE-2008-5079 Linux Kernel 'atm module' Local Denial of Service
• BZ - 470758 - kernel: file caps: always start with clear bprm->caps_*
• BZ - 470761 - CVE-2008-5134 kernel: libertas: fix buffer overrun
• BZ - 471835 - kernel: V4L/DVB (9621): Avoid writing outside shadow.bytes[] array
• BZ - 478800 - CVE-2009-0065 kernel: sctp: memory overflow when FWD-TSN chunk is received with bad stream ID
• BZ - 474495 - CVE-2008-5700 kernel: enforce a minimum SG_IO timeout
• BZ - 472277 - CRM 1871016 adjtimex causing instability on GPS clock daemon
• BZ - 474683 - event trace syscall on i386 has bogus parameters

CVEs

• CVE-2008-5700
• CVE-2009-0065
• CVE-2008-5134
• CVE-2008-5182
• CVE-2008-5079
• CVE-2008-5300

References

• http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important
• http://www.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_MRG/1.1/html/MRG_Release_Notes/