Topic

Updated kernel packages that resolve several security issues are now
available 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 kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux
operating system.

This update addresses the following security issues:

• a memory leak in keyctl handling. A local user could use this flaw to

deplete kernel memory, eventually leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2009-0031, Important)

• a buffer overflow 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 flaw when handling heavy network traffic on an SMP system with many

cores. An attacker who could send a large amount of network traffic could
create a denial of service. (CVE-2008-5713, Important)

• the code for the HFS and HFS Plus (HFS+) file systems failed to properly

handle corrupted data structures. This could, potentially, lead to a local
denial of service. (CVE-2008-4933, CVE-2008-5025, Low)

• a flaw was found in the HFS Plus (HFS+) file system implementation. This

could, potentially, lead to a local denial of service when write operations
are performed. (CVE-2008-4934, Low)

In addition, these updated packages fix the following bugs:

• when using the nfsd daemon in a clustered setup, kernel panics appeared

seemingly at random. These panics were caused by a race condition in
the device-mapper mirror target.

• the clock_gettime(CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID, ) syscall returned a smaller

timespec value than the result of previous clock_gettime() function
execution, which resulted in a negative, and nonsensical, elapsed time value.

• nfs_create_rpc_client was called with a "flavor" parameter which was

usually ignored and ended up unconditionally creating the RPC client with
an AUTH_UNIX flavor. This caused problems on AUTH_GSS mounts when the
credentials needed to be refreshed. The credops did not match the
authorization type, which resulted in the credops dereferencing an
incorrect part of the AUTH_UNIX rpc_auth struct.

• when copy_user_c terminated prematurely due to reading beyond the end of

the user buffer and the kernel jumped to the exception table entry, the rsi
register was not cleared. This resulted in exiting back to user code with
garbage in the rsi register.

• the hexdump data in s390dbf traces was incomplete. The length of the data

traced was incorrect and the SAN payload was read from a different place
then it was written to.

• when using connected mode (CM) in IPoIB on ehca2 hardware, it was not

possible to transmit any data.

• when an application called fork() and pthread_create() many times and, at

some point, a thread forked a child and then attempted to call the
setpgid() function, then this function failed and returned and ESRCH error
value.

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported
patches to correct these issues. Note: 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

• 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 5.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.3 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.3 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 5.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 5.3 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 5.3 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 5.3 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 5.3 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 469631 - CVE-2008-4933 kernel: hfsplus: fix Buffer overflow with a corrupted image
• BZ - 469640 - CVE-2008-4934 kernel: hfsplus: check read_mapping_page() return value
• BZ - 470769 - CVE-2008-5025 kernel: hfs: fix namelength memory corruption
• BZ - 477744 - CVE-2008-5713 kernel: soft lockup occurs when network load is very high
• BZ - 478800 - CVE-2009-0065 kernel: sctp: memory overflow when FWD-TSN chunk is received with bad stream ID
• BZ - 479812 - IB/ipoib: data transmission fails in connected mode on any HCA
• BZ - 480576 - RHEL5.2/3 - setpgid() returns ESRCH in some situations
• BZ - 480592 - CVE-2009-0031 kernel: local denial of service in keyctl_join_session_keyring
• BZ - 480996 - zfcp: fix hexdump data in s390dbf traces
• BZ - 481117 - RHSA-2008:0508 linux-2.6.9-x86_64-copy_user-zero-tail.patch broken
• BZ - 481119 - Kernel panic in auth_rpcgss:__gss_find_upcall
• BZ - 481120 - oops in mirror_map (dm-raid1.c)
• BZ - 481122 - [5.3] clock_gettime() syscall returns a smaller timespec value than previous.

CVEs

• CVE-2008-4933
• CVE-2008-4934
• CVE-2008-5025
• CVE-2009-0065
• CVE-2009-0031
• CVE-2008-5713

References

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