RHSA-2009:1180 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated bind packages that fix a security issue and a bug 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 Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) is an implementation of the Domain
Name System (DNS) protocols. BIND includes a DNS server (named); a resolver
library (routines for applications to use when interfacing with DNS); and
tools for verifying that the DNS server is operating correctly.

A flaw was found in the way BIND handles dynamic update message packets
containing the "ANY" record type. A remote attacker could use this flaw to
send a specially-crafted dynamic update packet that could cause named to
exit with an assertion failure. (CVE-2009-0696)

Note: even if named is not configured for dynamic updates, receiving such
a specially-crafted dynamic update packet could still cause named to exit
unexpectedly.

This update also fixes the following bug:

• when running on a system receiving a large number of (greater than 4,000)

DNS requests per second, the named DNS nameserver became unresponsive, and
the named service had to be restarted in order for it to continue serving
requests. This was caused by a deadlock occurring between two threads that
led to the inability of named to continue to service requests. This
deadlock has been resolved with these updated packages so that named no
longer becomes unresponsive under heavy load. (BZ#512668)

All BIND users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which
contain backported patches to resolve these issues. After installing the
update, the BIND daemon (named) will be restarted automatically.

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 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 4.8 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 4.8 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 4.8 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 4.8 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 4.8 s390
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 4 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 4.8 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 512668 - bind gets hung with 4000 accesses / sec
• BZ - 514292 - CVE-2009-0696 bind: DoS (assertion failure) via nsupdate packets

CVEs

• CVE-2009-0696

References

• http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important
• https://www.isc.org/node/474