RHSA-2009:1522 - Security Advisory

Topic

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

This update has been rated as having moderate 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 fixes the following security issues:

• multiple, missing initialization flaws were found in the Linux kernel.

Padding data in several core network structures was not initialized
properly before being sent to user-space. These flaws could lead to
information leaks. (CVE-2005-4881, CVE-2009-3228, Moderate)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• a packet duplication issue was fixed via the RHSA-2008:0665 update;

however, the fix introduced a problem for systems using network bonding:
Backup slaves were unable to receive ARP packets. When using network
bonding in the "active-backup" mode and with the "arp_validate=3" option,
the bonding driver considered such backup slaves as being down (since they
were not receiving ARP packets), preventing successful failover to these
devices. (BZ#519384)

• due to insufficient memory barriers in the network code, a process

sleeping in select() may have missed notifications about new data. In rare
cases, this bug may have caused a process to sleep forever. (BZ#519386)

• the driver version number in the ata_piix driver was not changed between

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.7 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8, even though
changes had been made between these releases. This could have prevented the
driver from loading on systems that check driver versions, as this driver
appeared older than it was. (BZ#519389)

• a bug in nlm_lookup_host() could have led to un-reclaimed locks on file

systems, resulting in the umount command failing. This bug could have also
prevented NFS services from being relocated correctly in clustered
environments. (BZ#519656)

• the data buffer ethtool_get_strings() allocated, for the igb driver, was

smaller than the amount of data that was copied in igb_get_strings(),
because of a miscalculation in IGB_QUEUE_STATS_LEN, resulting in memory
corruption. This bug could have led to a kernel panic. (BZ#522738)

• in some situations, write operations to a TTY device were blocked even

when the O_NONBLOCK flag was used. A reported case of this issue occurred
when a single TTY device was opened by two users (one using blocking mode,
and the other using non-blocking mode). (BZ#523930)

• a deadlock was found in the cciss driver. In rare cases, this caused an

NMI lockup during boot. Messages such as "cciss: controller cciss[x]
failed, stopping." and "cciss[x]: controller not responding." may have
been displayed on the console. (BZ#525725)

• on 64-bit PowerPC systems, a rollover bug in the ibmveth driver could

have caused a kernel panic. In a reported case, this panic occurred on a
system with a large uptime and under heavy network load. (BZ#527225)

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported
patches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for this
update to take effect.

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 - 519384 - [RHEL 4] Arp Monitor - Failed to detect layer 2 switch failure [rhel-4.8.z]
• BZ - 519386 - [RHEL4.5] Even if a process have received data but schedule() in select() cannot return [rhel-4.8.z]
• BZ - 519389 - RHEL4.8-Beta : Update the version number of ata_piix driver [rhel-4.8.z]
• BZ - 519656 - Bug in lockd prevents a locks being freed. [rhel-4.8.z]
• BZ - 520990 - CVE-2009-3228 kernel: tc: uninitialised kernel memory leak
• BZ - 521601 - CVE-2005-4881 kernel: netlink: fix numerous padding memleaks
• BZ - 522738 - [RHEL4.8] igb driver doesn't allocate enough buffer for ethtool_get_strings() [rhel-4.8.z]
• BZ - 523930 - [4.8]Write operation with O_NONBLOCK flag to TTY terminal is blocked [rhel-4.8.z]
• BZ - 525725 - cciss: spinlock deadlock causes NMI on HP systems [rhel-4.8.z]
• BZ - 527225 - BUG in ibmveth_replenish_buffer_pool at drivers/net/ibmveth.c:219 [rhel-4.8.z]

CVEs

• CVE-2009-3228
• CVE-2005-4881
• CVE-2009-3612

References

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