Synopsis

Important: kernel security and bug fix update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory: Important

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix two security issues and several bugs are
now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 Extended Update Support.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having
important security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base
scores, which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each
vulnerability from the CVE links in the References section.

Description

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux
operating system.

This update fixes the following security issues:

• a NULL pointer dereference flaw was found in the sctp_rcv_ootb() function

in the Linux kernel Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP)
implementation. A remote attacker could send a specially-crafted SCTP
packet to a target system, resulting in a denial of service.
(CVE-2010-0008, Important)

• a NULL pointer dereference flaw was found in the ip6_dst_lookup_tail()

function in the Linux kernel. An attacker on the local network could
trigger this flaw by sending IPv6 traffic to a target system, leading to a
system crash (kernel OOPS) if dst->neighbour is NULL on the target system
when receiving an IPv6 packet. (CVE-2010-0437, Important)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• programs compiled on x86, and that also call sched_rr_get_interval(),

were silently corrupted when run on 64-bit systems. With this update, when
such programs attempt to call sched_rr_get_interval() on 64-bit systems,
sys32_sched_rr_get_interval() is called instead, which resolves this issue.
(BZ#557682)

• the fix for CVE-2009-4538 provided by RHSA-2010:0079 introduced a

regression, preventing Wake on LAN (WoL) working for network devices using
the Intel PRO/1000 Linux driver, e1000e. Attempting to configure WoL for
such devices resulted in the following error, even when configuring valid
options:

"Cannot set new wake-on-lan settings: Operation not supported
not setting wol"

This update resolves this regression, and WoL now works as expected for
network devices using the e1000e driver. (BZ#559333)

• a number of bugs have been fixed in the copy_user routines for Intel 64

and AMD64 systems, one of which could have possibly led to data corruption.
(BZ#568305)

• on some systems, a race condition in the inode-based file event

notifications implementation caused soft lockups and the following
messages:

"BUG: warning at fs/inotify.c:181/set_dentry_child_flags()"
"BUG: soft lockup - CPU#[x] stuck for 10s!"

This update resolves this race condition, and also removes the inotify
debugging code from the kernel, due to race conditions in that code.
(BZ#568662)

• if a program that calls posix_fadvise() were compiled on x86, and then

run on a 64-bit system, that program could experience various problems,
including performance issues and the call to posix_fadvise() failing,
causing the program to not run as expected or even abort. With this update,
when such programs attempt to call posix_fadvise() on 64-bit systems,
sys32_fadvise64() is called instead, which resolves this issue. This update
also fixes other 32-bit system calls that were mistakenly called on 64-bit
systems (including systems running the kernel-xen kernel). (BZ#569595)

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 all previously-released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the 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 for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.2 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.2 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 5.2 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 5.2 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 5.2 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 555658 - CVE-2010-0008 kernel: sctp remote denial of service
• BZ - 557682 - [5.4] sched_rr_get_interval() destroys user data in 32-bit compat mode. [rhel-5.2.z]
• BZ - 559333 - e1000e: wol is broken on 2.6.18-185.el5 [rhel-5.2.z]
• BZ - 563781 - CVE-2010-0437 kernel: ipv6: fix ip6_dst_lookup_tail() NULL pointer dereference
• BZ - 568305 - [x86_64]: copy_user_c can zero more data than needed [rhel-5.2.z]
• BZ - 568662 - CRM 1908390 - BUG: warning at fs/inotify.c:181/set_dentry_child_flags() [rhel-5.2.z]
• BZ - 569595 - posix_fadvise() handles its arguments incorrectly in 32-bit compat mode. [rhel-5.2.z]

CVEs

• CVE-2010-0008
• CVE-2010-0437

References