Synopsis

Important: kernel security and bug fix update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory: Important

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix three security issues and multiple bugs
are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 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 deficiency was found in the fasync_helper() implementation. This could
  allow a local, unprivileged user to leverage a use-after-free of locked,
  asynchronous file descriptors to cause a denial of service or privilege
  escalation. (CVE-2009-4141, Important)
  
• 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#557683)
  
• the fix for CVE-2009-4538 provided by RHSA-2010:0053 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#559334)

• 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#568307)
  
• 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#568663)

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 Server - Extended Update Support 5.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support 5.3 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - 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 for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 5.3 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 5.3 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 547906 - CVE-2009-4141 kernel: create_elf_tables can leave urandom in a bad state
• BZ - 555658 - CVE-2010-0008 kernel: sctp remote denial of service
• BZ - 557683 - [5.4] sched_rr_get_interval() destroys user data in 32-bit compat mode. [rhel-5.3.z]
• BZ - 559334 - e1000e: wol is broken on 2.6.18-185.el5 [rhel-5.3.z]
• BZ - 563781 - CVE-2010-0437 kernel: ipv6: fix ip6_dst_lookup_tail() NULL pointer dereference
• BZ - 568307 - [x86_64]: copy_user_c can zero more data than needed [rhel-5.3.z]
• BZ - 568663 - CRM 1908390 - BUG: warning at fs/inotify.c:181/set_dentry_child_flags() [rhel-5.3.z]

CVEs

• CVE-2009-4141
• CVE-2010-0008
• CVE-2010-0437

References

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

This erratum does not contain any packages.