Topic

An updated gdm package that fixes one security issue and one bug is now
available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low
security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score,
which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in
the References section.

Description

The GNOME Display Manager (GDM) is a configurable re-implementation of XDM,
the X Display Manager. GDM allows you to log in to your system with the X
Window System running, and supports running several different X sessions on
your local machine at the same time.

A flaw was found in the way the gdm package was built. The gdm package was
missing TCP wrappers support on 64-bit platforms, which could result in an
administrator believing they had access restrictions enabled when they did
not. (CVE-2007-5079)

This update also fixes the following bug:

• sometimes the system would hang instead of properly shutting down when

a user chose "Shut down" from the login screen. (BZ#625818)

All users should upgrade to this updated package, which contains backported
patches to correct these issues. GDM must be restarted for this update to
take effect. Rebooting achieves this, but changing the runlevel from 5 to 3
and back to 5 also restarts GDM.

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 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 - 181302 - CVE-2007-5079 gdm with xdmcp ignoring tcp_wrappers on x86_64
• BZ - 625818 - gdm/ cannot shutdown system

CVEs

• CVE-2007-5079

References

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