Synopsis

Low: fence security, bug fix, and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory: Low

Topic

An updated fence package that fixes multiple security issues, several bugs,
and adds two enhancements is now available for Red Hat Cluster Suite 4.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low
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 fence package allows failed or unreachable nodes to be forcibly
restarted and removed from a cluster.

Insecure temporary file use flaws were found in fence_egenera, fence_apc,
and fence_apc_snmp. A local attacker could use these flaws to overwrite an
arbitrary file writable by the victim running those utilities via a
symbolic link attack. (CVE-2008-4192, CVE-2008-4579)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• fence_apc_snmp now waits for five seconds after fencing to properly get
  status. (BZ#494587)
  
• The fence_drac5 help output now shows the proper commands. (BZ#498870)
  
• fence_scsi_test.pl now verifies that sg_persist is in the path before
  running. (BZ#500172)
  
• fence_drac5 is now more consistent with other agents and uses module_name
  instead of modulename. (BZ#500546)
  
• fence_apc and fence_wti no longer fail with a pexpect exception.
  (BZ#501890, BZ#504589)
  
• fence_wti no longer issues a traceback when an option is missing.
  (BZ#508258)
  
• fence_sanbox2 is now able to properly obtain the status after fencing.
  (BZ#510279)
  
• Fencing no longer fails if fence_wti is used without telnet. (BZ#510335)
  
• fence_scsi get_scsi_devices no longer hangs with various devices.
  (BZ#545193)
  
• fence_ilo no longer fails to reboot with ilo2 firmware 1.70. (BZ#545682)
  
• Fixed an issue with fence_ilo not rebooting in some implementations.
  (BZ#576036)
  
• fence_ilo no longer throws exceptions if the user does not have power
  privileges. (BZ#576178)
  

As well, this update adds the following enhancements:

• Support has been added for SSH-enabled RSA II fence devices. (BZ#476161)
  
• The APC fence agent will now work with a non-root account. (BZ#491643)
  

All fence users are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which
corrects these issues and adds these enhancements.

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 High Availability (for RHEL Server) 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability (for RHEL Server) 4 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability (for RHEL Server) 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability (for RHEL Server) 4 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 460476 - CVE-2008-4192 cman/fence: insecure temporary file usage in the egenera fence agent
• BZ - 467386 - CVE-2008-4579 cman/fence: insecure temporary file usage in the apc fence agents
• BZ - 491643 - APC Fence Agent does not work with non-admin account
• BZ - 494587 - fence_apc_snmp time wait
• BZ - 498870 - fence_drac5 help output shows incorrect usage
• BZ - 498983 - cluster product is affected by several symlink attack vulnerabilities
• BZ - 500172 - cman - fence_scsi_test.pl does not check for sg_persist in the path
• BZ - 500546 - fence_drac5 uses module_name instead of modulename
• BZ - 501890 - fence_apc fails with pexpect exception
• BZ - 504589 - fence agents (fence_apc, fence_wti) fails with pexpect exception
• BZ - 508268 - Fence agent for WTI ends with traceback when option is missing
• BZ - 510279 - fence_sanbox2 unable to retrieve status of fencing
• BZ - 545193 - fence_scsi get_scsi_devices() too slow, maybe hanging
• BZ - 545682 - fence_ilo fails to reboot, possibly timing problem with ilo2 1.70
• BZ - 576036 - ipmi fence failed
• BZ - 576178 - fence_ilo will throw exception if user does not have power priviledges
• BZ - 584133 - Can't build fence without removing -Wstrict-prototypes due to nss issue

CVEs

• CVE-2008-4579
• CVE-2008-4192

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#low

This erratum does not contain any packages.