RHSA-2011:0599 - Security Advisory

Topic

An updated sudo package that fixes one security issue and several bugs is
now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

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 sudo (superuser do) utility allows system administrators to give
certain users the ability to run commands as root.

A flaw was found in the sudo password checking logic. In configurations
where the sudoers settings allowed a user to run a command using sudo with
only the group ID changed, sudo failed to prompt for the user's password
before running the specified command with the elevated group privileges.
(CVE-2011-0010)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• When the "/etc/sudoers" file contained entries with multiple hosts,

running the "sudo -l" command incorrectly reported that a certain user does
not have permissions to use sudo on the system. With this update, running
the "sudo -l" command now produces the correct output. (BZ#603823)

• Prior to this update, the manual page for sudoers.ldap was not installed,

even though it contains important information on how to set up an LDAP
(Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) sudoers source, and other documents
refer to it. With this update, the manual page is now properly included in
the package. Additionally, various POD files have been removed from the
package, as they are required for build purposes only. (BZ#634159)

• The previous version of sudo did not use the same location for the LDAP

configuration files as the nss_ldap package. This has been fixed and sudo
now looks for these files in the same location as the nss_ldap package.
(BZ#652726)

• When a file was edited using the "sudo -e file" or the "sudoedit file"

command, the editor being executed for this task was logged only as
"sudoedit". With this update, the full path to the executable being used as
an editor is now logged (instead of "sudoedit"). (BZ#665131)

• A comment regarding the "visiblepw" option of the "Defaults" directive

has been added to the default "/etc/sudoers" file to clarify its usage.
(BZ#688640)

• This erratum upgrades sudo to upstream version 1.7.4p5, which provides a

number of bug fixes and enhancements over the previous version. (BZ#615087)

All users of sudo are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which
resolves these issues.

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
https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems) 6 s390x

Fixes

• BZ - 603823 - sudo - fix printing of entries with multiple host entries on a single line.
• BZ - 615087 - Rebase sudo to version 1.7.3
• BZ - 634159 - .pod files are packaged under /usr/share/doc/sudo*, and man page for sudoers.ldap is missing
• BZ - 652726 - sudo and nss_ldap use different ldap.conf
• BZ - 668879 - CVE-2011-0010 sudo: does not ask for password on GID changes
• BZ - 688640 - Add comment about the visiblepw option into sudoers

CVEs

• CVE-2011-0010

References

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