RHSA-2011:1019 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated libvirt packages that fix one security issue, several bugs and add
various enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate
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 libvirt library is a C API for managing and interacting with the
virtualization capabilities of Linux and other operating systems.

An integer overflow flaw was found in libvirtd's RPC call handling. An
attacker able to establish read-only connections to libvirtd could trigger
this flaw by calling virDomainGetVcpus() with specially-crafted parameters,
causing libvirtd to crash. (CVE-2011-2511)

This update fixes the following bugs:

• libvirt was rebased from version 0.6.3 to version 0.8.2 in Red Hat

Enterprise Linux 5.6. A code audit found a minor API change that effected
error messages seen by libvirt 0.8.2 clients talking to libvirt 0.7.1 -
0.7.7 (0.7.x) servers. A libvirt 0.7.x server could send
VIR_ERR_BUILD_FIREWALL errors where a libvirt 0.8.2 client expected
VIR_ERR_CONFIG_UNSUPPORTED errors. In other circumstances, a libvirt 0.8.2
client saw a "Timed out during operation" message where it should see an
"Invalid network filter" error. This update adds a backported patch that
allows libvirt 0.8.2 clients to interoperate with the API as used by
libvirt 0.7.x servers, ensuring correct error messages are sent.
(BZ#665075)

• libvirt could crash if the maximum number of open file descriptors

(_SC_OPEN_MAX) grew larger than the FD_SETSIZE value because it accessed
file descriptors outside the bounds of the set. With this update the
maximum number of open file descriptors can no longer grow larger than the
FD_SETSIZE value. (BZ#665549)

• A libvirt race condition was found. An array in the libvirt event

handlers was accessed with a lock temporarily released. In rare cases, if
one thread attempted to access this array but a second thread reallocated
the array before the first thread reacquired a lock, it could lead to the
first thread attempting to access freed memory, potentially causing libvirt
to crash. With this update libvirt no longer refers to the old array and,
consequently, behaves as expected. (BZ#671569)

• Guests connected to a passthrough NIC would kernel panic if a

system_reset signal was sent through the QEMU monitor. With this update you
can reset such guests as expected. (BZ#689880)

• When using the Xen kernel, the rpmbuild command failed on the xencapstest

test. With this update you can run rpmbuild successfully when using the Xen
kernel. (BZ#690459)

• When a disk was hot unplugged, "ret >= 0" was passed to the qemuAuditDisk

calls in disk hotunplug operations before ret was, in fact, set to 0. As
well, the error path jumped to the "cleanup" label prematurely. As a
consequence, hotunplug failures were not audited and hotunplug successes
were audited as failures. This was corrected and hot unplugging checks now
behave as expected. (BZ#710151)

• A conflict existed between filter update locking sequences and virtual

machine startup locking sequences. When a filter update occurred on one or
more virtual machines, a deadlock could consequently occur if a virtual
machine referencing a filter was started. This update changes and makes
more flexible several qemu locking sequences ensuring this deadlock no
longer occurs. (BZ#697749)

• qemudDomainSaveImageStartVM closed some incoming file descriptor (fd)

arguments without informing the caller. The consequent double-closes could
cause Domain restoration failure. This update alters the
qemudDomainSaveImageStartVM signature to prevent the double-closes.
(BZ#681623)

This update also adds the following enhancements:

• The libvirt Xen driver now supports more than one serial port.

(BZ#670789)

• Enabling and disabling the High Precision Event Timer (HPET) in Xen

domains is now possible. (BZ#703193)

All libvirt users should install this update which addresses this
vulnerability, fixes these bugs and adds these enhancements. After
installing the updated packages, libvirtd must be restarted ("service
libvirtd restart") 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
https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 665075 - minor libvirt API break in error reporting
• BZ - 665549 - libvirt crash on src/util/util.c in __virExec
• BZ - 671569 - race condition in libvirt could lead to crash on event handling
• BZ - 681623 - libvirt double-close bug in tight loop of save/restore [5.7]
• BZ - 689880 - guest with passthrough nic got kernel panic when send system_reset signal in QEMU monitor
• BZ - 690459 - rpmbuild failed on xencapstest when running under xen kernel
• BZ - 697749 - Deadlock between VM ops and filter update
• BZ - 703193 - support enabling/disabling xen hpet
• BZ - 710151 - Auditing of QEMU driver disk hotunplug events logs is missing and/or incorrect
• BZ - 717199 - CVE-2011-2511 libvirt: integer overflow in VirDomainGetVcpus

CVEs

• CVE-2011-2511

References

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