RHSA-2013:1295 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated Grid component packages that fix one security issue, multiple bugs,
and add various enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise MRG
2.4 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

Red Hat Enterprise MRG (Messaging, Realtime, and Grid) is a next-generation
IT infrastructure for enterprise computing. MRG offers increased
performance, reliability, interoperability, and faster computing for
enterprise customers.

MRG Grid provides high-throughput computing and enables enterprises to
achieve higher peak computing capacity as well as improved infrastructure
utilization by leveraging their existing technology to build high
performance grids. MRG Grid provides a job-queueing mechanism, scheduling
policy, and a priority scheme, as well as resource monitoring and resource
management. Users submit their jobs to MRG Grid, where they are placed into
a queue. MRG Grid then chooses when and where to run the jobs based upon a
policy, carefully monitors their progress, and ultimately informs the user
upon completion.

A denial of service flaw was found in the way cumin, a web management
console for MRG, processed certain Ajax update queries. A remote attacker
could use this flaw to issue a specially crafted HTTP request, causing
excessive use of CPU time and memory on the system. (CVE-2013-4284)

The CVE-2013-4284 issue was discovered by Tomas Novacik of Red Hat.

These updated packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 provide numerous
enhancements and bug fixes for the Grid component of MRG. Some of the most
important enhancements include:

• Improved resource utilization with scheduler driven slot partitioning
• Enhanced integration with existing user & group management

technology, specifically allowing group and netgroup specifications in
HTCondor security policies

• Addition of global job priorities, allowing for priority to span

scaled-out queues

• Reduced memory utilization per running job

Space precludes documenting all of these changes in this advisory. Refer to
the Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 Technical Notes document, available shortly
from the link in the References section, for information on these changes.

All users of the Grid capabilities of Red Hat Enterprise MRG are advised to
upgrade to these updated packages, which correct this issue, and fix the
bugs and add the enhancements noted in the Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2
Technical Notes.

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/site/articles/11258

Affected Products

• MRG Grid from RHUI 2 for RHEL 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise MRG Messaging 2 for RHEL 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise MRG Messaging 2 for RHEL 5 i386
• MRG Grid 2 for RHEL 5 x86_64
• MRG Grid 2 for RHEL 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 986214 - CVE-2013-4284 cumin: Denial of service due to improper handling of certain Ajax requests
• BZ - 990231 - Grid 2.4 RHEL5

CVEs

• CVE-2013-4284

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate
• https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_MRG/2/html/Technical_Notes/RHSA-2013-1295.html