RHSA-2014:1143 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix one security issue and several bugs are
now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

Red Hat Product Security 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 kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux
operating system.

• An out-of-bounds memory access flaw was found in the Linux kernel's

system call auditing implementation. On a system with existing audit rules
defined, a local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to leak kernel
memory to user space or, potentially, crash the system. (CVE-2014-3917,
Moderate)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• A bug in the journaling code (jbd and jbd2) could, under very heavy

workload of fsync() operations, trigger a BUG_ON and result in a kernel
oops. Also, fdatasync() could fail to immediately write out changes in the
file size only. These problems have been resolved by backporting a series
of patches that fixed these problems in the respective code on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6. This update also improves performance of ext3 and ext4
file systems. (BZ#1116027)

• Due to a bug in the ext4 code, the fdatasync() system call did not force

the inode size change to be written to the disk if it was the only metadata
change in the file. This could result in the wrong inode size and possible
data loss if the system terminated unexpectedly. The code handling inode
updates has been fixed and fdatasync() now writes data to the disk as
expected in this situation. (BZ#1117665)

• A workaround to a DMA read problem in the tg3 driver was incorrectly

applied to the whole Broadcom 5719 and 5720 chipset family. This workaround
is valid only to the A0 revision of the 5719 chips and for other revisions
and chips causes occasional Tx timeouts. This update correctly applies the
aforementioned workaround only to the A0 revision of the 5719 chips.
(BZ#1121017)

• Due to a bug in the page writeback code, the system could become

unresponsive when being under memory pressure and heavy NFS load. This
update fixes the code responsible for handling of dirty pages, and dirty
page write outs no longer flood the work queue. (BZ#1125246)

All kernel users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which
contain backported patches to correct these issues. The system must be
rebooted 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/articles/11258

To install kernel packages manually, use "rpm -ivh [package]". Do not use
"rpm -Uvh" as that will remove the running kernel binaries from your
system. You may use "rpm -e" to remove old kernels after determining that
the new kernel functions properly on your system.

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
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 1102571 - CVE-2014-3917 kernel: DoS with syscall auditing

CVEs

• CVE-2014-3917

References

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