Topic

Updated powerpc-utils packages that fix one security issue, several bugs,
and add various enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 7.

Red Hat Product Security 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 powerpc-utils packages provide various utilities for the PowerPC platform.

A flaw was found in the way the snap utility of powerpc-utils generated an
archive containing a configuration snapshot of a service. A local attacker could
obtain sensitive information from the generated archive such as plain text
passwords. (CVE-2014-4040)

The powerpc-utils packages have been upgraded to the upstream version 1.2.24,
which provides a number of bug fixes and enhancements over the previous version.
(BZ#1088539, BZ#1167865, BZ#1161552)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, the lsdevinfo command did not correctly process the path to the

device, which made the path unreadable in the console output of lsdevinfo. With
this update, lsdevinfo has been updated and the path is now displayed correctly.
(BZ#1079246)

• Previously, after migrating several Linux partitions, Resource Monitoring and

Control (RMC) was inactive and Machine Type, Model, and Serial number (MTMS)
were set incorrectly, so the subsequent validation operation failed. This bug
has been fixed, and validation is now successful after migration and suspend.
(BZ#1083221)

• Previously, when the drmgr tool attempted to remove the last CPU from the

system, drmgr became unresponsive or terminated unexpectedly. This bug has been
fixed, and drmgr no longer hangs or crashes in the described case. (BZ#1152313)

• With this update, the drmgr utility has been fixed to correctly gather Logical

Memory Block (LMB) information while performing Mem Dynamic Logical Partitioning
(DLPAR) on little-endian varian of IBM Power Systems CPU architecture as
expected (BZ#1170856).

• Previously, the "ppc64_cpu --threads-per-core" command returned incorrect data

with the --smt option enabled. This bug has been fixed and "ppc64_cpu

• -threads-per-core" now reports correctly with enabled --smt. (BZ#1179263)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancements:

• This update adds support for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux for POWER, little

endian CPU architecture to the powerpc-utils package. (BZ#1124006)

• This update adds support for hot plugging of the qemu virtio device with the

drmgr command to the powerpc-utils package.(BZ#1083791)

• The deprecated snap tool has been removed from the powerpc-utils packages. Its

functionality has been integrated into the sosreport tool. (BZ#1172087)

• With this update, a dependency on the perl-Data-Dumper package required by the

rtas_dump utility has been added to powerpc-utils packages. (BZ#1175812)

Users of powerpc-utils are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which
correct these issues and add these enhancements.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

For details on how to apply this update, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 7 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.7 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.5 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.4 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.3 ppc64

Fixes

• BZ - 1110520 - CVE-2014-4040 powerpc-utils: snap creates archives with fstab and yaboot.conf which may expose certain passwords

CVEs

• CVE-2014-4040

References

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