Red Hat Linux 5.2 Errata

  • Package: Sysklogd

    Updated: 01-Apr-1999

    Problem:

    • (01-Apr-1999):Security Fix

      An overflow in the parsing code could lead to crashes of the system logger.

      Red Hat would like to thank the members of the BUGTRAQ mailing list, the members of the Linux Security Audit team, and others. All users of Red Hat Linux are encouraged to upgrade to the new packages immediately. As always, these packages have been signed with the Red Hat PGP key.

    • (17-Nov-1998):Security Fix

      • A buffer overflow has been identified in all versions of the sysklogd packages shipped with Red Hat Linux. As the time of this post there are no known exploits for this security vulnerability.

      Red Hat would like to thank Michal Zalewski (lcamtuf@IDS.PL) and the members of the Bugtraq mailing list for discovering this problem and providing a fix.

      Users of Red Hat Linux are recommended to upgrade to the new packages available under updates directory on our ftp site:

    Solution:

    Further Instructions

    Once you have downloaded the sysklogd package for your architecture, you will need to do the following as root: 

    
    rpm -Uvh sysklogd*rpm

    /etc/rc.d/init.d/syslog restart
  • Package: lsof

    Updated: 19-Feb-1999

    Problem:

    • (19-Feb-1999):Security Update

      Red Hat Linux 5.2 is shipping with a vulnerable version of lsof. The lsof binary is shipped setgid kmem and by exploiting a buffer overflow a user will be able to get kmem group access. Fortunately the permissions on /dev/kmem on Red Hat Linux will only grant read only access to kmem group members, so this exploit can not be used to get root access.

      There is an exploit floating around the net for this security problem which is based on the fact that some distributions grant both read and write access for the kmem group members to /dev/kmem.

      Red Hat would like to thank HERT - Hacker Emergency Response Team - for bringing this problem to our attention.

      Although this security hole can not be used to get root access on Red Hat Linux, there are privacy concerns that prompt us to release a security update for the lsof package. All users of Red Hat Linux 5.2 are encouraged to upgrade to the new lsof packages immediately. As always, these packages have been signed with the Red Hat PGP key.

    Solution:

    Further Instructions: You may get an error using this version of lsof if you have not upgraded to the 2.0.36-1 or 2.0.36-3 kernel RPMs.

  • Package: minicom

    Updated: 09-Feb-1999

    Problem:

    • (09-Feb-1999) Security Fix:

      Current minicom packages have permissions set to allow all users to access a modem on a system. This update fixes this problem limiting users to those listed in the minicom configuration file.

      New packages are available for the supported versions of Red Hat Linux. All users of Red Hat Linux are encouraged to upgrade to the new minicom releases immediately. As always, these packages have been signed with the Red Hat PGP key.

    Solution:

  • Package: dump

    Updated: 02-Feb-1999

    Problem:

    • (02-Feb-1999):Update
      Dump was not working correctly on the sparc platform. However, to keep the same revision numbers on all platforms, we have released it for all 3 architectures.

    Solution:

    Further Instructions You should be able to upgrade the package using RPM. Example: 

    
    rpm -Uvh dump-0.3-17.sparc.rpm
  • Package: perl

    Updated: 02-Feb-1999

    Problem:

    • (02-Feb-1999):Update
      This is an update for the perl package shipped wity Red Hat 5.2 that addresses some fo the problems reported running majordomo and misc CGI scripts under this version of perl.

    Solution:

    Further Instructions You should be able to upgrade the package using RPM. Example: 

    
    rpm -Uvh perl-5.004m7-1.i386.rpm
  • Package: Xconfigurator

    Updated: 02-Feb-1999

    Problem:

    • (02-Feb-1999):Notice
      An updated version of Xconfigurator has been released to work with XFree86-3.3.3.1. Xconfigurator can be subsituted for XF86Setup in the setup stage of your video card.

    Solution:

    Further Instructions You should be able to upgrade the package using RPM. Example: 

    
    rpm -Uvh Xconfigurator-3.89-1.i386.rpm
  • Package: FVWM2

    Updated: 19-Jan-1999

    Problem:

    • (19-Jan-1999):Notice
      Users who update to the latest XFree86 also need to update to the latest FVWM2 rpms for AnotherLevel (Red Hat default window manager) to work.

    Solution:

  • Package: Kernel

    Updated: 03-Jan-1999

    Problem:

    • (03-Jan-1999):New Drivers

      Red Hat has further patched the standard 2.0.36 kernel with updated drivers for the Adaptec 7xxx cards, NCR scsi, 3com 905B, and some other patches.

    • (08-Dec-1998):Security Fix

      • Several security holes were found in the Linux kernel and patched in the 2.0.36 kernel. Users should upgrade to patch these problems. The announcement can be found here.

    Solution:

    Further Instructions For instructions on upgrading users should read the Red Hat kernel upgrade howto. While the howto focuses on intel, there are sub chapters for upgrading alpha and sparc machines.

  • Package: pam

    Updated: 03-Jan-1999

    Problem:

    • (03-Jan-1999)Security Fix:

      1. Risk level: SMALL

        The default configuration as shipped with the supported releases of Red Hat Linux is not vulnerable to this problem.

      2. Description

        A race condition that can be exploited under some particular scenarios has been identified in all versions of the Linux-PAM library shipped with all versions of Red Hat Linux. The vulnerability is exhibited in the pam_unix_passwd.so module included in Red Hat Linux, but *not* used by either of the 4.2 or 5.x releases. Red Hat Linux uses the pam_pwdb.so module for performing PAM authentication.

        You are at risk if you enabled pam_unix_passwd.so and are using it instead of the pam_pwdb.so module. An exploit occurs when an user with a umask setting of 0 is trying to change the login password.

        As of this release there are no known exploits of this security problem.

    Solution:

  • Package: New Boot Images

    Updated: 01-Feb-1999

    Problem:

    • (01-Feb-1999):Update
      Extended instructions for writing to floppy disk.
    • (03-Jan-1999):Notice

      New boot and supplemental floppy images have been uploaded to correct the following problems:

      • French translation
        • Users must boot with "linux supp" and use a supplemental disc to get the second stage installer translated in French)
      • Hard drive installs from fat, vfat, and fat32 filesystems
      • Disk Druid can now recognize Windows 98 extended partitions.
        • Users installing from CD-ROM or NFS must boot with "linux supp" and use a supp disk if they need to modify disks with Windows 98 extended partitions.

      You will need to download these image files to your harddrive since they are the exact size of a formatted floppy disk (and thus will not fit).

      You will then need to use the DOS rawrite.exe command found on the CD-rom, or if you have Linux installed on another machine, can use the dd command to write the image to the floppy using: 

      	  insert first floppy
	    dd if=boot.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=72k
	  change floppies
	    dd if=supp.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=72k

    Solution:

    Further Instructions

    Users experiencing problems with aic7xxx or ncr53c8xx drivers need to go to <ALT-F2> when the mouse configuration screen comes up and type: 

    
	  cp /modules/aic7xxx.o /mnt/lib/modules/2.0.36-0.7/scsi
    or 
    
	  cp /modules/ncr53c8xx.o /mnt/lib/modules/2.0.36-0.7/scsi

    This will put the correct driver in the initrd that gets created before lilo is installed.

    Users will be able to install using 3c905B in 100 Mbps mode. After reboot the card will be using the old driver, therefore it will not be able to enter 100 Mbps mode. Updating to the new kernel rpm will correct this.

  • Package: FTP client

    Updated: 22-Dec-1998

    Problem:

    • (22-Dec-1998):Security

      A security vulnerability has been identified in all versions of the ftp client binary shipped with Red Hat Linux. An exploit for this vulnerability would have to rely on getting the user to connect using passive mode to a server running a ftp daemon under the attacker's control. As of this release time there are no known exploits of this security problem.

      All users of Red Hat Linux are encouraged to upgrade to the new package releases immediately. As always, these packages have been signed with the Red Hat PGP key.

    Solution:

    Further Instructions

    Once you have downloaded the NetKit package for your architecture, you will need to do the following as root: 

    
    rpm -Uvh ftp-0.10-4*rpm
  • Package: Netscape

    Updated: 25-May-1999

    Problem:

    • (25-May-1999) Security Update:

      New netscape packages are available. While these are not specifically security updates, among the changes listed are 'Fixes to improve security'; therefore it is recommended that users update to the new packages.

    Solution:

    Updated: 22-Dec-1998

    Problem:

    • (22-Dec-1998) Security Update:

      Various security vulnerabilities have been found in versions of Netscape Navigator and Communicator as shipped with Red Hat Linux. More information on the security vulnerabilities is available at Netscape

      It is recommended that users of Red Hat Linux upgrade to the new packages available on our FTP site:

    Solution:

  • Package: libc5

    Updated: 13-Nov-1998

    Problem:

    • (13-Nov-1998) Security Fix:

      A buffer overflow has been identified in all versions of the libc 5 packages shipped with Red Hat Linux. The most affected systems are those that are libc 5 based (Red Hat Linux 4.2 and older). Only Intel and Sparc architectures are affected.

      The Red Hat Linux 5.x releases are glibc (libc 6) based, and Red Hat does not ship any binaries linked against libc 5 that might be used for compromising the system's security. However, Red Hat Linux 5.x releases do include for backwards compatibility a package containg a vulnerable library.

      Users of Red Hat Linux are recommended to upgrade to the new packages available under updates directory on our ftp site: 

                rpm -Uvh libc-5.3.12-28.i386.rpm

    Solution:

  • Package: Install (Alpha)

    Updated: 13-Nov-1998

    Problems:

    • (13-Nov-1998)

      A problem has been found with the install when selecting individual packages. To get around this problem, you will need to down load the updated ramdisk from the ftp site. Then rawrite the image to a floppy following the instructions in the manual.

    Solution:

  • Package: svgalib

    Updated: 06-Nov-1998

    Problem:

    • (06-Nov-1998) Security Fix:

      svgalib has been found to leak file descriptors to /dev/mem. Red Hat would like to thank the users of the BUGTRAQ security list for identifying the problem and Kevin Vajk for providing a fix. Users of Red Hat Linux are recommended to upgrade to the new packages available under the updates directory on our ftp site: To upgrade this package use the rpm command: rpm -Uvh svgalib-1.3.0-1

    Solution: