Issued:
2007-01-30
Updated:
2007-01-30

RHSA-2007:0014 - Important: kernel security update

Synopsis

Important: kernel security update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory Important

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix several security issues in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 kernel are now available.

This security advisory has been rated as having important security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Description

The Linux kernel handles the basic functions of the operating system.

These new kernel packages contain fixes for the security issues described below:

  • a flaw in the get_fdb_entries function of the network bridging support that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service (crash) or allow a potential privilege escalation (CVE-2006-5751, Important)

  • an information leak in the _block_prepare_write function that allowed a local user to read kernel memory (CVE-2006-4813, Important)

  • an information leak in the copy_from_user() implementation on s390 and s390x platforms that allowed a local user to read kernel memory (CVE-2006-5174, Important)

  • a flaw in the handling of /proc/net/ip6_flowlabel that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) (CVE-2006-5619, Important)

  • a flaw in the AIO handling that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service (panic) (CVE-2006-5754, Important)

  • a race condition in the mincore system core that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service (system hang) (CVE-2006-4814, Moderate)

  • a flaw in the ELF handling on ia64 and sparc architectures which triggered a cross-region memory mapping and allowed a local user to cause a denial of service (CVE-2006-4538, Moderate)

  • a flaw in the dev_queue_xmit function of the network subsystem that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service (data corruption) (CVE-2006-6535, Moderate)

  • a flaw in the handling of CAPI messages over Bluetooth that allowed a remote system to cause a denial of service or potential code execution. This flaw is only exploitable if a privileged user establishes a connection to a malicious remote device (CVE-2006-6106, Moderate)

  • a flaw in the listxattr system call that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service (data corruption) or potential privilege escalation. To successfully exploit this flaw the existence of a bad inode is required first (CVE-2006-5753, Moderate)

  • a flaw in the __find_get_block_slow function that allowed a local privileged user to cause a denial of service (CVE-2006-5757, Low)

  • various flaws in the supported filesystems that allowed a local privileged user to cause a denial of service (CVE-2006-5823, CVE-2006-6053, CVE-2006-6054, CVE-2006-6056, Low)

In addition to the security issues described above, fixes for the following bugs were included:

  • initialization error of the tg3 driver with some BCM5703x network card

  • a memory leak in the audit subsystem

  • x86_64 nmi watchdog timeout is too short

  • ext2/3 directory reads fail intermittently

Red Hat would like to thank Dmitriy Monakhov and Kostantin Khorenko for reporting issues fixed in this erratum.

All Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 users are advised to upgrade their kernels to the packages associated with their machine architecture and configurations as listed in this erratum.

Solution

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

This update is available via Red Hat Network. To use Red Hat Network, launch the Red Hat Update Agent with the following command:

up2date

This will start an interactive process that will result in the appropriate RPMs being upgraded on your system.

Affected Products

ProductVersionArch
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian4ppc
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems4s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems4s390
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation4x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation4ia64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation4i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server4x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server4ia64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server4i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop4x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop4i386

Updated Packages

  • kernel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.src.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-smp-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-smp-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.ppc64iseries.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-doc-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.noarch.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.s390.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-smp-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-smp-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-hugemem-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.ppc64iseries.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.s390.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-hugemem-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.i686.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

References

Additional information