Issued:

2007-06-25

Updated:

2007-06-25

RHSA-2007:0488 - Important: kernel security update

Synopsis

Important: kernel security update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory Important

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix several security issues and bugs 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 connection tracking support for SCTP that allowed a remote user to cause a denial of service by dereferencing a NULL pointer. (CVE-2007-2876, Important)

• a flaw in the mount handling routine for 64-bit systems that allowed a local user to cause denial of service (crash). (CVE-2006-7203, Important)

• a flaw in the IPv4 forwarding base that allowed a local user to cause an out-of-bounds access. (CVE-2007-2172, Important)

• a flaw in the PPP over Ethernet implementation that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) by creating a socket using connect and then releasing it before the PPPIOCGCHAN ioctl has been called. (CVE-2007-2525, Important)

• a flaw in the fput ioctl handling of 32-bit applications running on 64-bit platforms that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service (panic). (CVE-2007-0773, Important)

• a flaw in the NFS locking daemon that allowed a local user to cause denial of service (deadlock). (CVE-2006-5158, Moderate)

• a flaw in the sysfs_readdir function that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service by dereferencing a NULL pointer. (CVE-2007-3104, Moderate)

• a flaw in the core-dump handling that allowed a local user to create core dumps from unreadable binaries via PT_INTERP. (CVE-2007-0958, Low)

• a flaw in the Bluetooth subsystem that allowed a local user to trigger an information leak. (CVE-2007-1353, Low)

In addition, the following bugs were addressed:

• the NFS could recurse on the same spinlock. Also, NFS, under certain conditions, did not completely clean up Posix locks on a file close, leading to mount failures.

• the 32bit compatibility didn't return to userspace correct values for the rt_sigtimedwait system call.

• the count for unused inodes could be incorrect at times, resulting in dirty data not being written to disk in a timely manner.

• the cciss driver had an incorrect disk size calculation (off-by-one error) which prevented disk dumps.

Red Hat would like to thank Ilja van Sprundel and the OpenVZ Linux kernel team 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 architectures and configurations as listed in this erratum.

Solution

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

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at This content is not included.http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_58_10188

Affected Products

Updated Packages

• kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-hugemem-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.ppc64iseries.rpm
• kernel-smp-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-smp-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-xenU-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.src.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.s390.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-smp-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.s390x.rpm
• kernel-xenU-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.ia64.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.ia64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-smp-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.s390.rpm
• kernel-hugemem-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.ia64.rpm
• kernel-xenU-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-doc-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.noarch.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.s390x.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-xenU-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.ppc64iseries.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.ia64.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.ppc64.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 240855
• This content is not included.BZ - 241784
• This content is not included.BZ - 242558
• This content is not included.BZ - 243251
• This content is not included.BZ - 243252
• This content is not included.BZ - 243256
• This content is not included.BZ - 243259
• This content is not included.BZ - 243261
• This content is not included.BZ - 243262
• This content is not included.BZ - 243263
• This content is not included.BZ - 243746
• This content is not included.BZ - 243902

CVEs

• CVE-2007-0958
• CVE-2007-2172
• CVE-2007-2525
• CVE-2006-7203
• CVE-2007-1353
• CVE-2007-0773
• CVE-2006-5158
• CVE-2007-3104
• CVE-2007-2876

References

• http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important

Additional information

• The Red Hat security contact is This content is not included.secalert@redhat.com. More contact details at https://access.redhat.com/security/team/contact/.
• Offline Security Data data is available for integration with other systems. See Offline Security Data API to get started.