Issued:

2008-01-31

Updated:

2008-01-31

RHSA-2008:0055 - Important: kernel security and bug fix update

Synopsis

Important: kernel security and bug fix update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory Important

Topic

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

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

Description

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system.

These updated kernel packages fix the following security issues:

A flaw was found in the virtual filesystem (VFS). A local unprivileged user could truncate directories to which they had write permission; this could render the contents of the directory inaccessible. (CVE-2008-0001, Important)

A flaw was found in the implementation of ptrace. A local unprivileged user could trigger this flaw and possibly cause a denial of service (system hang). (CVE-2007-5500, Important)

A flaw was found in the way the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 kernel handled page faults when a CPU used the NUMA method for accessing memory on Itanium architectures. A local unprivileged user could trigger this flaw and cause a denial of service (system panic). (CVE-2007-4130, Important)

A possible NULL pointer dereference was found in the chrp_show_cpuinfo function when using the PowerPC architecture. This may have allowed a local unprivileged user to cause a denial of service (crash). (CVE-2007-6694, Moderate)

A flaw was found in the way core dump files were created. If a local user can get a root-owned process to dump a core file into a directory, which the user has write access to, they could gain read access to that core file. This could potentially grant unauthorized access to sensitive information. (CVE-2007-6206, Moderate)

Two buffer overflow flaws were found in the Linux kernel ISDN subsystem. A local unprivileged user could use these flaws to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2007-6063, CVE-2007-6151, Moderate)

As well, these updated packages fix the following bug:

• when moving volumes that contain multiple segments, and a mirror segment is not the first in the mapping table, running the "pvmove /dev/[device] /dev/[device]" command caused a kernel panic. A "kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address [address]" error was logged by syslog.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to resolve these issues.

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-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.ia64.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-smp-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-xenU-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-hugemem-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-xenU-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.ia64.rpm
• kernel-smp-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-doc-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.noarch.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.s390x.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.s390.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-smp-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-xenU-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.src.rpm
• kernel-smp-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-hugemem-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.ia64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-xenU-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.ia64.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.ppc64iseries.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.ppc64iseries.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.s390.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.s390x.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-67.0.4.EL.i686.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 179665
• This content is not included.BZ - 382161
• This content is not included.BZ - 392101
• This content is not included.BZ - 396751
• This content is not included.BZ - 396861
• This content is not included.BZ - 425111
• This content is not included.BZ - 428637
• This content is not included.BZ - 428791

CVEs

• CVE-2008-0001
• CVE-2007-6206
• CVE-2007-4130
• CVE-2007-6063
• CVE-2007-6151
• CVE-2007-6694
• CVE-2007-5500

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.