Issued:
2009-01-14
Updated:
2009-01-14

RHSA-2009:0014 - 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 resolve several security issues and fix various bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.

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.

This update addresses the following security issues:

  • the sendmsg() function in the Linux kernel did not block during UNIX socket garbage collection. This could, potentially, lead to a local denial of service. (CVE-2008-5300, Important)

  • when fput() was called to close a socket, the __scm_destroy() function in the Linux kernel could make indirect recursive calls to itself. This could, potentially, lead to a local denial of service. (CVE-2008-5029, Important)

  • a deficiency was found in the Linux kernel virtual file system (VFS) implementation. This could allow a local, unprivileged user to make a series of file creations within deleted directories, possibly causing a denial of service. (CVE-2008-3275, Moderate)

  • a buffer underflow flaw was found in the Linux kernel IB700 SBC watchdog timer driver. This deficiency could lead to a possible information leak. By default, the "/dev/watchdog" device is accessible only to the root user. (CVE-2008-5702, Low)

  • the hfs and hfsplus file systems code failed to properly handle corrupted data structures. This could, potentially, lead to a local denial of service. (CVE-2008-4933, CVE-2008-5025, Low)

  • a flaw was found in the hfsplus file system implementation. This could, potentially, lead to a local denial of service when write operations were performed. (CVE-2008-4934, Low)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

  • when running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.6 and 4.7 on some systems running Intel® CPUs, the cpuspeed daemon did not run, preventing the CPU speed from being changed, such as not being reduced to an idle state when not in use.

  • mmap() could be used to gain access to beyond the first megabyte of RAM, due to insufficient checks in the Linux kernel code. Checks have been added to prevent this.

  • attempting to turn keyboard LEDs on and off rapidly on keyboards with slow keyboard controllers, may have caused key presses to fail.

  • after migrating a hypervisor guest, the MAC address table was not updated, causing packet loss and preventing network connections to the guest. Now, a gratuitous ARP request is sent after migration. This refreshes the ARP caches, minimizing network downtime.

  • writing crash dumps with diskdump may have caused a kernel panic on Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) systems with certain memory configurations.

  • on big-endian systems, such as PowerPC, the getsockopt() function incorrectly returned 0 depending on the parameters passed to it when the time to live (TTL) value equaled 255, possibly causing memory corruption and application crashes.

  • a problem in the kernel packages provided by the RHSA-2008:0508 advisory caused the Linux kernel's built-in memory copy procedure to return the wrong error code after recovering from a page fault on AMD64 and Intel 64 systems. This may have caused other Linux kernel functions to return wrong error codes.

  • a divide-by-zero bug in the Linux kernel process scheduler, which may have caused kernel panics on certain systems, has been resolved.

  • the netconsole kernel module caused the Linux kernel to hang when slave interfaces of bonded network interfaces were started, resulting in a system hang or kernel panic when restarting the network.

  • the "/proc/xen/" directory existed even if systems were not running Red Hat Virtualization. This may have caused problems for third-party software that checks virtualization-ability based on the existence of "/proc/xen/". Note: this update will remove the "/proc/xen/" directory on systems not running Red Hat Virtualization.

All Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 users should 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/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

ProductVersionArch
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support4.7x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support4.7ia64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support4.7i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian4ppc
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support4.7ppc
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems4s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems4s390
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support4.7s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support4.7s390
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-largesmp-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-xenU-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.ppc64iseries.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-hugemem-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-doc-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.noarch.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-xenU-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.s390.rpm
  • kernel-smp-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-xenU-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-xenU-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-smp-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.s390.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-smp-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-smp-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.ppc64iseries.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.src.rpm
  • kernel-hugemem-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL.ia64.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

References

Additional information