Issued:

2009-08-10

Updated:

2009-08-10

RHSA-2009:1205 - Moderate: httpd security and bug fix update

Synopsis

Moderate: httpd security and bug fix update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory Moderate

Topic

Updated httpd packages that fix multiple security issues and a bug are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.

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

Description

The Apache HTTP Server is a popular Web server. The httpd package shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 contains embedded copies of the Apache Portable Runtime (APR) libraries, which provide a free library of C data structures and routines, and also additional utility interfaces to support XML parsing, LDAP, database interfaces, URI parsing, and more.

Multiple integer overflow flaws, leading to heap-based buffer overflows, were found in the way the Apache Portable Runtime (APR) manages memory pool and relocatable memory allocations. An attacker could use these flaws to issue a specially-crafted request for memory allocation, which would lead to a denial of service (application crash) or, potentially, execute arbitrary code with the privileges of an application using the APR libraries. (CVE-2009-2412)

A denial of service flaw was found in the Apache mod_deflate module. This module continued to compress large files until compression was complete, even if the network connection that requested the content was closed before compression completed. This would cause mod_deflate to consume large amounts of CPU if mod_deflate was enabled for a large file. (CVE-2009-1891)

This update also fixes the following bug:

• in some cases the Content-Length header was dropped from HEAD responses. This resulted in certain sites not working correctly with mod_proxy, such as www.windowsupdate.com. (BZ#506016)

All httpd users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. After installing the updated packages, the httpd daemon must be restarted for the update to take effect.

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

Updated Packages

• httpd-devel-2.0.46-75.ent.ppc.rpm
• httpd-2.0.46-75.ent.ppc.rpm
• mod_ssl-2.0.46-75.ent.ppc.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 506016
• This content is not included.BZ - 509125
• This content is not included.BZ - 515698

CVEs

• CVE-2009-1891
• CVE-2009-2412

References

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

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.