Issued:
2010-05-05
Updated:
2010-05-05

RHSA-2010:0394 - Important: kernel security, bug fix, and enhancement update

Synopsis

Important: kernel security, bug fix, and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory Important

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix multiple security issues, several bugs, and add three enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having important security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores, which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerability from the CVE links in the References section.

Description

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

Security fixes:

  • RHSA-2009:1024 introduced a flaw in the ptrace implementation on Itanium systems. ptrace_check_attach() was not called during certain ptrace() requests. Under certain circumstances, a local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to call ptrace() on a process they do not own, giving them control over that process. (CVE-2010-0729, Important)

  • a flaw was found in the kernel's Unidirectional Lightweight Encapsulation (ULE) implementation. A remote attacker could send a specially-crafted ISO MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS) frame to a target system, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2010-1086, Important)

  • a use-after-free flaw was found in tcp_rcv_state_process() in the kernel's TCP/IP protocol suite implementation. If a system using IPv6 had the IPV6_RECVPKTINFO option set on a listening socket, a remote attacker could send an IPv6 packet to that system, causing a kernel panic. (CVE-2010-1188, Important)

  • a divide-by-zero flaw was found in azx_position_ok() in the Intel High Definition Audio driver, snd-hda-intel. A local, unprivileged user could trigger this flaw to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2010-1085, Moderate)

  • an information leak flaw was found in the kernel's USB implementation. Certain USB errors could result in an uninitialized kernel buffer being sent to user-space. An attacker with physical access to a target system could use this flaw to cause an information leak. (CVE-2010-1083, Low)

Red Hat would like to thank Ang Way Chuang for reporting CVE-2010-1086.

Bug fixes:

  • a regression prevented the Broadcom BCM5761 network device from working when in the first (top) PCI-E slot of Hewlett-Packard (HP) Z600 systems. Note: The card worked in the 2nd or 3rd PCI-E slot. (BZ#567205)

  • the Xen hypervisor supports 168 GB of RAM for 32-bit guests. The physical address range was set incorrectly, however, causing 32-bit, para-virtualized Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8 guests to crash when launched on AMD64 or Intel 64 hosts that have more than 64 GB of RAM. (BZ#574392)

  • RHSA-2009:1024 introduced a regression, causing diskdump to fail on systems with certain adapters using the qla2xxx driver. (BZ#577234)

  • a race condition caused TX to stop in a guest using the virtio_net driver. (BZ#580089)

  • on some systems, using the "arp_validate=3" bonding option caused both links to show as "down" even though the arp_target was responding to ARP requests sent by the bonding driver. (BZ#580842)

  • in some circumstances, when a Red Hat Enterprise Linux client connected to a re-booted Windows-based NFS server, server-side filehandle-to-inode mapping changes caused a kernel panic. "bad_inode_ops" handling was changed to prevent this. Note: filehandle-to-inode mapping changes may still cause errors, but not panics. (BZ#582908)

  • when installing a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 guest via PXE, hard-coded fixed-size scatterlists could conflict with host requests, causing the guest's kernel to panic. With this update, dynamically allocated scatterlists are used, resolving this issue. (BZ#582911)

Enhancements:

  • kernel support for connlimit. Note: iptables errata update RHBA-2010:0395 is also required for connlimit to work correctly. (BZ#563223)

  • support for the Intel architectural performance monitoring subsystem (arch_perfmon). On supported CPUs, arch_perfmon offers means to mark performance events and options for configuring and counting these events. (BZ#582913)

  • kernel support for OProfile sampling of Intel microarchitecture (Nehalem) CPUs. This update alone does not address OProfile support for such CPUs. A future oprofile package update will allow OProfile to work on Intel Nehalem CPUs. (BZ#582241)

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues and add these enhancements. The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.

Solution

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

This update is available via the 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

To install kernel packages manually, use "rpm -ivh [package]". Do not use "rpm -Uvh" as that will remove the running kernel binaries from your system. You may use "rpm -e" to remove old kernels after determining that the new kernel functions properly on your system.

Affected Products

ProductVersionArch
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support4.8x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support4.8ia64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support4.8i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian4ppc
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support4.8ppc
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 Support4.8s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support4.8s390
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-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.s390.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-smp-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-hugemem-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.ppc64iseries.rpm
  • kernel-doc-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.noarch.rpm
  • kernel-smp-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-xenU-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.s390.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-xenU-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-hugemem-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.ppc64iseries.rpm
  • kernel-xenU-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-smp-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-xenU-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-smp-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.i686.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL.src.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

References

Additional information