Issued:

2010-10-19

Updated:

2010-10-19

RHSA-2010:0779 - Moderate: kernel security and bug fix update

Synopsis

Moderate: kernel security and bug fix update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory Moderate

Topic

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

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate 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.

This update fixes the following security issues:

• Information leak flaws were found in the Linux kernel Traffic Control Unit implementation. A local attacker could use these flaws to cause the kernel to leak kernel memory to user-space, possibly leading to the disclosure of sensitive information. (CVE-2010-2942, Moderate)

• A flaw was found in the tcf_act_police_dump() function in the Linux kernel network traffic policing implementation. A data structure in tcf_act_police_dump() was not initialized properly before being copied to user-space. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to cause an information leak. (CVE-2010-3477, Moderate)

• A missing upper bound integer check was found in the sys_io_submit() function in the Linux kernel asynchronous I/O implementation. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to cause an information leak. (CVE-2010-3067, Low)

Red Hat would like to thank Tavis Ormandy for reporting CVE-2010-3067.

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• When two systems using bonding devices in the adaptive load balancing (ALB) mode communicated with each other, an endless loop of ARP replies started between these two systems due to a faulty MAC address update. With this update, the MAC address update no longer creates unneeded ARP replies. (BZ#629239)

• When running the Connectathon NFS Testsuite with certain clients and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8 as the server, nfsvers4, lock, and test2 failed the Connectathon test. (BZ#625535)

• For UDP/UNIX domain sockets, due to insufficient memory barriers in the network code, a process sleeping in select() may have missed notifications about new data. In rare cases, this bug may have caused a process to sleep forever. (BZ#640117)

• In certain situations, a bug found in either the HTB or TBF network packet schedulers in the Linux kernel could have caused a kernel panic when using Broadcom network cards with the bnx2 driver. (BZ#624363)

• Previously, allocating fallback cqr for DASD reserve/release IOCTLs failed because it used the memory pool of the respective device. This update preallocates sufficient memory for a single reserve/release request. (BZ#626828)

• In some situations a bug prevented "force online" succeeding for a DASD device. (BZ#626827)

• Using the "fsstress" utility may have caused a kernel panic. (BZ#633968)

• This update introduces additional stack guard patches. (BZ#632515)

• A bug was found in the way the megaraid_sas driver handled physical disks and management IOCTLs. All physical disks were exported to the disk layer, allowing an oops in megasas_complete_cmd_dpc() when completing the IOCTL command if a timeout occurred. (BZ#631903)

• Previously, a warning message was returned when a large amount of messages was passed through netconsole and a considerable amount of network load was added. With this update, the warning message is no longer displayed. (BZ#637729)

• Executing a large "dd" command (1 to 5GB) on an iSCSI device with the qla3xxx driver caused a system crash due to the incorrect storing of a private data structure. With this update, the size of the stored data structure is checked and the system crashes no longer occur. (BZ#624364)

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. 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

Updated Packages

• kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.ia64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-xenU-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.src.rpm
• kernel-xenU-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.ia64.rpm
• kernel-xenU-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-smp-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.s390.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.s390x.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.s390x.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.s390.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-xenU-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.ppc64iseries.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.ia64.rpm
• kernel-smp-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-smp-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-smp-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-hugemem-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.i686.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-doc-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.noarch.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.ia64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.ppc64iseries.rpm
• kernel-largesmp-devel-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-hugemem-2.6.9-89.31.1.EL.i686.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 624363
• This content is not included.BZ - 624364
• This content is not included.BZ - 624903
• This content is not included.BZ - 625535
• This content is not included.BZ - 626827
• This content is not included.BZ - 626828
• This content is not included.BZ - 629239
• This content is not included.BZ - 629441
• This content is not included.BZ - 631903
• This content is not included.BZ - 632515
• This content is not included.BZ - 633968
• This content is not included.BZ - 636386
• This content is not included.BZ - 637729
• This content is not included.BZ - 640117

CVEs

• CVE-2010-2942
• CVE-2010-3067
• CVE-2010-3477

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.