Issued:
2011-09-06
Updated:
2011-09-06

RHSA-2011:1212 - 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 multiple security issues and several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

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.

This update fixes the following security issues:

  • A NULL pointer dereference flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) implementation. A remote attacker could send a specially-crafted SCTP packet to a target system, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2482, Important)

  • A flaw in the Linux kernel's client-side NFS Lock Manager (NLM) implementation could allow a local, unprivileged user to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2491, Important)

  • Buffer overflow flaws in the Linux kernel's netlink-based wireless configuration interface implementation could allow a local user, who has the CAP_NET_ADMIN capability, to cause a denial of service or escalate their privileges on systems that have an active wireless interface. (CVE-2011-2517, Important)

  • A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's Xen hypervisor implementation emulated the SAHF instruction. When using a fully-virtualized guest on a host that does not use hardware assisted paging (HAP), such as those running CPUs that do not have support for (or those that have it disabled) Intel Extended Page Tables (EPT) or AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI), a privileged guest user could trigger this flaw to cause the hypervisor to crash. (CVE-2011-2519, Moderate)

  • An off-by-one flaw was found in the __addr_ok() macro in the Linux kernel's Xen hypervisor implementation when running on 64-bit systems. A privileged guest user could trigger this flaw to cause the hypervisor to crash. (CVE-2011-2901, Moderate)

  • /proc/[PID]/io is world-readable by default. Previously, these files could be read without any further restrictions. A local, unprivileged user could read these files, belonging to other, possibly privileged processes to gather confidential information, such as the length of a password used in a process. (CVE-2011-2495, Low)

Red Hat would like to thank Vasily Averin for reporting CVE-2011-2491, and Vasiliy Kulikov of Openwall for reporting CVE-2011-2495.

This update also fixes several bugs. Documentation for these bug fixes will be available shortly from the Technical Notes document linked to in the References section.

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues, and fix the bugs noted in the Technical Notes. 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.https://access.redhat.com/kb/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 Power, big endian5ppc
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems5s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation5i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server5ia64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server5i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI5i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop5i386

Updated Packages

  • kernel-debug-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-kdump-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-debug-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-headers-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.i386.rpm
  • kernel-headers-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-debug-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-xen-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-xen-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-kdump-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-xen-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-PAE-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-debug-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-debug-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-headers-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-xen-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-kdump-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-debug-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-debug-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-xen-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-debug-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-headers-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-PAE-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-xen-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-headers-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.src.rpm
  • kernel-debug-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-kdump-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-headers-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.ppc.rpm
  • kernel-debug-devel-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-doc-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.noarch.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

References

Additional information