Issued:

2011-12-05

Updated:

2011-12-05

RHSA-2011:1780 - Moderate: tomcat6 security and bug fix update

Synopsis

Moderate: tomcat6 security and bug fix update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory Moderate

Topic

Updated tomcat6 packages that fix several security issues and one bug are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

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

Apache Tomcat is a servlet container for the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages (JSP) technologies.

APR (Apache Portable Runtime) as mentioned in the CVE-2011-3190 and CVE-2011-2526 descriptions does not refer to APR provided by the apr packages. It refers to the implementation of APR provided by the Tomcat Native library, which provides support for using APR with Tomcat. This library is not shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. This update includes fixes for users who have elected to use APR with Tomcat by taking the Tomcat Native library from a different product. Such a configuration is not supported by Red Hat, however.

Multiple flaws were found in the way Tomcat handled HTTP DIGEST authentication. These flaws weakened the Tomcat HTTP DIGEST authentication implementation, subjecting it to some of the weaknesses of HTTP BASIC authentication, for example, allowing remote attackers to perform session replay attacks. (CVE-2011-1184)

A flaw was found in the way the Coyote (org.apache.coyote.ajp.AjpProcessor) and APR (org.apache.coyote.ajp.AjpAprProcessor) Tomcat AJP (Apache JServ Protocol) connectors processed certain POST requests. An attacker could send a specially-crafted request that would cause the connector to treat the message body as a new request. This allows arbitrary AJP messages to be injected, possibly allowing an attacker to bypass a web application's authentication checks and gain access to information they would otherwise be unable to access. The JK (org.apache.jk.server.JkCoyoteHandler) connector is used by default when the APR libraries are not present. The JK connector is not affected by this flaw. (CVE-2011-3190)

A flaw was found in the Tomcat MemoryUserDatabase. If a runtime exception occurred when creating a new user with a JMX client, that user's password was logged to Tomcat log files. Note: By default, only administrators have access to such log files. (CVE-2011-2204)

A flaw was found in the way Tomcat handled sendfile request attributes when using the HTTP APR or NIO (Non-Blocking I/O) connector. A malicious web application running on a Tomcat instance could use this flaw to bypass security manager restrictions and gain access to files it would otherwise be unable to access, or possibly terminate the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The HTTP blocking IO (BIO) connector, which is not vulnerable to this issue, is used by default in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. (CVE-2011-2526)

Red Hat would like to thank the Apache Tomcat project for reporting the CVE-2011-2526 issue.

This update also fixes the following bug:

• Previously, in certain cases, if "LANG=fr_FR" or "LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8" was set as an environment variable or in "/etc/sysconfig/tomcat6" on 64-bit PowerPC systems, Tomcat may have failed to start correctly. With this update, Tomcat works as expected when LANG is set to "fr_FR" or "fr_FR.UTF-8". (BZ#748807)

Users of Tomcat should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. Tomcat must be restarted 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

Affected Products

Updated Packages

• tomcat6-6.0.24-35.el6_1.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-lib-6.0.24-35.el6_1.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-docs-webapp-6.0.24-35.el6_1.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-el-2.1-api-6.0.24-35.el6_1.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-admin-webapps-6.0.24-35.el6_1.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-jsp-2.1-api-6.0.24-35.el6_1.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-servlet-2.5-api-6.0.24-35.el6_1.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-javadoc-6.0.24-35.el6_1.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-6.0.24-35.el6_1.src.rpm
• tomcat6-webapps-6.0.24-35.el6_1.noarch.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 717013
• This content is not included.BZ - 720948
• This content is not included.BZ - 734868
• This content is not included.BZ - 741401

CVEs

• CVE-2011-2526
• CVE-2011-3190
• CVE-2011-1184
• CVE-2011-2204
• CVE-2011-5062
• CVE-2011-5063
• CVE-2011-5064

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate
• Content from tomcat.apache.org is not included.Content from tomcat.apache.org is not included.http://tomcat.apache.org/security-6.html
• This content is not included.This content is not included.https://access.redhat.com/support/offerings/production/soc.html

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.