Issued:

2015-01-13

Updated:

2015-01-13

RHSA-2015:0043 - 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 three security issues and several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 Extended Update Support.

Red Hat Product Security 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.

• A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's SCTP implementation handled malformed or duplicate Address Configuration Change Chunks (ASCONF). A remote attacker could use either of these flaws to crash the system. (CVE-2014-3673, CVE-2014-3687, Important)

• A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's SCTP implementation handled the association's output queue. A remote attacker could send specially crafted packets that would cause the system to use an excessive amount of memory, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2014-3688, Important)

The CVE-2014-3673 issue was discovered by Liu Wei of Red Hat.

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• When the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) was reset, the settings for the ipmi_watchdog driver were not restored correctly causing error 80 to be returned. With this update, Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is reset as expected in the described situation, and the error is no longer returned. (BZ#1109268)

• Under certain conditions, XFS log flushes could exceed the kernel thread stack size. As a consequence, a kernel panic occurred on systems using XFS file systems. This update provides a patch that moves this code path to a work queue, and therefore the stack overflow no longer occurs. (BZ#1154086)

• Due to a race condition, an attempt to unmount an XFS file system using the umount command could fail, causing the system to become unresponsive. The underlying source code has been modified to fix this bug, and the system no longer hangs in the described situation. (BZ#1158320)

• Previously, the printk_ratelimited() function printed messages which were supposed to be suppressed, and failed to print messages that were supposed to be printed. This was caused by the incorrect usage of the __ratelimit() function. This bug has been fixed with this update, and now printk_ratelimit() behaves as expected. (BZ#1169401)

All kernel users are advised to 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 https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

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

• python-perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-firmware-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.noarch.rpm
• perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.src.rpm
• perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-debug-devel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-common-i686-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-headers-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• perf-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-headers-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.i686.rpm
• perf-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-debug-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• perf-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-debug-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-debug-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• python-perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm
• perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• python-perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-debug-devel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-kdump-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-debug-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-headers-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-bootwrapper-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm
• python-perf-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-kdump-devel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm
• python-perf-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-kdump-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-debug-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm
• perf-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-debug-devel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-debug-devel-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-debug-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-doc-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.noarch.rpm
• python-perf-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm
• python-perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-debug-debuginfo-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• python-perf-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-headers-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-debug-2.6.32-358.55.1.el6.ppc64.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 1147850
• This content is not included.BZ - 1155731
• This content is not included.BZ - 1155745

CVEs

• CVE-2014-3687
• CVE-2014-3673
• CVE-2014-3688

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important

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.