RHSA-2009:0014: Important: kernel security and bug fix update

First published: Wed Jan 14 2009(Updated: )

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux<br>operating system.<br>This update addresses the following security issues:<br><li> the sendmsg() function in the Linux kernel did not block during UNIX</li> socket garbage collection. This could, potentially, lead to a local denial<br>of service. (CVE-2008-5300, Important)<br><li> when fput() was called to close a socket, the __scm_destroy() function in</li> the Linux kernel could make indirect recursive calls to itself. This could,<br>potentially, lead to a local denial of service. (CVE-2008-5029, Important)<br><li> a deficiency was found in the Linux kernel virtual file system (VFS)</li> implementation. This could allow a local, unprivileged user to make a<br>series of file creations within deleted directories, possibly causing a<br>denial of service. (CVE-2008-3275, Moderate)<br><li> a buffer underflow flaw was found in the Linux kernel IB700 SBC watchdog</li> timer driver. This deficiency could lead to a possible information leak. By<br>default, the "/dev/watchdog" device is accessible only to the root user.<br>(CVE-2008-5702, Low)<br><li> the hfs and hfsplus file systems code failed to properly handle corrupted</li> data structures. This could, potentially, lead to a local denial of<br>service. (CVE-2008-4933, CVE-2008-5025, Low)<br><li> a flaw was found in the hfsplus file system implementation. This could,</li> potentially, lead to a local denial of service when write operations were<br>performed. (CVE-2008-4934, Low)<br>This update also fixes the following bugs:<br><li> when running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.6 and 4.7 on some systems running</li> Intel® CPUs, the cpuspeed daemon did not run, preventing the CPU speed from<br>being changed, such as not being reduced to an idle state when not in use.<br><li> mmap() could be used to gain access to beyond the first megabyte of RAM,</li> due to insufficient checks in the Linux kernel code. Checks have been added<br>to prevent this.<br><li> attempting to turn keyboard LEDs on and off rapidly on keyboards with</li> slow keyboard controllers, may have caused key presses to fail.<br><li> after migrating a hypervisor guest, the MAC address table was not</li> updated, causing packet loss and preventing network connections to the<br>guest. Now, a gratuitous ARP request is sent after migration. This<br>refreshes the ARP caches, minimizing network downtime.<br><li> writing crash dumps with diskdump may have caused a kernel panic on</li> Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) systems with certain memory<br>configurations.<br><li> on big-endian systems, such as PowerPC, the getsockopt() function</li> incorrectly returned 0 depending on the parameters passed to it when the<br>time to live (TTL) value equaled 255, possibly causing memory corruption<br>and application crashes.<br><li> a problem in the kernel packages provided by the RHSA-2008:0508 advisory</li> caused the Linux kernel's built-in memory copy procedure to return the<br>wrong error code after recovering from a page fault on AMD64 and Intel 64<br>systems. This may have caused other Linux kernel functions to return wrong<br>error codes.<br><li> a divide-by-zero bug in the Linux kernel process scheduler, which may</li> have caused kernel panics on certain systems, has been resolved.<br><li> the netconsole kernel module caused the Linux kernel to hang when slave</li> interfaces of bonded network interfaces were started, resulting in a system<br>hang or kernel panic when restarting the network.<br><li> the "/proc/xen/" directory existed even if systems were not running Red</li> Hat Virtualization. This may have caused problems for third-party software<br>that checks virtualization-ability based on the existence of "/proc/xen/".<br>Note: this update will remove the "/proc/xen/" directory on systems not<br>running Red Hat Virtualization.<br>All Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 users should upgrade to these updated<br>packages, which contain backported patches to resolve these issues.

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