RHSA-2009:1671: Important: kernel security and bug fix update

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linuxoperating system.This update fixes the following security issues: a flaw was found in the Realtek r8169 Ethernet driver in the Linux kernel. pciunmapsingle() presented a memory leak that could lead to IOMMUspace exhaustion and a system crash. An attacker on the local network couldtrigger this flaw by using jumbo frames for large amounts of networktraffic. (CVE-2009-3613, Important) NULL pointer dereference flaws were found in the r128 driver in the Linux kernel. Checks to test if the Concurrent Command Engine state wasinitialized were missing in private IOCTL functions. An attacker could usethese flaws to cause a local denial of service or escalate theirprivileges. (CVE-2009-3620, Important) an information leak was found in the Linux kernel. On AMD64 systems, 32-bit processes could access and read certain 64-bit registers bytemporarily switching themselves to 64-bit mode. (CVE-2009-2910, Moderate) the unixstreamconnect() function in the Linux kernel did not check if a UNIX domain socket was in the shutdown state. This could lead to adeadlock. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to cause a denialof service. (CVE-2009-3621, Moderate)This update also fixes the following bugs: an iptables rule with the recent module and a hit count value greater than the ippktlisttot parameter (the default is 20), did not have anyeffect over packets, as the hit count could not be reached. (BZ#529306) in environments that use dual-controller storage devices with the cciss driver, Device-Mapper Multipath maps could not be detected and configured,due to the cciss driver not exporting the bus attribute via sysfs. Thisattribute is now exported. (BZ#529309) the kernel crashed with a divide error when a certain joystick was attached. (BZ#532027) a bug in the mptctldomptcommand() function in the mpt driver may have resulted in crashes during boot on i386 systems with certain adapters usingthe mpt driver, and also running the hugemem kernel. (BZ#533798) on certain hardware, the igb driver was unable to detect link statuses correctly. This may have caused problems for network bonding, such asfailover not occurring. (BZ#534105) the RHSA-2009:1024 update introduced a regression. After updating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8 and rebooting, network links often failed to bebrought up for interfaces using the forcedeth driver. "no link duringinitialization" messages may have been logged. (BZ#534112) the RHSA-2009:1024 update introduced a second regression. On certain systems, PS/2 keyboards failed to work. (BZ#537344) a bug in checksum offload calculations could have crashed the bnx2x firmware when the iptablenat module was loaded, causing network trafficto stop. (BZ#537013) a check has been added to the IPv4 code to make sure that the routing table data structure, rt, is not NULL, to help prevent future bugs infunctions that call ipappenddata() from being exploitable. (BZ#537016) possible kernel pointer dereferences on systems with several NFS mounts (a mixture of "-o lock" and "-o nolock"), which in rare cases may havecaused a system crash, have been resolved. (BZ#537017)Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backportedpatches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for thisupdate to take effect.