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

First published: Tue Dec 15 2009(Updated: )

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

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

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