RHSA-2014:0772: Important: kernel security and bug fix update

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linuxoperating system. A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's floppy driver handled user space provided data in certain error code paths while processing FDRAWCMDIOCTL commands. A local user with write access to /dev/fdX could use thisflaw to free (using the kfree() function) arbitrary kernel memory.(CVE-2014-1737, Important) It was found that the Linux kernel's floppy driver leaked internal kernel memory addresses to user space during the processing of the FDRAWCMD IOCTLcommand. A local user with write access to /dev/fdX could use this flaw toobtain information about the kernel heap arrangement. (CVE-2014-1738, Low)Note: A local user with write access to /dev/fdX could use these two flaws(CVE-2014-1737 in combination with CVE-2014-1738) to escalate theirprivileges on the system. A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's TCP/IP protocol suite implementation handled TCP packets with both the SYN and FIN flags set.A remote attacker could use this flaw to consume an excessive amount ofresources on the target system, potentially resulting in a denial ofservice. (CVE-2012-6638, Moderate)Red Hat would like to thank Matthew Daley for reporting CVE-2014-1737 andCVE-2014-1738.This update also fixes the following bugs: While under heavy load, some Fibre Channel storage devices, such as Hitachi and HP Open-V series, can send a logout (LOGO) message to the hostsystem. However, due to a bug in the lpfc driver, this could result in aloss of active paths to the storage and the paths could not be recoveredwithout manual intervention. This update corrects the lpfc driver to ensureautomatic recovery of the lost paths to the storage in this scenario.(BZ#1096060) A bug in the futex system call could result in an overflow when passing a very large positive timeout. As a consequence, the FUTEXWAIT operation didnot work as intended and the system call was timing out immediately.A backported patch fixes this bug by limiting very large positive timeoutsto the maximal supported value. (BZ#1091831)All kernel users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, whichcontain backported patches to correct these issues. The system must berebooted for this update to take effect.