Memory leak in a certain Red Hat patch, applied to vsftpd 2.0.5 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 and Fedora 6 through 8, and on Foresight Linux and rPath appliances, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a large number of CWD commands, as demonstrated by an attack on a daemon with the deny_file configuration option.

The remote Oracle Linux 5 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the ELSA-2008-0295 advisory.

    - fix CVE-2007-5962: vsftpd memory leak when deny_file option is set

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Oracle Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

A memory leak was discovered in the vsftpd daemon. An attacker who is able to connect to an FTP service, either as an authenticated or anonymous user, could cause vsftpd to allocate all available memory if the 'deny_file' option was enabled in vsftpd.conf. (CVE-2007-5962)

As well, this updated package fixes following bugs :

  - a race condition could occur even when the     'lock_upload_files' option is set. When uploading two     files simultaneously, the result was a combination of     the two files. This resulted in uploaded files becoming     corrupted. In these updated packages, uploading two     files simultaneously will result in a file that is     identical to the last uploaded file.

  - when the 'userlist_enable' option is used, failed log in     attempts as a result of the user not being in the list     of allowed users, or being in the list of denied users,     will not be logged. In these updated packages, a new     'userlist_log=YES' option can be configured in     vsftpd.conf, which will log failed log in attempts in     these situations.

  - vsftpd did not support usernames that started with an     underscore or a period character. Usernames starting     with an underscore or a period are supported in these     updated packages.

  - using wildcards in conjunction with the 'ls' command did     not return all the file names it should. For example, if     you FTPed into a directory containing three files -- A1,     A21 and A11 -- and ran the 'ls *1' command, only the     file names A1 and A21 were returned. These updated     packages use greedier code that continues to     speculatively scan for items even after matches have     been found.

  - when the 'user_config_dir' option is enabled in     vsftpd.conf, and the user-specific configuration file     did not exist, the following error occurred after a user     entered their password during the log in process :

500 OOPS: reading non-root config file

This has been resolved in this updated package.

- Wed May 21 2008 Martin Nagy <mnagy at redhat.com> -     2.0.5-17

    - fix a small memory leak (#397011)

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

- Wed May 21 2008 Martin Nagy <mnagy at redhat.com> -     2.0.6-4

    - fix a small memory leak (#397011)

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

- Wed May 21 2008 Martin Nagy <mnagy at redhat.com> -     2.0.5-20

    - fix a small memory leak (#397011)

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

An updated vsftpd package that fixes a security issue and several bugs is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

This update has been rated as having low security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

The vsftpd package includes a Very Secure File Transfer Protocol (FTP) daemon.

A memory leak was discovered in the vsftpd daemon. An attacker who is able to connect to an FTP service, either as an authenticated or anonymous user, could cause vsftpd to allocate all available memory if the 'deny_file' option was enabled in vsftpd.conf. (CVE-2007-5962)

As well, this updated package fixes following bugs :

* a race condition could occur even when the 'lock_upload_files' option is set. When uploading two files simultaneously, the result was a combination of the two files. This resulted in uploaded files becoming corrupted. In these updated packages, uploading two files simultaneously will result in a file that is identical to the last uploaded file.

* when the 'userlist_enable' option is used, failed log in attempts as a result of the user not being in the list of allowed users, or being in the list of denied users, will not be logged. In these updated packages, a new 'userlist_log=YES' option can be configured in vsftpd.conf, which will log failed log in attempts in these situations.

* vsftpd did not support usernames that started with an underscore or a period character. Usernames starting with an underscore or a period are supported in these updated packages.

* using wildcards in conjunction with the 'ls' command did not return all the file names it should. For example, if you FTPed into a directory containing three files -- A1, A21 and A11 -- and ran the 'ls
*1' command, only the file names A1 and A21 were returned. These updated packages use greedier code that continues to speculatively scan for items even after matches have been found.

* when the 'user_config_dir' option is enabled in vsftpd.conf, and the user-specific configuration file did not exist, the following error occurred after a user entered their password during the log in process :

500 OOPS: reading non-root config file

This has been resolved in this updated package.

All vsftpd users are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which resolves these issues.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
180627	Oracle Linux 5 : vsftpd (ELSA-2008-0295)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	high
60409	Scientific Linux Security Update : vsftpd on SL5.x i386/x86_64	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	high
32438	Fedora 7 : vsftpd-2.0.5-17.fc7 (2008-4373)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high
32437	Fedora 9 : vsftpd-2.0.6-4.fc9 (2008-4362)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high
32436	Fedora 8 : vsftpd-2.0.5-20.fc8 (2008-4347)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high
32422	RHEL 5 : vsftpd (RHSA-2008:0295)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high

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