Unspecified vulnerability in autofs, as used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5, allows local users to cause a denial of service (autofs crash and delayed mounts) or prevent "mount expiration" via unspecified vectors related to "using an LDAP-based automount map."

From Red Hat Security Advisory 2013:0132 :

An updated autofs package that fixes one security issue, several bugs, and adds one enhancement is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in the References section.

The autofs utility controls the operation of the automount daemon. The automount daemon automatically mounts and unmounts file systems.

A bug fix included in RHBA-2012:0264 introduced a denial of service flaw in autofs. When using autofs with LDAP, a local user could use this flaw to crash autofs, preventing future mount requests from being processed until the autofs service was restarted. Note: This flaw did not impact existing mounts (except for preventing mount expiration).
(CVE-2012-2697)

Red Hat would like to thank Ray Rocker for reporting this issue.

This update also fixes the following bugs :

* The autofs init script sometimes timed out waiting for the automount daemon to exit and returned a shutdown failure if the daemon failed to exit in time. To resolve this problem, the amount of time that the init script waits for the daemon has been increased to allow for cases where servers are slow to respond or there are many active mounts.
(BZ#585058)

* Due to an omission when backporting a change, autofs attempted to download the entire LDAP map at startup. This mistake has now been corrected. (BZ#767428)

* A function to check the validity of a mount location was meant to check only for a small subset of map location errors. A recent modification in error reporting inverted a logic test in this validating function. Consequently, the scope of the test was widened, which caused the automount daemon to report false positive failures.
With this update, the faulty logic test has been corrected and false positive failures no longer occur. (BZ#798448)

* When there were many attempts to access invalid or non-existent keys, the automount daemon used excessive CPU resources. As a consequence, systems sometimes became unresponsive. The code has been improved so that automount checks for invalid keys earlier in the process which has eliminated a significant amount of the processing overhead. (BZ#847101)

* The auto.master(5) man page did not document the '-t, --timeout' option in the FORMAT options section. This update adds this information to the man page. (BZ#859890)

This update also adds the following enhancement :

* Previously, it was not possible to configure separate timeout values for individual direct map entries in the autofs master map. This update adds this functionality. (BZ#690404)

All users of autofs are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which contains backported patches to correct these issues and add this enhancement.

A bug fix included in SLBA-2012:0264 introduced a denial of service flaw in autofs. When using autofs with LDAP, a local user could use this flaw to crash autofs, preventing future mount requests from being processed until the autofs service was restarted. Note: This flaw did not impact existing mounts (except for preventing mount expiration).
(CVE-2012-2697)

This update also fixes the following bugs :

  - The autofs init script sometimes timed out waiting for     the automount daemon to exit and returned a shutdown     failure if the daemon failed to exit in time. To resolve     this problem, the amount of time that the init script     waits for the daemon has been increased to allow for     cases where servers are slow to respond or there are     many active mounts.

  - Due to an omission when backporting a change, autofs     attempted to download the entire LDAP map at startup.
    This mistake has now been corrected.

  - A function to check the validity of a mount location was     meant to check only for a small subset of map location     errors. A recent modification in error reporting     inverted a logic test in this validating function.
    Consequently, the scope of the test was widened, which     caused the automount daemon to report false positive     failures. With this update, the faulty logic test has     been corrected and false positive failures no longer     occur.

  - When there were many attempts to access invalid or     non-existent keys, the automount daemon used excessive     CPU resources. As a consequence, systems sometimes     became unresponsive. The code has been improved so that     automount checks for invalid keys earlier in the process     which has eliminated a significant amount of the     processing overhead.

  - The auto.master(5) man page did not document the '-t,
    --timeout' option in the FORMAT options section. This     update adds this information to the man page.

This update also adds the following enhancement :

  - Previously, it was not possible to configure separate     timeout values for individual direct map entries in the     autofs master map. This update adds this functionality.

An updated autofs package that fixes one security issue, several bugs, and adds one enhancement is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in the References section.

The autofs utility controls the operation of the automount daemon. The automount daemon automatically mounts and unmounts file systems.

A bug fix included in RHBA-2012:0264 introduced a denial of service flaw in autofs. When using autofs with LDAP, a local user could use this flaw to crash autofs, preventing future mount requests from being processed until the autofs service was restarted. Note: This flaw did not impact existing mounts (except for preventing mount expiration).
(CVE-2012-2697)

Red Hat would like to thank Ray Rocker for reporting this issue.

This update also fixes the following bugs :

* The autofs init script sometimes timed out waiting for the automount daemon to exit and returned a shutdown failure if the daemon failed to exit in time. To resolve this problem, the amount of time that the init script waits for the daemon has been increased to allow for cases where servers are slow to respond or there are many active mounts.
(BZ#585058)

* Due to an omission when backporting a change, autofs attempted to download the entire LDAP map at startup. This mistake has now been corrected. (BZ#767428)

* A function to check the validity of a mount location was meant to check only for a small subset of map location errors. A recent modification in error reporting inverted a logic test in this validating function. Consequently, the scope of the test was widened, which caused the automount daemon to report false positive failures.
With this update, the faulty logic test has been corrected and false positive failures no longer occur. (BZ#798448)

* When there were many attempts to access invalid or non-existent keys, the automount daemon used excessive CPU resources. As a consequence, systems sometimes became unresponsive. The code has been improved so that automount checks for invalid keys earlier in the process which has eliminated a significant amount of the processing overhead. (BZ#847101)

* The auto.master(5) man page did not document the '-t, --timeout' option in the FORMAT options section. This update adds this information to the man page. (BZ#859890)

This update also adds the following enhancement :

* Previously, it was not possible to configure separate timeout values for individual direct map entries in the autofs master map. This update adds this functionality. (BZ#690404)

All users of autofs are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which contains backported patches to correct these issues and add this enhancement.

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RHSA-2013:0132 advisory.

    The autofs utility controls the operation of the automount daemon. The     automount daemon automatically mounts and unmounts file systems.

    A bug fix included in RHBA-2012:0264 introduced a denial of service flaw in     autofs. When using autofs with LDAP, a local user could use this flaw to     crash autofs, preventing future mount requests from being processed until     the autofs service was restarted. Note: This flaw did not impact existing     mounts (except for preventing mount expiration). (CVE-2012-2697)

    Red Hat would like to thank Ray Rocker for reporting this issue.

    This update also fixes the following bugs:

    * The autofs init script sometimes timed out waiting for the automount     daemon to exit and returned a shutdown failure if the daemon failed to exit     in time. To resolve this problem, the amount of time that the init script     waits for the daemon has been increased to allow for cases where servers     are slow to respond or there are many active mounts. (BZ#585058)

    * Due to an omission when backporting a change, autofs attempted to     download the entire LDAP map at startup. This mistake has now been     corrected. (BZ#767428)

    * A function to check the validity of a mount location was meant to check     only for a small subset of map location errors. A recent modification in     error reporting inverted a logic test in this validating function.
    Consequently, the scope of the test was widened, which caused the automount     daemon to report false positive failures. With this update, the faulty     logic test has been corrected and false positive failures no longer occur.
    (BZ#798448)

    * When there were many attempts to access invalid or non-existent keys, the     automount daemon used excessive CPU resources. As a consequence, systems     sometimes became unresponsive. The code has been improved so that automount     checks for invalid keys earlier in the process which has eliminated a     significant amount of the processing overhead. (BZ#847101)

    * The auto.master(5) man page did not document the -t, --timeout option     in the FORMAT options section. This update adds this information to the man     page. (BZ#859890)

    This update also adds the following enhancement:

    * Previously, it was not possible to configure separate timeout values for     individual direct map entries in the autofs master map. This update adds     this functionality. (BZ#690404)

    All users of autofs are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which     contains backported patches to correct these issues and add this     enhancement.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise 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.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
68703	Oracle Linux 5 : autofs (ELSA-2013-0132)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	medium
63591	Scientific Linux Security Update : autofs on SL5.x i386/x86_64 (20130108)	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	medium
63577	CentOS 5 : autofs (CESA-2013:0132)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	medium
63413	RHEL 5 : autofs (RHSA-2013:0132)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	critical

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2012-2697

critical

Tenable Plugins

medium

medium

medium

critical