RHEL 4 : postgresql (RHSA-2005:433)

critical Nessus Plugin ID 18408

Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing one or more security updates for postgresql.

Description

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2005:433 advisory.

PostgreSQL is an advanced Object-Relational database management system (DBMS) that supports almost all SQL constructs (including transactions, subselects and user-defined types and functions).

The PostgreSQL community discovered two distinct errors in initial system catalog entries that could allow authorized database users to crash the database and possibly escalate their privileges. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the names CAN-2005-1409 and CAN-2005-1410 to these issues.

Although installing this update will protect new (freshly initdb'd) database installations from these errors, administrators MUST TAKE MANUAL ACTION to repair the errors in pre-existing databases. The appropriate procedures are explained at http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/static/release-7-4-8.html for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 users, or http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/static/release-7-3-10.html for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 users.

This update corrects several problems that might occur while trying to upgrade a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 installation (containing rh-postgresql packages) to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (containing postgresql packages).
These updated packages correctly supersede the rh-postgresql packages.

The original release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 failed to initialize the database correctly if started for the first time with SELinux in enforcement mode. This update corrects that problem.

If you already have a nonfunctional database in place, shut down the postgresql service if running, install this update, then do sudo rm -rf /var/lib/pgsql/data before restarting the postgresql service.

This update also solves the problem that the PostgreSQL server might fail to restart after a system reboot, due to a stale lockfile.

This update also corrects a problem with wrong error messages in libpq, the postgresql client library. The library would formerly report kernel error messages incorrectly when the locale setting was not C.

This update also includes fixes for several other errors, including two race conditions that could result in apparent data inconsistency or actual data loss.

All users of PostgreSQL are advised to upgrade to these updated packages and to apply the recommended manual corrections to existing databases.

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

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

Solution

Update the RHEL postgresql package based on the guidance in RHSA-2005:433.

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 18408

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2005-433.nasl

Version: 1.29

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Red Hat Local Security Checks

Published: 6/2/2005

Updated: 11/4/2024

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment Azure, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Continuous Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Frictionless Assessment AWS, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.8

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Moderate

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 5.5

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2005-1409

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 8.5

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:rh-postgresql-test, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:rh-postgresql-jdbc, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-jdbc, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-docs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:rh-postgresql-tcl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:rh-postgresql-docs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:rh-postgresql-server, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:4, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-tcl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-test, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-python, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:3, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-pl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-server, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:rh-postgresql-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-contrib, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:rh-postgresql, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:rh-postgresql-python, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-libs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:rh-postgresql-libs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:rh-postgresql-pl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:rh-postgresql-contrib

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/RedHat/release, Host/RedHat/rpm-list, Host/cpu

Patch Publication Date: 6/1/2005

Vulnerability Publication Date: 5/3/2005

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2005-1409, CVE-2005-1410

RHSA: 2005:433

Detections

Analytics