Scientific Linux Security Update : kernel on SL4.x i386/x86_64

high Nessus Plugin ID 60520

Synopsis

The remote Scientific Linux host is missing one or more security updates.

Description

This update addresses the following security issues :

- the sendmsg() function in the Linux kernel did not block during UNIX socket garbage collection. This could, potentially, lead to a local denial of service.
(CVE-2008-5300, Important)

- when fput() was called to close a socket, the
__scm_destroy() function in the Linux kernel could make indirect recursive calls to itself. This could, potentially, lead to a local denial of service.
(CVE-2008-5029, Important)

- a deficiency was found in the Linux kernel virtual file system (VFS) implementation. This could allow a local, unprivileged user to make a series of file creations within deleted directories, possibly causing a denial of service. (CVE-2008-3275, Moderate)

- a buffer underflow flaw was found in the Linux kernel IB700 SBC watchdog timer driver. This deficiency could lead to a possible information leak. By default, the '/dev/watchdog' device is accessible only to the root user. (CVE-2008-5702, Low)

- the hfs and hfsplus file systems code failed to properly handle corrupted data structures. This could, potentially, lead to a local denial of service.
(CVE-2008-4933, CVE-2008-5025, Low)

- a flaw was found in the hfsplus file system implementation. This could, potentially, lead to a local denial of service when write operations were performed.
(CVE-2008-4934, Low)

This update also fixes the following bugs :

- when running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.6 and 4.7 on some systems running Intel® CPUs, the cpuspeed daemon did not run, preventing the CPU speed from being changed, such as not being reduced to an idle state when not in use.

- mmap() could be used to gain access to beyond the first megabyte of RAM, due to insufficient checks in the Linux kernel code. Checks have been added to prevent this.

- attempting to turn keyboard LEDs on and off rapidly on keyboards with slow keyboard controllers, may have caused key presses to fail.

- after migrating a hypervisor guest, the MAC address table was not updated, causing packet loss and preventing network connections to the guest. Now, a gratuitous ARP request is sent after migration. This refreshes the ARP caches, minimizing network downtime.

- writing crash dumps with diskdump may have caused a kernel panic on Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) systems with certain memory configurations.

- on big-endian systems, such as PowerPC, the getsockopt() function incorrectly returned 0 depending on the parameters passed to it when the time to live (TTL) value equaled 255, possibly causing memory corruption and application crashes.

- a problem in the kernel packages provided by the RHSA-2008:0508 advisory caused the Linux kernel's built-in memory copy procedure to return the wrong error code after recovering from a page fault on AMD64 and Intel 64 systems. This may have caused other Linux kernel functions to return wrong error codes.

- a divide-by-zero bug in the Linux kernel process scheduler, which may have caused kernel panics on certain systems, has been resolved.

- the netconsole kernel module caused the Linux kernel to hang when slave interfaces of bonded network interfaces were started, resulting in a system hang or kernel panic when restarting the network.

- the '/proc/xen/' directory existed even if systems were not running Red Hat Virtualization. This may have caused problems for third-party software that checks virtualization-ability based on the existence of '/proc/xen/'. Note: this update will remove the '/proc/xen/' directory on systems not running Red Hat Virtualization.

This updated kernel-utils package adds an enhancement in the way of proper support for user-space frequency-scaling on multi-core systems.

Solution

Update the affected packages.

See Also

http://www.nessus.org/u?630aef0c

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 60520

File Name: sl_20090114_kernel_on_SL4_x.nasl

Version: 1.7

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 8/1/2012

Updated: 1/14/2021

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.8

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: x-cpe:/o:fermilab:scientific_linux

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

Patch Publication Date: 1/14/2009

Vulnerability Publication Date: 8/12/2008

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2008-3275, CVE-2008-4933, CVE-2008-4934, CVE-2008-5025, CVE-2008-5029, CVE-2008-5300, CVE-2008-5702

CWE: 119, 20, 399