Scientific Linux Security Update : tomcat6 on SL6.x i386/x86_64

medium Nessus Plugin ID 61051

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Synopsis

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

Description

Apache Tomcat is a servlet container for the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages (JSP) technologies.

It was found that web applications could modify the location of the Tomcat host's work directory. As web applications deployed on Tomcat have read and write access to this directory, a malicious web application could use this flaw to trick Tomcat into giving it read and write access to an arbitrary directory on the file system.
(CVE-2010-3718)

A cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw was found in the Manager application, used for managing web applications on Tomcat. If a remote attacker could trick a user who is logged into the Manager application into visiting a specially crafted URL, the attacker could perform Manager application tasks with the privileges of the logged in user.
(CVE-2010-4172)

A second cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw was found in the Manager application. A malicious web application could use this flaw to conduct an XSS attack, leading to arbitrary web script execution with the privileges of victims who are logged into and viewing Manager application web pages. (CVE-2011-0013)

This update also fixes the following bugs :

- A bug in the 'tomcat6' init script prevented additional Tomcat instances from starting. As well, running 'service tomcat6 start' caused configuration options applied from '/etc/sysconfig/tomcat6' to be overwritten with those from '/etc/tomcat6/tomcat6.conf'. With this update, multiple instances of Tomcat run as expected.
(BZ#636997)

- The '/usr/share/java/' directory was missing a symbolic link to the '/usr/share/tomcat6/bin/tomcat-juli.jar' library. Because this library was mandatory for certain operations (such as running the Jasper JSP precompiler), the 'build-jar-repository' command was unable to compose a valid classpath. With this update, the missing symbolic link has been added. (BZ#661244)

- Previously, the 'tomcat6' init script failed to start Tomcat with a 'This account is currently not available.' message when Tomcat was configured to run under a user that did not have a valid shell configured as a login shell. This update modifies the init script to work correctly regardless of the daemon user's login shell.
Additionally, these new tomcat6 packages now set '/sbin/nologin' as the login shell for the 'tomcat' user upon installation, as recommended by deployment best practices. (BZ#678671)

- Some standard Tomcat directories were missing write permissions for the 'tomcat' group, which could cause certain applications to fail with errors such as 'No output folder'. This update adds write permissions for the 'tomcat' group to the affected directories.
(BZ#643809)

- The '/usr/sbin/tomcat6' wrapper script used a hard-coded path to the 'catalina.out' file, which may have caused problems (such as for logging init script output) if Tomcat was being run with a user other than 'tomcat' and with CATALINA_BASE set to a directory other than the default. (BZ#695284, BZ#697504)

- Stopping Tomcat could have resulted in traceback errors being logged to 'catalina.out' when certain web applications were deployed. (BZ#698624)

Users of Tomcat should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. Tomcat must be restarted for this update to take effect.

Solution

Update the affected packages.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 61051

File Name: sl_20110519_tomcat6_on_SL6_x.nasl

Version: 1.8

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Scientific Linux Local Security Checks

Published: 8/1/2012

Updated: 1/14/2021

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 2.9

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.3

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

Vulnerability Information

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

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

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 5/19/2011

Vulnerability Publication Date: 11/26/2010

Exploitable With

Core Impact

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2010-3718, CVE-2010-4172, CVE-2011-0013

Detections

Analytics