RHN Errata Alert: Important: kernel security and bug fix update

[Red Hat Network Alert <dev-null@rhn.redhat.com>]

Red Hat Network has determined that the following advisory is applicable to
one or more of the systems you have registered:

Complete information about this errata can be found at the following location:
     https://rhn.redhat.com/rhn/errata/details/Details.do?eid=9301

Security Advisory - RHSA-2009:1548-1
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Summary:
Important: kernel security and bug fix update

Updated kernel packages that fix multiple security issues and several bugs
are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

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

Description:
The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux
operating system.

Security fixes:

* a system with SELinux enforced was more permissive in allowing local
users in the unconfined_t domain to map low memory areas even if the
mmap_min_addr restriction was enabled. This could aid in the local
exploitation of NULL pointer dereference bugs. (CVE-2009-2695, Important)

* a NULL pointer dereference flaw was found in the eCryptfs implementation
in the Linux kernel. A local attacker could use this flaw to cause a local
denial of service or escalate their privileges. (CVE-2009-2908, Important)

* a flaw was found in the NFSv4 implementation. The kernel would do an
unnecessary permission check after creating a file. This check would
usually fail and leave the file with the permission bits set to random
values. Note: This is a server-side only issue. (CVE-2009-3286, Important)

* a NULL pointer dereference flaw was found in each of the following
functions in the Linux kernel: pipe_read_open(), pipe_write_open(), and
pipe_rdwr_open(). When the mutex lock is not held, the i_pipe pointer could
be released by other processes before it is used to update the pipe's
reader and writer counters. This could lead to a local denial of service or
privilege escalation. (CVE-2009-3547, Important)

* a flaw was found in the Realtek r8169 Ethernet driver in the Linux
kernel. pci_unmap_single() presented a memory leak that could lead to IOMMU
space exhaustion and a system crash. An attacker on the local network could
abuse this flaw by using jumbo frames for large amounts of network traffic.
(CVE-2009-3613, Important)

* missing initialization flaws were found in the Linux kernel. Padding data
in several core network structures was not initialized properly before
being sent to user-space. These flaws could lead to information leaks.
(CVE-2009-3228, Moderate)

Bug fixes:

* with network bonding in the "balance-tlb" or "balance-alb" mode, the
primary setting for the primary slave device was lost when said device was
brought down. Bringing the slave back up did not restore the primary
setting. (BZ#517971)

* some faulty serial device hardware caused systems running the kernel-xen
kernel to take a very long time to boot. (BZ#524153)

* a caching bug in nfs_readdir() may have caused NFS clients to see
duplicate files or not see all files in a directory. (BZ#526960)

* the RHSA-2009:1243 update removed the mpt_msi_enable option, preventing
certain scripts from running. This update adds the option back. (BZ#526963)

* an iptables rule with the recent module and a hit count value greater
than the ip_pkt_list_tot parameter (the default is 20), did not have any
effect over packets, as the hit count could not be reached. (BZ#527434)

* a check has been added to the IPv4 code to make sure that rt is not NULL,
to help prevent future bugs in functions that call ip_append_data() from
being exploitable. (BZ#527436)

* a kernel panic occurred in certain conditions after reconfiguring a tape
drive's block size. (BZ#528133)

* when using the Linux Virtual Server (LVS) in a master and backup
configuration, and propagating active connections on the master to the
backup, the connection timeout value on the backup was hard-coded to 180
seconds, meaning connection information on the backup was soon lost. This
could prevent the successful failover of connections. The timeout value
can now be set via "ipvsadm --set". (BZ#528645)

* a bug in nfs4_do_open_expired() could have caused the reclaimer thread on
an NFSv4 client to enter an infinite loop. (BZ#529162)

* MSI interrupts may not have been delivered for r8169 based network cards
that have MSI interrupts enabled. This bug only affected certain systems.
(BZ#529366)

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported
patches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for this
update to take effect.

References:
http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-18042
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Taking Action
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You may address the issues outlined in this advisory in two ways:

     - select your server name by clicking on its name from the list
       available at the following location, and then schedule an
       errata update for it:
           https://rhn.redhat.com/rhn/systems/SystemList.do

     - run the Update Agent on each affected server.


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Affected Systems List
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This Errata Advisory may apply to the systems listed below. If you know that
this errata does not apply to a system listed, it might be possible that the
package profile for that server is out of date. In that case you should refresh 
the system's package profile by running *one* of the following commands as root 
on that system:

 * 'up2date -p' (on Enterprise Linux systems prior to RHEL5)
 * 'rhn-profile-sync' (on Enterprise Linux 5 or later) 

There are 38 affected systems registered in 'Your RHN' (only systems for
which you have explicitly enabled Errata Alerts are shown).

Release   Arch       Profile Name
--------  --------   ------------


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