Security update for bind8 and bindutil

Knowledgebase

(Last modified: 07AUG2002)

solutions Security update for bind8 and bindutil SuSE Linux Maintenance Web (1191cc48aa64547beb71e42bc5751e31)

Applies to

Product(s): SuSE Linux Database Server
SuSE Linux Admin-CD for Firewall
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 for IBM zSeries
SuSE eMail Server III
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 for PowerPC

SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 for IA32
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 for IA64
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 for S/390 and zSeries
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server for S/390
SuSE eMail Server 3.1
SuSE Linux Office Server
SuSE Firewall Adminhost VPN
SuSE Linux Connectivity Server

Package: bind8
bindutil
Release: 20020807
Obsoletes: none

Indications

This package should be installed.

Problem description

A vulnerability has been discovered in some resolver library functions. The affected code goes back to the resolver library shipped as part of BIND4; code derived from it has been included in later BIND releases as well as the GNU libc.
The bug itself is a buffer overflow that can be triggered if a DNS server sends multiple CNAME records in a DNS response.
This bug has been fixed for the gethostbyXXX class of functions in GNU libc in 1999. Unfortunately, there is similar code in the getnetbyXXX functions in recent glibc implementations, and the code is enabled by default.
Until glibc patches are available, we recommend that you disable DNS lookups of network names in nsswitch.conf. Simply replace the line containing the tag "networks:" with this line:


networks: files

The resolver bug is also present in the libbind library included in BIND. This library is used by utilities included in the bindutil package.
We are therefore providing security updates for bind8 that address this vulnerability. As communicated previously, the SuSE security team is not providing fixes for BIND4 anymore.
The bind9 packages shipped by SuSE are not vulnerable to this bug.
Please download the update package for your distribution and verify its integrity by the methods listed in section 3) of this announcement.
You should at least upgrade the bindutil package using


rpm -Fvh bindutil*.rpm

Solution

Please install the updates provided at the location noted below.

Installation notes

This update is provided as an RPM package that can easily be installed onto a running system by using this command:


rpm -Fvh bind8.rpm bindutil.rpm

If you are running the BIND name server, and updated the bind8 package, you should restart the name server process by issuing


rcnamed restart

links to download packages

Download Source Packages

Download the source code of the patches for maintained products.

Disclaimer

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