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Security update for Linux kernel

Knowledgebase

(Last modified: 23AUG2005)


solutions Security update for Linux kernel SuSE Linux Maintenance Web (76b31821f5458d44e4feaa31a71f7c0d)

Applies to

Package: kernel-default
kernel-iseries64
kernel-pmac64
kernel-pseries64
kernel-smp
kernel-source
kernel-syms
Product(s): SUSE CORE 9 for IBM POWER
Patch: patch-10457
Release: 20050823
Obsoletes: 763807d02c867cd119d326d0b53c0d9b

Indications

Everyone using the Linux Kernel on PPC architecture should update.

Contraindications

None.

Problem description

This updates fixes the following security issues:
  • CAN-2005-2457: A problem in decompression of files on "zisofs" filesystem was fixed.
  • CAN-2005-2458: A potential buffer overflow in the zlib decompression handling in the kernel was fixed.
  • CAN-2005-2459: Some return codes in zlib decoding were fixed which could have led to an attacker crashing the kernel.
  • CAN-2005-2555: Only CAP_NET_ADMIN is now allowed load socket policies.
  • CAN-2005-0916: Fixed a possible crash in the AIO hugepage handling of PowerPC64.
  • CAN-2005-2456: Fixed a potential overflow caused by missing boundary checks of sock->sk_policy in net/xfrm/.
  • x86_64: A previous fix for a denial of service attack with compat 32bit mode programs was too strict and could crash the kernel. (The earlier fix had the Mitre ID CAN-2005-1765.)
  • s390: Fixed /sys/ permissions where a user could change machine states, including powering down or up partitions.
This update also fixes the following non security bugs:
  • The reported process start times sometimes were incorrect.
  • The OCFS2 filesystem was updated to version 1.0.2.
  • A potential deadlock in cpuset handling was fixed.
  • Fixed a potential crash on startup of the tg3 network driver.
  • Avoid high IRQ latencies in the VM handling.
  • rpm/post.sh was fixed so that initrd.previous is preserved again.
  • A problem in the handling of the tape ioctl MTIOCPOS was fixed.
  • Make the OOM process killer send SIGTERM first instead of SIGKILL.
  • Fixed a netfilter connection track return code mismatch.
  • Fixed a typo in the ipt_TTL netfilter module.
  • XEN was updated to version 2.0.6b.
  • Allow rsize/wsize values less than 4096 for NFS mounts.
  • A data corruption problem within the reiserfs filesystem in the handling of writing to mmaped regions after close of the filedescriptor was fixed.
Following arch specific bug were fixed:
  • ppc64: Handle invalid node properties in POWER4 system.

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.
First, find out which kernel package to use, for example with
rpm -qf /boot/vmlinuz
Download the kernel image fitting your setup and install it with either:
  • rpm -Fvh kernel-syms*.rpm kernel-default*.rpm for the default kernel image, or
  • rpm -Fvh kernel-syms*.rpm kernel-iseries64*.rpm for the 64 bit iSeries kernel image, or
  • rpm -Fvh kernel-syms*.rpm kernel-pseries64*.rpm for the 64 bit pSeries kernel image, or
  • rpm -Fvh kernel-syms*.rpm kernel-smp*.rpm for the SMP kernel image, or
  • rpm -Fvh kernel-syms*.rpm kernel-pmac64*.rpm for the 64 bit PPC kernel image
Please do only install one of these kernels, not all of them.
After performing the RPM package update of your kernel package, you must execute the following commands as root to make sure that your system will start up again:
mk_initrd lilo
Finally, reboot the system with
shutdown -r now
to load the new kernel (replace "now" with the appropriate amount of time to allow local users to cleanly log out, for example "+5" for five minutes.)

links to download packages

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