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Security update for Linux kernel

Knowledgebase

(Last modified: 31JAN2005)


solutions Security update for Linux kernel SuSE Linux Maintenance Web (badd8d52faa4584cf5436e8b66190d30)

Applies to

Package: kernel-bigsmp
kernel-default
kernel-smp
kernel-source
kernel-um
kernel-debug
kernel-syms
um-host-kernel
um-host-install-initrd
Product(s): SUSE CORE 9 for x86
Novell Linux Desktop 9 for x86
Patch: patch-9831
Release: 20050131
Obsoletes: 0e990ff30da47cd20244a7397a12b7f5
13f76e86a140857aaddc59386663dda2
8494b1da78e4b765909cacbb0215523a
9bb6f50333179200be7b3c418fc96f6c

Indications

Everyone using the Linux Kernel on x86 architecture should update.

Contraindications

None.

Problem description

This update fixes following security problems:
  • An NFS Direct I/O local denial of service could allow a local attacker to crash the machine.
  • A previous smbfs security fix was faulty, writes did no longer work on smbfs shares.
  • Unsigned vs signed problems in the generic scsi ioctl handler were reported by grsecurity. They have no impact due to the compiler using unsigned arithmetic, but are fixed nevertheless.
  • ppos /proc file race conditions in the mapped_base and oom_adjust proc files were fixed.
Following non security bugs were fixed:
  • A bug in the pciconfig sysfs interface could cause incorrect values to be read from and written to PCI config space.
  • A locking problem in CKRM could lead to a crash.
  • In low memory situations, large writes would not be serviced in a timely fashion.
  • The initialization of the bio->bi_bdev field was incorrect.
  • VFS callouts for flock were added.
  • MD on top of Device Mapper based devices was not working and lead to kernel crashes.
  • Non-fatal errors encountered during readahead operations caused the device mapper multipath to fail the hardware path.
  • A race condition in the kernel timer code could lead to kernel crashes under high load.
  • An inetaddr notification problem with SCTP could lead to machine crashes.
  • Lots of bugs and problems were fixed in the NSS Netware Storage System module.
  • Several bugs in the DRBD device driver were fixed.

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:
First, find out which kernel package to download and use, for example with
rpm -qf /boot/vmlinuz
Download the kernel image fitting your setup and the kernel symbols (kernel-syms*.rpm) and install it with either:
  • rpm -Fvh kernel-syms*.rpm kernel-default*.rpm for the default kernel image, or
  • rpm -Fhv kernel-syms*.rpm kernel-smp*.rpm for the SMP kernel image with support for up to 64 GB, or
  • rpm -Fhv kernel-syms*.rpm kernel-bigsmp*.rpm for the SMP kernel image with support for up to 64 GB
Please do only install one of these kernels, not all of them.
In case you are using LILO as bootmanager, please make sure that you also execute the command
lilo
after installing the update for the system to remain bootable.
Finally, reboot the system with
shutdown -r now

links to download packages

Download Source Packages

Download the source code of the patches for maintained products.


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