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Security update for Linux kernel

Knowledgebase

(Last modified: 31JAN2005)


solutions Security update for Linux kernel SuSE Linux Maintenance Web (d641ad76fd74e1037e3696e72a9c9823)

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-9828
Release: 20050131
Obsoletes: 4ac124e3bea06affbfca92d0e157f0c8
7cb4af3aea86af46dfe6dec778cc8168
b6a62acbc9d90bb52bdac74a0f8ebf7a

Indications

Everyone using the Linux Kernel on PPC 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 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

Download Source Packages

Download the source code of the patches for maintained products.


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