[LU-1511] Kernel update [RHEL5.8 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5]

• Status: Resolved
• Project: Lustre
• Fix Version/s: Lustre 2.1.3, Lustre 1.8.9
• Type: Improvement
• Priority: Minor
• Reporter: Yang Sheng
• Assignee: Yang Sheng
• Resolution: Fixed

Description

This update fixes the following security issues:

• It was found that the Xen hypervisor implementation as shipped with Red
  Hat Enterprise Linux 5 did not properly restrict the syscall return
  addresses in the sysret return path to canonical addresses. An unprivileged
  user in a 64-bit para-virtualized guest, that is running on a 64-bit host
  that has an Intel CPU, could use this flaw to crash the host or,
  potentially, escalate their privileges, allowing them to execute arbitrary
  code at the hypervisor level. (CVE-2012-0217, Important)

• It was found that guests could trigger a bug in earlier AMD CPUs, leading
  to a CPU hard lockup, when running on the Xen hypervisor implementation. An
  unprivileged user in a 64-bit para-virtualized guest could use this flaw to
  crash the host. Warning: After installing this update, hosts that are using
  an affected AMD CPU (refer to Red Hat Bugzilla bug #824966 for a list) will
  fail to boot. In order to boot such hosts, the new kernel parameter,
  allow_unsafe, can be used ("allow_unsafe=on"). This option should only be
  used with hosts that are running trusted guests, as setting it to "on"
  reintroduces the flaw (allowing guests to crash the host). (CVE-2012-2934,
  Moderate)

Note: For Red Hat Enterprise Linux guests, only privileged guest users can
exploit the CVE-2012-0217 and CVE-2012-2934 issues.

Bugs fixed (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/):

813428 - CVE-2012-0217 kernel: x86-64: avoid sysret to non-canonical address
824966 - CVE-2012-2934 kernel: denial of service due to AMD Erratum #121

Comments

[Yang Sheng]

This update fixes the following security issue:

• A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's dl2k driver, used by
  certain D-Link Gigabit Ethernet adapters, restricted IOCTLs. A local,
  unprivileged user could use this flaw to issue potentially harmful IOCTLs,
  which could cause Ethernet adapters using the dl2k driver to malfunction
  (for example, losing network connectivity). (CVE-2012-2313, Low)

Bugs fixed (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/):

818820 - CVE-2012-2313 kernel: unfiltered netdev rio_ioctl access by users

[Peter Jones]

This update landed for 2.1.3. Please create a new ticket to track any more current RHEL5.8 updates - thanks