RHEL 5 : kernel (RHSA-2009:1222)
High Nessus Plugin ID 40765
Synopsis
The remote Red Hat host is missing one or more security updates.
Description
Updated kernel packages that fix two security issues and a bug are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
This update has been rated as having important security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.
The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system.
These updated packages fix the following security issues :
* a flaw was found in the SOCKOPS_WRAP macro in the Linux kernel. This macro did not initialize the sendpage operation in the proto_ops structure correctly. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to cause a local denial of service or escalate their privileges.
(CVE-2009-2692, Important)
* a flaw was found in the udp_sendmsg() implementation in the Linux kernel when using the MSG_MORE flag on UDP sockets. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to cause a local denial of service or escalate their privileges. (CVE-2009-2698, Important)
Red Hat would like to thank Tavis Ormandy and Julien Tinnes of the Google Security Team for responsibly reporting these flaws.
These updated packages also fix the following bug :
* in the dlm code, a socket was allocated in tcp_connect_to_sock(), but was not freed in the error exit path. This bug led to a memory leak and an unresponsive system. A reported case of this bug occurred after running 'cman_tool kill -n [nodename]'. (BZ#515432)
Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.
Solution
Update the affected packages.