Scientific Linux Security Update : freeradius2 on SL5.x i386/x86_64 (20130108)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 63593

Synopsis

The remote Scientific Linux host is missing one or more security updates.

Description

It was found that the 'unix' module ignored the password expiration setting in '/etc/shadow'. If FreeRADIUS was configured to use this module for user authentication, this flaw could allow users with an expired password to successfully authenticate, even though their access should have been denied. (CVE-2011-4966)

This update also fixes the following bugs :

- After log rotation, the freeradius logrotate script failed to reload the radiusd daemon and log messages were lost. This update has added a command to the freeradius logrotate script to reload the radiusd daemon and the radiusd daemon re-initializes and reopens its log files after log rotation as expected.

- The radtest script with the 'eap-md5' option failed because it passed the IP family argument when invoking the radeapclient utility and the radeapclient utility did not recognize the IP family. The radeapclient utility now recognizes the IP family argument and radtest now works with eap-md5 as expected.

- Previously, freeradius was compiled without the '--with-udpfromto' option. Consequently, with a multihomed server and explicitly specifying the IP address, freeradius sent the reply with the wrong IP source address. With this update, freeradius has been built with the '--with-udpfromto' configuration option and the RADIUS reply is always sourced from the IP address the request was sent to.

- Due to invalid syntax in the PostgreSQL admin schema file, the FreeRADIUS PostgreSQL tables failed to be created. With this update, the syntax has been adjusted and the tables are created as expected.

- FreeRADIUS has a thread pool that dynamically grows based on load. If multiple threads using the 'rlm_perl()' function are spawned in quick succession, the FreeRADIUS server sometimes terminated unexpectedly with a segmentation fault due to parallel calls to the 'rlm_perl_clone()' function. With this update, a mutex for the threads has been added and the problem no longer occurs.

- The man page for 'rlm_dbm_parser' was incorrectly installed as 'rlm_dbm_parse', omitting the trailing 'r'.
The man page now correctly appears as rlm_dbm_parser.

They are also advised to check for RPM backup files ending in '.rpmnew' or '.rpmsave' under the /etc/raddb/ directory after the update because the FreeRADIUS server will attempt to load every file it finds in its configuration directory. The extra files will often cause the wrong configuration values to be applied resulting in either unpredictable behavior or the failure of the server to initialize and run.

Solution

Update the affected packages.

See Also

http://www.nessus.org/u?261dadd1

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 63593

File Name: sl_20130108_freeradius2_on_SL5_x.nasl

Version: 1.8

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 1/17/2013

Updated: 1/14/2021

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.5

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:fermilab:scientific_linux:freeradius2, p-cpe:/a:fermilab:scientific_linux:freeradius2-debuginfo, p-cpe:/a:fermilab:scientific_linux:freeradius2-krb5, p-cpe:/a:fermilab:scientific_linux:freeradius2-ldap, p-cpe:/a:fermilab:scientific_linux:freeradius2-mysql, p-cpe:/a:fermilab:scientific_linux:freeradius2-perl, p-cpe:/a:fermilab:scientific_linux:freeradius2-postgresql, p-cpe:/a:fermilab:scientific_linux:freeradius2-python, p-cpe:/a:fermilab:scientific_linux:freeradius2-unixodbc, p-cpe:/a:fermilab:scientific_linux:freeradius2-utils, x-cpe:/o:fermilab:scientific_linux

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/RedHat/release, Host/RedHat/rpm-list, Host/cpu

Patch Publication Date: 1/8/2013

Vulnerability Publication Date: 3/12/2013

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2011-4966