kernel security update

CentOS Errata and Security Advisory CESA-2005:283-01

The Linux kernel handles the basic functions of the operating system.

This is the seventh regular kernel update to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1

The following security updates were made:

A flaw in fragment queuing was discovered that affected the Linux 2.4 and
Linux 2.6 kernel netfilter subsystem. On systems configured to filter or
process network packets (for example those configured to do firewalling),
a remote attacker could send a carefully crafted set of fragmented packets
to a machine and cause a denial of service (system crash). In order to
sucessfully exploit this flaw, the attacker would need to know (or guess)
some aspects of the firewall ruleset in place on the target system to be
able to craft the right fragmented packets. (CAN-2005-0449)

A flaw was discovered in the Linux PPP driver. On systems allowing remote
users to connect to a server using ppp, a remote client could cause a
denial of service (system crash). (CAN-2005-0384)

A flaw was discovered in the bluetooth driver system. On system where the
bluetooth modules are loaded, a local user could use this flaw to gain
elevated (root) privileges. (CAN-2005-0750)

An integer overflow flaw was discovered in the ubsec_keysetup function
in the Broadcom 5820 cryptonet driver. On systems using this driver,
a local user could cause a denial of service (crash) or possibly gain
elevated privileges. (CAN-2004-0619) Please note that this update contains
an unpatched kernel module called bcm5820_old for backwards compatibility
which is still vulnerable to CAN-2004-0619.

The following device drivers have been updated to new versions:

mptfusion: 2.05.16 -> 2.05.16.02
bcm5820: 1.17 -> 1.81
cciss: 2.4.52 -> 2.4.54
qla2x00: 6.04.01 -> 7.01.01

There were many bug fixes in various parts of the kernel. The ongoing
effort to resolve these problems has resulted in a marked improvement
in the reliability and scalability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1.

Bug fixes include:
- Fixes an incorrect and ever-changing physical_id field in
/proc/cpuinfo.
- Now recognizes a particular e1000 device (PCI ID 8086:1014)
- Fixes a panic in disk quota code
- Fixes a bug in which msync(…MS_SYNC) returns before the data
is written to disk
- Adds new devices to the SCSI scan list so they can
be initialized and handled properly: LSI ProFibre 4000R, HP
HSV200/210, HP MSA, STK OPENstorage D178.
- Fixes a potential format overflow in /proc/partitions
- Restores module parameters to the e100 driver for compatibility with
existing customer scripts.
- Fixes a bug in which cat’ing /proc/mdstat while adding/removing
devices can cause a kernel oops

All Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 users are advised to upgrade their
kernels to the packages associated with their machine architectures
and configurations as listed in this erratum.

Please note that a vulnerability addressed by this update (CAN-2005-0449)
required a change to the kernel module ABI which could cause third party
modules to not work. However, Red Hat is currently not aware of any module
that would be affected by this change.

Merged security bulletin from advisories:
https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2005-April/073783.html

Affected packages:
kernel
kernel-BOOT
kernel-debug
kernel-doc
kernel-enterprise
kernel-headers
kernel-smp
kernel-source
kernel-summit