Solaris Line Printer Daemon (in.lpd) vulnerable to buffer overflow via transfer job routine

Overview

A buffer overflow exists in the Solaris line printer daemon (in.lpd) that may allow a remote intruder to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the running in.lpd. This daemon runs with root privileges by default on all recent versions of Solaris.

Description

The Solaris in.lpd provides services for remote users to interact with a local printer, listening for remote requests on port 515/tcp. There is an unchecked buffer in the part of the code responsible for transferring print jobs from one machine to another. If given too many jobs to work on at once, an attacker can either crash the printer daemon or attempt to execute arbitrary code with super user privileges on the victim system.

This problem was discovered by ISS X-Force and posted here on June 19, 2001.

Vulnerable versions of Solaris are as follows:

Solaris 2.6 Solaris 2.6 x86 Solaris 7 Solaris 7 x86 Solaris 8 Solaris 8 x86
Sun recommends the following workarounds until the patches identified below may be applied:

* Disable the print service in `/etc/inetd.conf`
* Enable the `noexec_user_stack `tunable 
* Block access to 515/tcp (printer) at all appropriate network perimeters  

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Impact

A remote intruder may be able to execute arbitrary code with the privileges in the running daemon (typically root). In addition, a remote intruder may be able to crash vulnerable printer daemons.

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Solution

Patches have been released by Sun. They are part of a jumbo lp patch set identified by the following ids, per Sun Security Bulletin #206:

The following patches are available in relation to the above problem.
` OS Version Patch ID

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SunOS 5.8 109320-04
SunOS 5.8_x86 109321-04
SunOS 5.7 107115-09
SunOS 5.7_x86 107116-09
SunOS 5.6 106235-09
SunOS 5.6_x86 106236-09 Thein.lpd` daemon was not available prior to Solaris 2.6.

These patches resolve Sun problem report 4446925 in.lpd contains a remote exploitable overflow.

Workarounds

* Disable the print service in /etc/inetd.conf
* Enable the `noexec_user_stack `tunable 
* Block access to 515/tcp (printer) at all appropriate network perimeters  

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Vendor Information

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Sun __ Affected

Notified: June 21, 2001 Updated: August 31, 2001

Status

Affected

Vendor Statement

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
________________________________________________________________________________ Sun Microsystems, Inc. Security Bulletin
`Bulletin Number: #00206
Date: August 30, 2001
Cross-Ref: CERT Advisory CA-2001-15
Title: in.lpd

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The information contained in this Security Bulletin is provided “AS IS.”
Sun makes no warranties of any kind whatsoever with respect to the information
contained in this Security Bulletin. ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED CONDITIONS,
REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTY OF NON-INFRINGEMENT OR
IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ARE
HEREBY DISCLAIMED AND EXCLUDED TO THE EXTENT ALLOWED BY APPLICABLE LAW.
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OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES HOWEVER CAUSED AND REGARDLESS OF ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY
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If any of the above provisions are held to be in violation of applicable law,
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to the extent necessary for this disclaimer to be otherwise enforceable in
such jurisdiction.

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1. Bulletins Topics
Sun announces the release of patches for Solaris™ 8, 7, and
2.6 (SunOS™ 5.8, 5.7, and 5.6) which relate to an in.lpd
vulnerability reported in CERT CA-2001-15.
Sun recommends that you install the patches listed in section 4
immediately on systems running SunOS 5.8, 5.7, and 5.6 which
use in.lpd.
2. Who is Affected
Vulnerable: SunOS 5.8, 5.8_x86, 5.7, 5.7_x86, 5.6,
5.6_x86
3. Understanding the Vulnerability
The in.lpd daemon is the BSD print protocol daemon. The in.lpd
daemon implements the network listening service for the BSD
print protocol specified in RFC 1179. The BSD print protocol
provides a remote interface for systems to interact with a
local spooling system. CERT Advisory CA-2001-15 describes a
buffer overflow in the in.lpd daemon which may crash in.lpd or
allow arbitrary code to be executed with elevated privileges
on the victim system. The issue was discovered by ISS X-Force
who published an advisory at:
<http://xforce.iss.net/alerts/advise80.php>
CERT Advisory CA-2001-15 is available from:
<http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2001-15.html>
4. List of Patches
The following patches are available in relation to the above problem.
OS Version Patch ID

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SunOS 5.8 109320-04
SunOS 5.8_x86 109321-04
SunOS 5.7 107115-09
SunOS 5.7_x86 107116-09
SunOS 5.6 106235-09
SunOS 5.6_x86 106236-09

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APPENDICES
A. Patches listed in this bulletin are available to all Sun customers at:
<http://sunsolve.sun.com/securitypatch>
B. Checksums for the patches listed in this bulletin are available at:
<ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/CHECKSUMS>
C. Sun security bulletins are available at:
<http://sunsolve.sun.com/security>
D. Sun Security Coordination Team’s PGP key is available at:
<http://sunsolve.sun.com/pgpkey.txt>
E. To report or inquire about a security problem with Sun software, contact
one or more of the following:
- Your local Sun answer centers

• Your representative computer security response team, such as CERT
• Sun Security Coordination Team. Send email to:
  [email protected]
  F. To receive information or subscribe to our CWS (Customer Warning System)
  mailing list, send email to:
  [email protected]
  with a subject line (not body) containing one of the following commands:
  Command Information Returned/Action Taken

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Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Sun,
Sun Microsystems, Solaris and SunOS are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. This
Security Bulletin may be reproduced and distributed, provided that this
Security Bulletin is not modified in any way and is attributed to
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Vendor Information

The vendor has not provided us with any further information regarding this vulnerability.

Addendum

Sun has confirmed the existence of this vulnerability andnow has patches included in a jumbo set provided for all lp services. Until these patches can be applied, the following workarounds may be used to mitigate against the risk of being attacked via exploitation of this vulnerability:

* Disable the print service in `/etc/inetd.conf`
* Enable the `noexec_user_stack `tunable 
* Block access to 515/tcp (printer) at all appropriate network perimeters 

If you have feedback, comments, or additional information about this vulnerability, please send us [email](<mailto:[email protected]?Subject=VU%23484011 Feedback>).

CVSS Metrics

Group	Score	Vector
Base
Temporal
Environmental

References

• [(X-Force Advisory 80, http://xforce.iss.net/alerts/advise80.php)](<(X-Force Advisory 80, http://xforce.iss.net/alerts/advise80.php\)>)
• <http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/2894&gt;
• <http://www.sun.com/security&gt;
• <http://sunsolve.Sun.COM/pub-cgi/secBulletin.pl&gt;

Acknowledgements

The X-Force team of Internet Security Systems, Inc. has released an advisory about this issue.

This document was written by Jeffrey S. Havrilla

Other Information

CVE IDs:	CVE-2001-0353
CERT Advisory:	CA-2001-15 Severity Metric: