(RHSA-2004:255) kernel security update

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

A flaw was found in Linux kernel versions 2.4 and 2.6 for x86 and x86_64
that allowed local users to cause a denial of service (system crash) by
triggering a signal handler with a certain sequence of fsave and frstor
instructions. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project
(cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2004-0554 to this issue.

Another flaw was discovered in an error path supporting the clone()
system call that allowed local users to cause a denial of service
(memory leak) by passing invalid arguments to clone() running in an
infinite loop of a user’s program. The Common Vulnerabilities and
Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2004-0427
to this issue.

Enhancements were committed to the 2.6 kernel by Al Viro which enabled the
Sparse source code checking tool to check for a certain class of kernel
bugs. A subset of these fixes also applies to various drivers in the 2.4
kernel. Although the majority of these resides in drivers unsupported in
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, the flaws could lead to privilege escalation or
access to kernel memory. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project
(cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2004-0495 to these issues.

All Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 users are advised to upgrade their kernels
to the packages associated with their machine architectures and
configurations as listed in this erratum. These packages contain
backported patches to correct these issues.