(RHSA-2006:0144) Updated kernel packages available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 7

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

This is the seventh regular kernel update to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.

New features introduced by this update include:

• addition of the bnx2, dell_rbu, and megaraid_sas device drivers
• support for multi-core, multi-threaded Intel Itanium processors
• upgrade of the SATA subsystem to include ATAPI and SMART support
• optional tuning via the new numa_memory_allocator, arp_announce,
  and printk_ratelimit sysctls

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 3.

There were numerous driver updates and security fixes (elaborated below).
Other key areas affected by fixes in this update include the networking
subsystem, the VM subsystem, NPTL handling, autofs4, the USB subsystem,
CPU enumeration, and 32-bit-exec-mode handling on 64-bit architectures.

The following device drivers have been upgraded to new versions:

aacraid -------- 1.1.5-2412
bnx2 ----------- 1.4.30 (new)
dell_rbu ------- 2.1 (new)
e1000 ---------- 6.1.16-k3
emulex --------- 7.3.3
fusion --------- 2.06.16.02
ipmi ----------- 35.11
megaraid2 ------ v2.10.10.1
megaraid_sas — 00.00.02.00 (new)
tg3 ------------ 3.43RH

The following security bugs were fixed in this update:

• a flaw in gzip/zlib handling internal to the kernel that allowed
  a local user to cause a denial of service (crash)
  (CVE-2005-2458,low)

• a flaw in ext3 EA/ACL handling of attribute sharing that allowed
  a local user to gain privileges (CVE-2005-2801, moderate)

• a minor info leak with the get_thread_area() syscall that allowed
  a local user to view uninitialized kernel stack data
  (CVE-2005-3276, low)

Note: The kernel-unsupported package contains various drivers and modules
that are unsupported and therefore might contain security problems that
have not been addressed.

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.