(RHSA-2009:0326) Important: kernel security and bug fix update

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux
operating system.

Security fixes:

• memory leaks were found on some error paths in the icmp_send()
  function in the Linux kernel. This could, potentially, cause the network
  connectivity to cease. (CVE-2009-0778, Important)

• Chris Evans reported a deficiency in the clone() system call when called
  with the CLONE_PARENT flag. This flaw permits the caller (the parent
  process) to indicate an arbitrary signal it wants to receive when its child
  process exits. This could lead to a denial of service of the parent
  process. (CVE-2009-0028, Moderate)

• an off-by-one underflow flaw was found in the eCryptfs subsystem. This
  could potentially cause a local denial of service when the readlink()
  function returned an error. (CVE-2009-0269, Moderate)

• a deficiency was found in the Remote BIOS Update (RBU) driver for Dell
  systems. This could allow a local, unprivileged user to cause a denial of
  service by reading zero bytes from the image_type or packet_size files in
  “/sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/”. (CVE-2009-0322, Moderate)

• an inverted logic flaw was found in the SysKonnect FDDI PCI adapter
  driver, allowing driver statistics to be reset only when the CAP_NET_ADMIN
  capability was absent (local, unprivileged users could reset driver
  statistics). (CVE-2009-0675, Moderate)

• the sock_getsockopt() function in the Linux kernel did not properly
  initialize a data structure that can be directly returned to user-space
  when the getsockopt() function is called with SO_BSDCOMPAT optname set.
  This flaw could possibly lead to memory disclosure.
  (CVE-2009-0676, Moderate)

• the ext2 and ext3 file system code failed to properly handle corrupted
  data structures, leading to a possible local denial of service when read
  or write operations were performed on a specially-crafted file system.
  (CVE-2008-3528, Low)

• a deficiency was found in the libATA implementation. This could,
  potentially, lead to a local denial of service. Note: by default, the
  “/dev/sg*” devices are accessible only to the root user.
  (CVE-2008-5700, Low)

Bug fixes:

• a bug in aic94xx may have caused kernel panics during boot on some
  systems with certain SATA disks. (BZ#485909)

• a word endianness problem in the qla2xx driver on PowerPC-based machines
  may have corrupted flash-based devices. (BZ#485908)

• a memory leak in pipe() may have caused a system deadlock. The workaround
  in Section 1.5, Known Issues, of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 Release
  Notes Updates, which involved manually allocating extra file descriptors to
  processes calling do_pipe, is no longer necessary. (BZ#481576)

• CPU soft-lockups in the network rate estimator. (BZ#481746)

• bugs in the ixgbe driver caused it to function unreliably on some
  systems with 16 or more CPU cores. (BZ#483210)

• the iwl4965 driver may have caused a kernel panic. (BZ#483206)

• a bug caused NFS attributes to not update for some long-lived NFS
  mounted file systems. (BZ#483201)

• unmounting a GFS2 file system may have caused a panic. (BZ#485910)

• a bug in ptrace() may have caused a panic when single stepping a target.
  (BZ#487394)

• on some 64-bit systems, notsc was incorrectly set at boot, causing slow
  gettimeofday() calls. (BZ#488239)

• do_machine_check() cleared all Machine Check Exception (MCE) status
  registers, preventing the BIOS from using them to determine the cause of
  certain panics and errors. (BZ#490433)

• scaling problems caused performance problems for LAPI applications.
  (BZ#489457)

• a panic may have occurred on systems using certain Intel WiFi Link 5000
  products when booting with the RF Kill switch on. (BZ#489846)

• the TSC is invariant with C/P/T states, and always runs at constant
  frequency from now on. (BZ#489310)

All users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain
backported patches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for
this update to take effect.