(RHSA-2012:1263) Moderate: postgresql and postgresql84 security update

PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system
(DBMS).

It was found that the optional PostgreSQL xml2 contrib module allowed local
files and remote URLs to be read and written to with the privileges of the
database server when parsing Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations
(XSLT). An unprivileged database user could use this flaw to read and write
to local files (such as the database’s configuration files) and remote URLs
they would otherwise not have access to by issuing a specially-crafted SQL
query. (CVE-2012-3488)

It was found that the “xml” data type allowed local files and remote URLs
to be read with the privileges of the database server to resolve DTD and
entity references in the provided XML. An unprivileged database user could
use this flaw to read local files they would otherwise not have access to
by issuing a specially-crafted SQL query. Note that the full contents of
the files were not returned, but portions could be displayed to the user
via error messages. (CVE-2012-3489)

Red Hat would like to thank the PostgreSQL project for reporting these
issues. Upstream acknowledges Peter Eisentraut as the original reporter of
CVE-2012-3488, and Noah Misch as the original reporter of CVE-2012-3489.

These updated packages upgrade PostgreSQL to version 8.4.13. Refer to the
PostgreSQL Release Notes for a list of changes:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/release-8-4-13.html

All PostgreSQL users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages,
which correct these issues. If the postgresql service is running, it will
be automatically restarted after installing this update.