(RHSA-2016:1225) Important: kernel security and bug fix update

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

Security Fix(es):

• Two flaws were found in the way the Linux kernel’s networking implementation handled UDP packets with incorrect checksum values. A remote attacker could potentially use these flaws to trigger an infinite loop in the kernel, resulting in a denial of service on the system, or cause a denial of service in applications using the edge triggered epoll functionality. (CVE-2015-5364, CVE-2015-5366, Important)

Bug Fix(es):

• At a process or thread exit, when the Linux kernel undoes any SysV semaphore operations done previously (ones done using semop with the SEM_UNDO flag), there was a possible race condition with another process or thread removing the same semaphore set where the operations occurred, leading to a possible use of in-kernel-freed memory and then to possible unpredictable behavior. This bug could be noticed with software which uses IPC SysV semaphores, such as IBM DB2, which could in certain cases have some of its processes or utilities get incorrectly stalled in an IPC semaphore operation or system call after the race condition happened. A patch has been provided to fix this bug, and the kernel now behaves as expected in the aforementioned scenario. (BZ#1326343)