SuSE Security Announcement: man (SuSE-SA:2001:019)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- ______________________________________________________________________________ SuSE Security Announcement Package: man Announcement-ID: SuSE-SA:2001:019 Date: Tuesday, May 29th 2001 20:30 MEST Affected SuSE versions: 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 7.0, 7.1 Vulnerability Type: local privilege escalation Severity (1-10): 4 SuSE default package: yes Other affected systems: most linux systems shipping the mandb package Content of this advisory: 1) security vulnerability resolved: man problem description, discussion, solution and upgrade information 2) pending vulnerabilities, solutions, workarounds 3) standard appendix (further information) ______________________________________________________________________________ 1) problem description, brief discussion, solution, upgrade information Two vulnerabilities have been found in the man package that is installed by default in all SuSE Linux distributions. The first error is a format string bug in the error handling routine of the man command that can allow a local attacker to gain the privileges of the user "man" on SuSE Linux systems (the man command in /usr/bin is installed setuid man). After getting write access to the /usr/bin/man binary, an attacker can place a cuckook's egg into the executable, waiting for root to view manpages. The second problem is a segmentation fault that can be caused by the options "-S ::: foo" to the man command. On other Linux distributions, this problem has been found exploitable. On SuSE and Debian systems, the code responsible for the bug is different from the one found in other distributions and is not exploitable. We consider the existence of this bug a beauty flaw that will be fixed in future releases of the SuSE Linux distribution, but the fix was not included in the man packages that can be found on our ftp server. Since the error() format string bug was discovered earlier than we announced that the SuSE Linux distributions 6.0, 6.1 and 6.2 will be discontinued, we also provide fixed packages for the said distributions for the i386 Intel architecture. We strongly encourage our usership to upgrade their systems to a newer distribution. Both bugs are fixed in the upcoming release of SuSE Linux 7.2. <p> A temporary workaround (as discussed in earlier SuSE security announcements) is to remove the setuid-bit of the /usr/bin/man file. This will cause errors to be printed when viewing a manpage, because the formatted manpages can't be saved to the /var/cache/man directories any longer. The sideeffects of this workaround are of mostly cosmetical nature on fast hardware. If you changed the file modes of the man command binary using the command chmod 755 /usr/bin/man , then please also change the occurrences of the same path in the files /etc/permissions*, provided you have set the variable CHECK_PERMISSIONS to "set" in /etc/rc.config. <p> Download the update package from locations described below and check the authenticity of the rpm package file using a method as described in section 3) of this security announcement. Use the command `rpm -Uhv file.rpm' to apply the update. In some rare cases, the older man package contains files that conflict with the new version. This should not be considered a problem in this particular case of the man packge; use the options "--nodeps --force" to override. <p><p> i386 Intel Platform: SuSE-7.1 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.1/a1/man-2.3.10d69s-190.i386.rpm bc914ab44fcdeb2fa809176d2b807bea source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.1/zq1/man-2.3.10d69s-190.src.rpm 96dfa2df00ae4a1045c6d038bd02290b SuSE-7.0 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.0/a1/man-2.3.10d69s-194.i386.rpm 533fa405f82ef5bbcfb4b4a6c188d0da source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.0/zq1/man-2.3.10d69s-194.src.rpm b935e02d444a613beccec50db65c1cf7 SuSE-6.4 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.4/a1/man-2.3.10d69s-191.i386.rpm a7cd2aa52a72f739d7c0cac5073f546b source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.4/zq1/man-2.3.10d69s-191.src.rpm e9fd012fbea95c2787de0ee0612da8ce SuSE-6.3 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.3/a1/man-2.3.10d69s-191.i386.rpm 807b23473f0813c9c6385d08cc55b698 source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.3/zq1/man-2.3.10d69s-191.src.rpm 0ff51500ef8914870cb1785ae3b999b6 SuSE-6.2 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.2/a1/man-2.3.10d69i-19.i386.rpm edbbe4c94b18802dc23a823d55d59761 source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.2/zq1/man-2.3.10d69i-19.src.rpm eeeed80772476bb306d256e48ad99f95 SuSE-6.1 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.1/a1/man-2.3.10-85.i386.rpm 775db984e6129f10ede2b091bf725f0d source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.1/zq1/man-2.3.10-85.src.rpm 5c4b93a1cf941adeb853bff9263ca3a5 <p><p> Sparc Platform: SuSE-7.1 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/update/7.1/a1/man-2.3.10d69s-182.sparc.rpm 39e097e929dbf4ca7626d5c7dcaf4980 source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/update/7.1/zq1/man-2.3.10d69s-182.src.rpm df6900385722e5a7ddae18338eb0ef4c SuSE-7.0 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/update/7.0/a1/man-2.3.10d69s-182.sparc.rpm 6c3bda62c576bd92ff7b741a3124e64e source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/update/7.0/zq1/man-2.3.10d69s-182.src.rpm c42b095b229f6b4c45bf7814ae0e1498 <p><p> AXP Alpha Platform: SuSE-7.0 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/7.0/a1/man-2.3.10d69s-194.alpha.rpm 3d83a75ff11426bc56fd9663bccee9be source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/7.0/zq1/man-2.3.10d69s-194.src.rpm 2033a16bc31ec5d81136eabf2508fd6d SuSE-6.4 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.4/a1/man-2.3.10d69s-191.alpha.rpm f1ee85f46386298748bdb3d76d69e9f2 source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.4/zq1/man-2.3.10d69s-191.src.rpm 82792838d464a1fbb14b2c5d79f4d064 SuSE-6.3 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.3/a1/man-2.3.10d69s-190.alpha.rpm 5334e0f9efe1de48d7905166ced83c1b source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.3/zq1/man-2.3.10d69s-190.src.rpm 43992649e6ab51000bed5ac4e2f8fcae <p><p> PPC Power PC Platform: SuSE-7.1 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/7.1/a1/man-2.3.10d69s-162.ppc.rpm 5bff5425484c5076023235b3779f22c6 source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/7.1/zq1/man-2.3.10d69s-162.src.rpm 5caba422258827b139e21f6dab7f9b39 SuSE-7.0 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/7.0/a1/man-2.3.10d69s-162.ppc.rpm 832b8078f1c6b2d8d6edae98d26c3d44 source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/7.0/zq1/man-2.3.10d69s-162.src.rpm 4d5647b6276fb6d641410e7eddc106f9 SuSE-6.4 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/6.4/a1/man-2.3.10d69s-163.ppc.rpm 13afa53aacaa939fd1b9dd509d995c2d source rpm: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/6.4/zq1/man-2.3.10d69s-163.src.rpm 2ffd94df5356669d89c1490a326c205d <p>______________________________________________________________________________ 2) Pending vulnerabilities in SuSE Distributions and Workarounds: - netscape Netscape before Version 4.77 contains a bug that allows a remote attacker to store JavaScript code in the comment filed of GIF files that are contained in a viewed page. This code can be executed. Update packages for the SuSE Linux distributions 6.3, 6.4, 7.0 and 7.1 can be found on our ftp server at ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.1/xap1/netscape-4.77-21.i386.rpm 1e2de825b3386d80a3731760b9e7f323 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.0/xap1/netscape-4.77-21.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.4/xap1/netscape-4.77-21.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.3/xap1/netscape-4.77-21.i386.rpm 13f303944c9ac0863591b03c4eb75501 The packages are gpg-signed. See the section above about downloading and verifying rpm packages. The complexity of the netscape browser suggests by nature that more security related problems will be found, we will not issue a dedicated security announcement for the netscape package any more. Security- inclined users may please see the future security announcements in section 2) for information about security related problems with the netscape package. <p> - gpg/gnupg The gpg update package that can be found on our ftp server upgrade your installation of gpg to the version 1.0.5. We have experienced stability problems when the turkish locale was used. We recommened our users to wait for the official SuSE Security Announcement about gpg/gnupg before performing the upgrade since we expect more changes to the package. <p> - pine Most of the supported distributions have pine update packages in the update area of the ftp server that update the pine package to version 4.33. Many vulnerabilities have been found in versions before 4.33, and it is recommended to perform the upgrade. Please note that not all packages have been built yet. See the update directory for your distribution (like i386/update/7.0/n1) for pine-4.33 packages. <p> - dqs dex@raza-mexicana.org has found an exploitable buffer overflow bug in the dsh program from the dqs package on SuSE Linux distributions. To workaround the problem, do "chmod -s /usr/bin/dsh" and change the files /etc/permissions* to reflect the change. If you do not need the dqs package, then deinstall it (rpm -e dqs). We are working on update packages that fix the problem. <p> - samba Insecure temporary file handling is the cause for a new samba version 2.0.9 that can be found as rpm packages in the n1/ directory of your distribution. It is recommended to install the update package if your users have local shell access to your samba server (this bug is not remotely exploitable). We are currently investigating some oddity in the behaviour of the samba package and will send a security announcement as soon as we have clarified the problems. The problems were present in earlier releases/versions of the samba package as well. By consequence, the installation of the update package is of low risk for the functionality of your system. ______________________________________________________________________________ 3) standard appendix: authenticity verification, additional information - Package authenticity verification: SuSE update packages are available on many mirror ftp servers all over the world. While this service is being considered valuable and important to the free and open source software community, many users wish to be sure about the origin of the package and its content before installing the package. There are two verification methods that can be used independently from each other to prove the authenticity of a downloaded file or rpm package: 1) md5sums as provided in the (cryptographically signed) announcement. 2) using the internal gpg signatures of the rpm package. 1) execute the command md5sum after you downloaded the file from a SuSE ftp server or its mirrors. Then, compare the resulting md5sum with the one that is listed in the announcement. Since the announcement containing the checksums is cryptographically signed (usually using the key security@suse.de), the checksums show proof of the authenticity of the package. We disrecommend to subscribe to security lists which cause the email message containing the announcement to be modified so that the signature does not match after transport through the mailing list software. Downsides: You must be able to verify the authenticity of the announcement in the first place. If RPM packages are being rebuilt and a new version of a package is published on the ftp server, all md5 sums for the files are useless. 2) rpm package signatures provide an easy way to verify the authenticity of an rpm package. Use the command rpm --checksig to verify the signature of the package, where is the filename of the rpm package that you have downloaded. Of course, package authenticity verification can only target an uninstalled rpm package file. Prerequisites: a) gpg is installed b) The package is signed using a certain key. The public part of this key must be installed by the gpg program in the directory ~/.gnupg/ under the user's home directory who performs the signature verification (usually root). You can import the key that is used by SuSE in rpm packages for SuSE Linux by saving this announcement to a file ("announcement.txt") and running the command (do "su -" to be root): gpg --batch; gpg < announcement.txt | gpg --import SuSE Linux distributions version 7.1 and thereafter install the key "build@suse.de" upon installation or upgrade, provided that the package gpg is installed. The file containing the public key is placed at the toplevel directory of the first CD (pubring.gpg) and at ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/pubring.gpg-build.suse.de . <p> - SuSE runs two security mailing lists to which any interested party may subscribe: suse-security@suse.com - general/linux/SuSE security discussion. All SuSE security announcements are sent to this list. To subscribe, send an email to . suse-security-announce@suse.com - SuSE's announce-only mailing list. Only SuSE's security annoucements are sent to this list. To subscribe, send an email to . For general information or the frequently asked questions (faq) send mail to: or respectively. =================================================== SuSE's security contact is . The public key is listed below. =================================================== Regards, Roman Drahtmueller . - - | Roman Drahtmüller // "The best way to pay for a | SuSE GmbH - Security Phone: // lovely moment is to enjoy it." | Nürnberg, Germany +49-911-740530 // - Richard Bach | - - ______________________________________________________________________________ The information in this advisory may be distributed or reproduced, provided that the advisory is not modified in any way. SuSE GmbH makes no warranties of any kind whatsoever with respect to the information contained in this security advisory. Type Bits/KeyID Date User ID pub 2048R/3D25D3D9 1999-03-06 SuSE Security Team pub 1024D/9C800ACA 2000-10-19 SuSE Package Signing Key - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org mQENAzbhLQQAAAEIAKAkXHe0lWRBXLpn38hMHy03F0I4Sszmoc8aaKJrhfhyMlOA BqvklPLE2f9UrI4Xc860gH79ZREwAgPt0pi6+SleNFLNcNFAuuHMLQOOsaMFatbz JR9i4m/lf6q929YROu5zB48rBAlcfTm+IBbijaEdnqpwGib45wE/Cfy6FAttBHQh 1Kp+r/jPbf1mYAvljUfHKuvbg8t2EIQz/5yGp+n5trn9pElfQO2cRBq8LFpf1l+U P7EKjFmlOq+Gs/fF98/dP3DfniSd78LQPq5vp8RL8nr/o2i7jkAQ33m4f1wOBWd+ cZovrKXYlXiR+Bf7m2hpZo+/sAzhd7LmAD0l09kABRG0JVN1U0UgU2VjdXJpdHkg VGVhbSA8c2VjdXJpdHlAc3VzZS5kZT6JARUDBRA24S1H5Fiyh7HKPEUBAVcOB/9b yHYji1/+4Xc2GhvXK0FSJN0MGgeXgW47yxDL7gmR4mNgjlIOUHZj0PEpVjWepOJ7 tQS3L9oP6cpj1Fj/XxuLbkp5VCQ61hpt54coQAvYrnT9rtWEGN+xmwejT1WmYmDJ xG+EGBXKr+XP69oIUl1E2JO3rXeklulgjqRKos4cdXKgyjWZ7CP9V9daRXDtje63 Om8gwSdU/nCvhdRIWp/Vwbf7Ia8iZr9OJ5YuQl0DBG4qmGDDrvImgPAFkYFzwlqo choXFQ9y0YVCV41DnR+GYhwl2qBd81T8aXhihEGPIgaw3g8gd8B5o6mPVgl+nJqI BkEYGBusiag2pS6qwznZiQEVAwUQNuEtBHey5gA9JdPZAQFtOAf+KVh939b0J94u v/kpg4xs1LthlhquhbHcKNoVTNspugiC3qMPyvSX4XcBr2PC0cVkS4Z9PY9iCfT+ x9WM96g39dAF+le2CCx7XISk9XXJ4ApEy5g4AuK7NYgAJd39PPbERgWnxjxir9g0 Ix30dS30bW39D+3NPU5Ho9TD/B7UDFvYT5AWHl3MGwo3a1RhTs6sfgL7yQ3U+mvq MkTExZb5mfN1FeaYKMopoI4VpzNVeGxQWIz67VjJHVyUlF20ekOz4kWVgsxkc8G2 saqZd6yv2EwqYTi8BDAduweP33KrQc4KDDommQNDOXxaKOeCoESIdM4p7Esdjq1o L0oixF12CpkBogQ57vSBEQQAk/GN+ftr7+DBlSoixDDpfRnUk+jApGEt8hCnrnjV nPs/9Cr33+CXLQbILOO7Y5oiPbJdHh45t4E0fKyLVzDerCRFB1swz/mNDxT26DLy sdBV5fwNHTPhxa67goAZVrehQPqJEckkIpYriOaYcKpF3n5fQIZMEfMaHEElQhcX ML8AoJVXDkJYh7vI8EUB8ZURNLZMEECNA/sH0MCnb4Q6ZcRyeZ3+1PHP8hP73b6T epRdLZhaylwVF/iu7uIn62ZUL4//NTOCDY7V63qg4iba/fUbOsWtEnGaiE7mQuAl sSWvRspwRA9/g9rdVf3/JdLJrLmKBTheyG+PSJE3W7cAE4ZWafGxIRCwXhmj3TQn Jn2euqylHRubEQP/aL53NZK0kBdvrKgff6O8Of6tqoss8Dkk55I7QVFSp+My1Dn+ mngQKFejTAgtyo/WmR3wPjQ9HoT2lRiYI2lTRYT4uMdHuwVC3b4DqAKmoy375FER wHkrMVyKBJslv8QtbAWw5A1CAUseaHo+91wmYJ4/4p6YUahqbG/tZyhbxfq0KFN1 U0UgUGFja2FnZSBTaWduaW5nIEtleSA8YnVpbGRAc3VzZS5kZT6IXAQTEQIAHAUC Oe70gQUJA8JnAAQLCgMEAxUDAgMWAgECF4AACgkQqE7a6JyACspfLACffAYA+NM8 NBhyRyH+nTX58CNjwLIAoIx9fj52BJe0xY7WbKoXs1+72b2AiEYEEBECAAYFAjpw XlIACgkQnkDjEAAKq6TczgCgi+ddhWb7+FWcfeE6WwPZccqAHowAnjjtRyGwHLQH r5OTFAYTXi2Wv6jNiQEVAwUQOnBgb3ey5gA9JdPZAQE1pwf/QJ+b34lFBNVUJ7fk /xGJJREt7V12iSafaRzGuH8xWvIz1bb+VARxnnt16FDQ1cDNjoEhCEmcW83Vxp6i JXE9PE8wVA/Yue/bon5JS7J69+UiQ2eq2pudfwljp52lYVM53jgPYEz0q/v3091n lZ8CYkAkN9JDS1lV1gEzJ7J0+POngDpU+lDQT2EC6VKaxeWK8pNt6UFDwICRDQxK nlOoiDvTrdWT7QdJZ4sPv8Qotdw9+tKNbWQ2DqdIRxyTdw9xDfAtcj6mXeQr7852 Lwem1gSKVnEYHZ9g1FTJqVOutY8KhpUc9RfOCRv8XuIxrs4KSbfSF0s8qIRCQelx ufg9AbkCDQQ57vSSEAgAhJHQTejMX+Vr6g1pHDEcusJ63fQ2CfFFE5iE9okH9O7U VCiSfb9CV38dmeHdPCEEjDUWquFYEnvj3WICMtH249t1Ymuf4Du3yRKQ9oXdn/qT Jzlrx9qzjiG3mH7ocwHOgUIwCrZoEdBEVE2n0zPVm+hddwjWWTWXw6pxQz+i9dsN 89xexRV5M9O0bNwCLaNWX2GXeLAkqTK/9EuZy6x2yLxi6du9YYUAXkZpqBhCjtiU XpRoFCdglMznbcAyCk9C2wqb2j/D1Z2BeSBaGCSFkR6pRLebnE17LWcu72Iy+r0z +JecbPiyDpDZj4apn7IC81aNFGi7fNITsHODbwwjiwADBgf/YPvVdzkc8OC7ztac EWCanwylKvxCdKzTDA+DfES6WUYShyiVJvZzRy25LJ5WcK20kzOS6Qv1OrIXiz/p dGy1aKtJZrAnFEsofpmOj8VoqyyFgp/yAGQBp12+mXek7SCZRhuqalDfEMRiWEJ6 J5dLkyShyRDWyPbFh0HXE7QTHN+IKKxxQqNQXL6Z3NSxS61p+5n6BseiDUI39xxk KTFwFrkgUIc5Gs2Or2lhaWvGwSfoCmwbsklszZt6xbU+R0SjFqTvjPWx6eHfqbmN C9WMDdTjGrXDDKXFp2aYlokfN6It9vsbVlGNlOwHt/JjGoPMxW6Xqj0FLA7/Vewg CdXW64hMBBgRAgAMBQI57vSSBQkDwmcAAAoJEKhO2uicgArKSyIAmwUHf/vtKQfc mVg4asR7U6XQl0bAAJ4pO22B5U8UH6IYl2LBCXFqw5+5fA== =rVRn - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBOxPuI3ey5gA9JdPZAQFQ6Af/RQcFiRc+py8vrcWHVefHS4QslSfR2TeL XNe0rX/RtrqYUhOWpJyyZgUNi90kr4scohpYlN0xJSrwGrRdWToHPYTUl78iETdJ G24O34XVBuIn4qab31v48yphYlCvrKgc+zXhjZ+JdEAZFnmgOUQ7s2ICu/Xfk2DV gB/YpiVNB6GeQUmEm8wODBinlzNX/XexxO04z24QH2BWwOFPXhUU47KAMeCexnj4 kzcczKx004CQKcHLgsFaBp22mpZDRRaxvoXYWFAuPJuOGlrvJZ1FB4Xy3T3R84bu qO9oSR/CWPjzRoAdI/HbwIQLml2GSO+bynx/OyGYFjMR+lzpBHWGZQ== =Pqq3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----