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SuSE Security Announcement
Package: cups
Announcement-ID: SuSE-SA:2001:05
Date: Monday, March 5th, 2001 13:10:13 MET
Affected SuSE versions: 7.1
Vulnerability Type: local/remote root compromise
Severity (1-10): 5
SuSE default package: no
Other affected systems: All UN*X-systems using cups < 1.1.6.
Content of this advisory:
1) security vulnerability resolved: cups
problem description, discussion, solution and upgrade information
2) pending vulnerabilities, solutions, workarounds
3) standard appendix (further information)
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1) problem description, brief discussion, solution, upgrade information
CUPS is an implementation of the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and
is used as an alternative to the lpr and LPRng packages.
The CUPS package aims to be a comprehensive printing solution for
UN*X-systems. In SuSE-7.1 distribution, the cups package is not used by
any configuration utilities unless the admin has decided to configure
the package manually.
The cups package has been introduced in the SuSE-7.1 distribution;
enhanced support for future releases of the SuSE Linux distribution is
planned.
A SuSE-internal security audit conducted by Sebastian Krahmer and Thomas
Biege revealed several overflows as well as insecure file handling.
These bugs have been fixed by adding length-checks and securing the
file-access.
For a temporary workaround, remove the suid-bit from the 'lppasswd'
program.
Make sure nobody from outside your network can access the CUPS-server
running on port 631. Allowing access to this port from outside is a
bad idea regardless whether or not the used version is vulnerable.
No remote-exploits are known yet.
Download the update package from locations desribed below and install
the package with the command `rpm -Uhv file.rpm'. The md5sum for each
file is in the line below. You can verify the integrity of the rpm
files using the command
`rpm --checksig --nogpg file.rpm',
independently from the md5 signatures below.
i386 Intel Platform:
SuSE-7.1
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.1/d3/cups-devel-1.1.6-13.i386.rpm
23c6484952ab0c1de81e2db38bcd3afc
SuSE-7.1
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.1/n2/cups-1.1.6-13.i386.rpm
812e0c47dcfe508eb9e8ccb38165b6d7
source rpm:
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.1/zq1/cups-1.1.6-13.src.rpm
204cea2ad6a61293c191e70a2cacdc82
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2) Pending vulnerabilities in SuSE Distributions and Workarounds:
Effective Monday, March 19 2001, five weeks after the release of the new
SuSE-7.1 distribution, SuSE will discontinue support for the SuSE-linux
distributions SuSE-6.0 SuSE-6.1 and SuSE-6.2.
SuSE puts much effort into adding security improvements (patches) to the
software instead of publishing a new version; the same program with a fix
for a specific problem promises to work just as reliable as the original
version from the distribution, whereas new versions introduce new
functionality which changes the behaviour.
In some cases however, especially if the security leak is based on
problematic design decisions or when the fix(es) are fairly large, the
only reasonable fix for a security problem is to update to a newer version
of the software. These newer versions tend to become incompatible with our
older distribution releases because of missing features in the operating
system environment. This forces us to focus on the distributions of a
newer release date.
The remaining distributions
SuSE-6.3,
SuSE-6.4,
SuSE-7.0 and
SuSE-7.1
for the Intel i386, AXP Alpha, SPARC as well as PPC Power PC platforms
will continue to be supported for a two-year period after the release of
the respective distribution.
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3) standard appendix:
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