SuSE Security Announcement: scotty (SuSE-SA:2001:023)

2 Jul 2001


      -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

______________________________________________________________________________

                        SuSE Security Announcement

        Package:                scotty
        Announcement-ID:        SuSE-SA:2001:023
        Date:                   Monday, Jul 2nd 2001 15:30 MEST
        Affected SuSE versions: (6.0, 6.1, 6.2,) 6.3, 6.4, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2
        Vulnerability Type:     local privilege escalation
        Severity (1-10):        5
        SuSE default package:   no
        Other affected systems: yes

        Content of this advisory:
        1) security vulnerability resolved: scotty/ntping
           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

    Tkined's Scotty is a Tcl extension to build network management
    applications.
    Ntping, a ping/traceroute program, is part of the Scotty package.
    It's failure is to read a hostname as commandline option without checking
    the size.
    This leads to a bufferoverrun, that could be used to gain root privileges,
    because ntping is installed setuid root and is executeable by everyone.

    As a temporary workaround you could remove the setuid bit:
      /bin/chmod u-s /usr/bin/ntping
    or just allow trusted users the access the binary:
      /bin/chown root.trusted /usr/bin/ntping
      /bin/chmod 4750 /usr/bin/ntping
    Also add these permission changes to /etc/permissions.local.


    i386 Intel Platform:

    SuSE-7.0
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.0/tcl2/scotty-2.1.10-315.i386.rpm
      ba862494c240b607b156612bcfcd99da
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.0/zq1/scotty-2.1.10-315.src.rpm
      a06e490783eaabfe1db79ff03028153c

    SuSE-6.4
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.4/tcl2/scotty-2.1.10-314.i386.rpm
      b303c3b6f6b53bbfb05804387f6abafa
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.4/zq1/scotty-2.1.10-314.src.rpm
      1714012d8b68ca8191d5ccec67992e9e

    SuSE-6.3
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.3/tcl2/scotty-2.1.10-314.i386.rpm
      2506a6ceefdfc547869417df190e6257
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.3/zq1/scotty-2.1.10-314.src.rpm
      9196abccc0b17ed26844cf3300d3cc60


    Sparc Platform:

    SuSE-7.0
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/update/7.0/tcl2/scotty-2.1.10-268.sparc.rpm
      98db75ae951400f6486150c041a97c95
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/update/7.0/zq1/scotty-2.1.10-268.src.rpm
      b8bb4e526b79d5e6173b160f9ceb10e9


    AXP Alpha Platform:

    SuSE-7.0
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/7.0/tcl2/scotty-2.1.10-273.alpha.rpm
      4e688975e393d3d42f2898cc17869b92
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/7.0/zq1/scotty-2.1.10-273.src.rpm
      6bd09c52c30d7ac92057bf5d28786c9d

    SuSE-6.4
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.4/tcl2/scotty-2.1.10-272.alpha.rpm
      7014099ef97cef800fe2669dc410030b
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.4/zq1/scotty-2.1.10-272.src.rpm
      018cf855b56b6fc9de9be496744590cd

    SuSE-6.3
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.3/tcl2/scotty-2.1.10-274.alpha.rpm
      6002583f730762da88884c2754c9a68b
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.3/zq1/scotty-2.1.10-274.src.rpm
      7257c5fcad741201da69f2551569ab22


    PPC PowerPC Platform:

    SuSE-7.0
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/7.0/tcl2/scotty-2.1.10-274.ppc.rpm
      40a150f560053e4a90e8fc36e4fb9190
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/7.0/zq1/scotty-2.1.10-274.src.rpm
      b6dea15ed3e2f9a1d4032e4723afee55


    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/6.4/zq1/scotty-2.1.10-274.src.rpm
      75755249a092c61626b12f3b9cda35ea


______________________________________________________________________________

2)  Pending vulnerabilities in SuSE Distributions and Workarounds:

  - 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).
    Packages for most of the supported SuSE Linux distributions are
    available at the usual location ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/<arch>/<dist>
    for download and installation/update. Do not forget to change the files
    /etc/permissions* to remove the suid-bit from the dsh program. Please
    note that we will not issue a dedicated security announcement for this
    specific bug.


  - pcp
    Paul Starzetz discovered a security weakness in the setuid root program
    /usr/share/pcp/bin/pmpost. The common library in pcp trusts the
    environment that has been supplied by the user, regardless of privileged
    execution or not. By consequence, a user can specify the configuration
    file and therefore write to files owned by root. The problem is not based
    on insecurely following symlinks as stated by Paul Starzetz.
    The pcp package is not installed by default in SuSE Linux distributions.
    We have provided update packages for the SuSE Linux distributions version
    7.1 and 7.2 that remove the setuid bit from the pmpost binary. Versions
    before SuSE-7.1 were not affected because the setuid bit was not set.
    We thank Keith Owens and Mark Goodwin from Silicon Graphics for responding
    quickly and for publishing a new version of the pcp package which will
    be included in future releases of the SuSE Linux distribution. For more
    information see the /usr/share/doc/packages/pcp directory of your SuSE
    Linux installation after installing the update package, or go to
    obtained from http://oss.sgi.com/projects/pcp/download .
    Please note that there will not be a dedicated security announcement
    for this specific bug.


  - fetchmail (fetchml)
    New fetchmail packages are available on the ftp server. The packages
    cure a buffer overflow that can be exploited by sending a victim a
    specially designed email, waiting for the victim's fetchmail program
    to pick up the email. We are preparing a security announcement for this
    problem.


  - openssh
    update packages for the openssh package after (and including) SuSE-6.4
    are available on our ftp servers ftp.suse.de (for < 7.1) or
    ftp.suse.com (for >= 7.1). We are currently checking for a non-security
    related irregularity in sshd's behaviour under faulty setup conditions.


  - exim
    SuSE Linux distributions do not contain the exim Mail Transport Agent
    (See http://www.exim.org/ for details) and are therefore not susceptible
    to the recently found security-related bugs.


  - webmin
    SuSE Linux distributions do not contain the webmin administration
    web frontend (See http://www.webmin.org/ for details) and are therefore
    not vulnerable to the recently found security-related problems in the
    software.


______________________________________________________________________________

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 <name-of-the-file.rpm>
       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 -v --checksig <file.rpm>
       to verify the signature of the package, where <file.rpm> 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 .


  - 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-subscribe@suse.com>.

    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
                <suse-security-announce-subscribe@suse.com>.

    For general information or the frequently asked questions (faq)
    send mail to:
        <suse-security-info@suse.com> or
        <suse-security-faq@suse.com> respectively.

    ===================================================
    SuSE's security contact is <security@suse.com>.
    The <security@suse.com> public key is listed below.
    ===================================================
______________________________________________________________________________

    The information in this advisory may be distributed or reproduced,
    provided that the advisory is not modified in any way. In particular,
    it is desired that the cleartext signature shows proof of the
    authenticity of the text.
    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 <security@suse.de>
pub  1024D/9C800ACA 2000-10-19 SuSE Package Signing Key <build@suse.de>

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Bye,
     Thomas
-- 
  Thomas Biege, SuSE GmbH, Schanzaeckerstr. 10, 90443 Nuernberg
  E@mail: thomas@suse.de      Function: Security Support & Auditing
  "lynx -source http://www.suse.de/~thomas/contact/thomas.asc | pgp -fka"
  Key fingerprint = 51 AD B9 C7 34 FC F2 54  01 4A 1C D4 66 64 09 84