Product SiteDocumentation Site

1.112.  krb5

1.112.1.  RHSA-2009:0408: Important security update

Important

This update has already been released (prior to the GA of this release) as the security errata RHSA-2009:0408
Updated krb5 packages that fix various security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
This update has been rated as having important security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.
Kerberos is a network authentication system which allows clients and servers to authenticate to each other using symmetric encryption and a trusted third party, the Key Distribution Center (KDC). The Generic Security Service Application Program Interface (GSS-API) definition provides security services to callers (protocols) in a generic fashion. The Simple and Protected GSS-API Negotiation (SPNEGO) mechanism is used by GSS-API peers to choose from a common set of security mechanisms.
An input validation flaw was found in the ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One) decoder used by MIT Kerberos. A remote attacker could use this flaw to crash a network service using the MIT Kerberos library, such as kadmind or krb5kdc, by causing it to dereference or free an uninitialized pointer. (CVE-2009-0846)
Multiple input validation flaws were found in the MIT Kerberos GSS-API library's implementation of the SPNEGO mechanism. A remote attacker could use these flaws to crash any network service utilizing the MIT Kerberos GSS-API library to authenticate users or, possibly, leak portions of the service's memory. (CVE-2009-0844, CVE-2009-0845)
All krb5 users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. All running services using the MIT Kerberos libraries must be restarted for the update to take effect.

1.112.2.  RHBA-2009:1378: bug fix and enhancement update

Updated krb5 packages which fix several bugs and adds enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
Kerberos 5 is a network authentication system which authenticates clients and servers to each other using symmetric key encryption and a trusted third party, the KDC.
These updated packages address the following bugs:
  • one of the error messages printed by the "ksu" command contained a spelling error ("geting"). This has been corrected. (BZ#462890)
  • several dozen spelling errors across 21 krb5-related manual pages were corrected. (BZ#499190)
  • this update no longer attempts to create a keytab for use by the kadmin service when the service is started; doing so is redundant and may interfere with third-party password-changing services such as those provided by IPA. (BZ#473151)
  • with this update an attempt to load a database dump into a database which has not been created will cause kdb5_util to create the database. (BZ#442879)
  • this update now correctly reports an error if an attempt to use rcp to copy data to a remote system encounters an error as the file is closed. (BZ#461902)
These new packages also add the following enhancements:
  • the "ksu" command can now perform PAM account and session management for the target user. (BZ#477033)
  • the Kerberos-aware rsh, rlogin, telnet, and ftp services can now set the PAM_RHOST item for users who log in or connect to a server remotely. (BZ#479071)
All users of the krb5 workstation utilities and services are advised to update to these packages which address these issues and add this enhancement.

Note: This documentation is provided {and copyrighted} by Red Hat®, Inc. and is released via the Open Publication License. The copyright holder has added the further requirement that Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is prohibited without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. The CentOS project redistributes these original works (in their unmodified form) as a reference for CentOS-5 because CentOS-5 is built from publicly available, open source SRPMS. The documentation is unmodified to be compliant with upstream distribution policy. Neither CentOS-5 nor the CentOS Project are in any way affiliated with or sponsored by Red Hat®, Inc.