Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 5.5 - TECHNICAL NOTES Manual page 269

Updated systemtap packages that fix two 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.
SystemTap is an instrumentation system for systems running the Linux kernel, version 2.6. Developers
can write scripts to collect data on the operation of the system.
A flaw was found in the SystemTap compile server, stap-server, an optional component of SystemTap.
This server did not adequately sanitize input provided by the stap-client program, which may allow a
remote user to execute arbitrary shell code with the privileges of the compile server process, which
could possibly be running as the root user.
Note: stap-server is not run by default. It must be started by a user or administrator.
A buffer overflow flaw was found in SystemTap's tapset __get_argv() function. If a privileged user ran
a SystemTap script that called this function, a local, unprivileged user could, while that script is still
running, trigger this flaw and cause memory corruption by running a command with a large argument
list, which may lead to a system crash or, potentially, arbitrary code execution with root privileges.
2066
(CVE-2010-0411 )
Note: SystemTap scripts that call __get_argv(), being a privileged function, can only be executed by
the root user or users in the stapdev group. As well, if such a script was compiled and installed by root,
users in the stapusr group would also be able to execute it.
SystemTap users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to
correct these issues.
1.201.3. RHBA-2010:0308: bug fix and enhancement update
SystemTap provides an instrumentation infrastructure for systems running the Linux 2.6 kernel. It
allows users to write scripts that probe and trace system events for monitoring and profiling purposes.
SystemTap's framework allows users to investigate and monitor a wide variety of kernel functions,
system calls, and other evens that occur in both kernel-space and user-space.
With this update, SystemTap is now re-based on upstream release version 1.1
update also applies the following fixes and enhancements:
• The systemtap-testsuite package contained test cases that were incorrectly not configured
as 'executable' (systemtap.base/bz10078.stp, buildko/two.stp, and buildok/
thirty.stp). Any test runs involving these cases failed unexpectedly. This release fixes the
permissions for all test cases; it also fixes minor test case issues relating to an incorrect header file
reference in systemtap.base/sdt.exp, an incorrect execution sequence in systemtap.base/
labels.exp, and an incorrect reference to a missing script in systemtap.base/crash.exp.
2068
BZ#559643
(BZ#506959 ,
• This update also fixes several typographical errors in the man pages of stap-server and stap-
(BZ#516691
client.
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https://www.redhat.com/security/data/cve/CVE-2009-4273.html
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https://www.redhat.com/security/data/cve/CVE-2010-0411.html
2067
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=515829
(CVE-2009-4273
2069
BZ#513654
, and
2071
)
RHBA-2010:0308: bug fix and enhancement update
2065
)
2070
)
2067
(BZ#515829 ). This
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