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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5: RHSA-2012:0149-03 Moderate KVM DoS Issue

red hat
Calendar Grey February 21, 2012
Scroller Redhat
KVM vulnerability and remediation notice for CentOS: tackle CVE-2010-4565 and additional issues. Upgrade installations without delay.
Updated kvm packages that fix one security issue and several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously-released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259

The following procedure must be performed before this update will take effect:

1) Stop all KVM guest virtual machines.

2) Either reboot the hypervisor machine or, as the root user, remove (using "modprobe -r [module]") and reload (using "modprobe [module]") all of the following modules which are currently running (determined using "lsmod"): kvm, ksm, kvm-intel or kvm-amd.

3) Restart the KVM guest virtual machines.

Summary

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on AMD64 and Intel 64 systems. KVM is a Linux kernel module built for the standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernel.
It was found that the kvm_vm_ioctl_assign_device() function in the KVM subsystem of a Linux kernel did not check if the user requesting device assignment was privileged or not. A member of the kvm group on the host could assign unused PCI devices, or even devices that were in use and whose resources were not properly claimed by the respective drivers, which could result in the host crashing. (CVE-2011-4347)
Red Hat would like to thank Sasha Levin for reporting this issue.
These updated kvm packages include several bug fixes. Space precludes documenting all of these changes in this advisory. Users are directed to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 Technical Notes, linked to in the References, for information on the most significant of these changes.
All KVM users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. Note: The procedure in the Solution section must be performed before this update will take effect.

Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

security advisory moderate Red Hat bug fix DoS kernel KVM

References

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2011-4347 https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification#moderate https://access.redhat.com/search/

Package List

RHEL Desktop Multi OS (v. 5 client):
Source:
x86_64: kmod-kvm-83-249.el5.x86_64.rpm kmod-kvm-debug-83-249.el5.x86_64.rpm kvm-83-249.el5.x86_64.rpm kvm-debuginfo-83-249.el5.x86_64.rpm kvm-qemu-img-83-249.el5.x86_64.rpm kvm-tools-83-249.el5.x86_64.rpm
RHEL Virtualization (v. 5 server):
Source:
x86_64: kmod-kvm-83-249.el5.x86_64.rpm kmod-kvm-debug-83-249.el5.x86_64.rpm kvm-83-249.el5.x86_64.rpm kvm-debuginfo-83-249.el5.x86_64.rpm kvm-qemu-img-83-249.el5.x86_64.rpm kvm-tools-83-249.el5.x86_64.rpm
These packages are GPG signed by Red Hat for security. Our key and details on how to verify the signature are available from https://access.redhat.com/security/team/key#package


Advisory ID: RHSA-2012:0149-03
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Advisory URL: https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012:0149.html
Issue date: 2012-02-21

Topic

Updated kvm packages that fix one security issue and several bugs are nowavailable for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderatesecurity impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score,which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link inthe References section.

Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

security advisory moderate Red Hat bug fix DoS kernel KVM

Relevant Releases Architectures

RHEL Desktop Multi OS (v. 5 client) - x86_64

RHEL Virtualization (v. 5 server) - x86_64

Bugs Fixed

701616 - limitation on max number of assigned devices does not take effect if hot-plug pci devices

703335 - KVM guest clocks jump forward one hour on reboot

703446 - Failed to ping guest after MTU is changed

704081 - mouse responds very slowly with huge memory

725876 - RTC interrupt problems with RHEL5 qemu/kvm (0.10 based) on 2.6.38+ guest kernels.

753860 - Fix kvm userspace compilation on RHEL-5 to match the kernel changes

756084 - CVE-2011-4347 kernel: kvm: device assignment DoS

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