Red Hat: RHSA-2012:0152-03 Moderate: Kexec-Tools Security Fix

The kexec-tools package contains the /sbin/kexec binary and utilities that together form the user-space component of the kernel's kexec feature. The /sbin/kexec binary facilitates a new kernel to boot using the kernel's kexec feature either on a normal or a panic reboot. The kexec fastboot mechanism allows booting a Linux kernel from the context of an already running kernel.
Kdump used the SSH (Secure Shell) "StrictHostKeyChecking=no" option when dumping to SSH targets, causing the target kdump server's SSH host key not to be checked. This could make it easier for a man-in-the-middle attacker on the local network to impersonate the kdump SSH target server and possibly gain access to sensitive information in the vmcore dumps. (CVE-2011-3588)
The mkdumprd utility created initrd files with world-readable permissions. A local user could possibly use this flaw to gain access to sensitive information, such as the private SSH key used to authenticate to a remote server when kdump was configured to dump to an SSH target. (CVE-2011-3589)
The mkdumprd utility included unneeded sensitive files (such as all files from the "/root/.ssh/" directory and the host's private SSH keys) in the resulting initrd. This could lead to an information leak when initrd files were previously created with world-readable permissions. Note: With this update, only the SSH client configuration, known hosts files, and the SSH key configured via the newly introduced sshkey option in "/etc/kdump.conf" are included in the initrd. The default is the key generated when running the "service kdump propagate" command, "/root/.ssh/kdump_id_rsa". (CVE-2011-3590)
Red Hat would like to thank Kevan Carstensen for reporting these issues.
This updated kexec-tools package also includes numerous bug fixes and enhancements. 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 users of kexec-tools are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which resolves these security issues, fixes these bugs and adds these enhancements.