Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3: RHSA-2008:0211-01 Critical Kernel Update

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system.
These updated packages fix the following security issues:
* the absence of a protection mechanism when attempting to access a critical section of code has been found in the Linux kernel open file descriptors control mechanism, fcntl. This could allow a local unprivileged user to simultaneously execute code, which would otherwise be protected against parallel execution. As well, a race condition when handling locks in the Linux kernel fcntl functionality, may have allowed a process belonging to a local unprivileged user to gain re-ordered access to the descriptor table. (CVE-2008-1669, Important)
* the absence of a protection mechanism when attempting to access a critical section of code, as well as a race condition, have been found in the Linux kernel file system event notifier, dnotify. This could allow a local unprivileged user to get inconsistent data, or to send arbitrary signals to arbitrary system processes. (CVE-2008-1375, Important)
Red Hat would like to thank Nick Piggin for responsibly disclosing the following issue:
* when accessing kernel memory locations, certain Linux kernel drivers registering a fault handler did not perform required range checks. A local unprivileged user could use this flaw to gain read or write access to arbitrary kernel memory, or possibly cause a kernel crash. (CVE-2008-0007, Important)
* a flaw was found when performing asynchronous input or output operations on a FIFO special file. A local unprivileged user could use this flaw to cause a kernel panic. (CVE-2007-5001, Important)
* a flaw was found in the way core dump files were created. If a local user could get a root-owned process to dump a core file into a directory, which the user has write access to, they could gain read access to that core file. This could potentially grant unauthorized access to sensitive information. (CVE-2007-6206, Moderate)
* a buffer overflow was found in the Linux kernel ISDN subsystem. A local unprivileged user could use this flaw to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2007-6151, Moderate)
* a race condition found in the mincore system core could allow a local user to cause a denial of service (system hang). (CVE-2006-4814, Moderate)
* it was discovered that the Linux kernel handled string operations in the opposite way to the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). This could allow a local unprivileged user to cause memory corruption. (CVE-2008-1367, Low)
As well, these updated packages fix the following bugs:
* a bug, which caused long delays when unmounting mounts containing a large number of unused dentries, has been resolved.
* in the previous kernel packages, the kernel was unable to handle certain floating point instructions on Itanium(R) architectures.
* on certain Intel CPUs, the Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) was not flushed correctly, which caused machine check errors.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to resolve these issues.