Red Hat 6.0: RHSA-1999:028-01 Critical: Libtermcap Buffer Overflow

Red Hat 6.0 RHSA-1999:028-01 Critical: Libtermcap Buffer Overflow

A buffer overflow has been fixed in the tgetent() function of libtermcap.


Red Hat, Inc. Security Advisory
Package	libtermcap

Synopsis	Buffer overflow in libtermcap tgetent()

Advisory ID	RHSA-1999:028-01

Issue Date	1999-08-17

Updated on

Keywords	termcap xterm

1. Topic: A buffer overflow has been fixed in the tgetent() function of libtermcap. 2. Bug IDs fixed: 4538 3. Relevant releases/architectures: Red Hat Linux 6.0, all architectures 4. Obsoleted by: None 5. Conflicts with: None 6. RPMs required: Intel: libtermcap-2.0.8-15.i386.rpm libtermcap-devel-2.0.8-15.i386.rpm Alpha: libtermcap-2.0.8-15.alpha.rpm libtermcap-devel-2.0.8-15.alpha.rpm SPARC: libtermcap-2.0.8-15.sparc.rpm libtermcap-devel-2.0.8-15.sparc.rpm Source: libtermcap-2.0.8-15.src.rpm Architecture neutral: 7. Problem description: A buffer overflow existed in libtermcap's tgetent() function, which could cause the user to execute arbitrary code if they were able to supply their own termcap file. Under Red Hat Linux 5.2 and 4.2, this could lead to local users gaining root privileges, as xterm (as well as other possibly setuid programs) are linked against libtermcap. Under Red Hat Linux 6.0, xterm is not setuid root. Thanks go to Kevin Vajk and the Linux Security Audit team for noting and providing a fix for this vulnerability. 8. Solution: For each RPM for your particular architecture, run: rpm -Uvh filename where filename is the name of the RPM. 9. Verification: MD5 sum Package Name ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4995cf0a7c181abe56565d82f12c7819 i386/libtermcap-2.0.8-15.i386.rpm 59d18de3f22abe5674575961b1390177 i386/libtermcap-devel-2.0.8-15.i386.rpm 611cdfb7f167242e7d3b2eaac866705a alpha/libtermcap-2.0.8-15.alpha.rpm 76098235237b5f051ad1266193d7b259 alpha/libtermcap-devel-2.0.8-15.alpha.rpm 846ad7a73b25d3eceab1949322337e14 sparc/libtermcap-2.0.8-15.sparc.rpm 6ddde808ec8b5bc7960851ef3188a6dd sparc/libtermcap-devel-2.0.8-15.sparc.rpm 6a29851494601540d642ff557bd590d6 SRPMS/libtermcap-2.0.8-15.src.rpm These packages are also PGP signed by Red Hat Inc. for security. Our key is available at: You can verify each package with the following command: rpm --checksig filename If you only wish to verify that each package has not been corrupted or tampered with, examine only the md5sum with the following command: rpm --checksig --nopgp filename 10. References: