Synopsis:    Moderate: kexec-tools security, bug fix, and enhancement update
Issue Date:  2011-12-06
CVE Numbers: CVE-2011-3588


Kexec allows for 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)

mkdumprd 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)

mkdumprd 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)


This update also fixes several bugs and adds various enhancements.

All kexec-tools users should upgrade to this updated package, which
contains backported patches to resolve these issues and add these
enhancements.

SL6:
  i386
     kexec-tools-2.0.0-209.el6.i686.rpm
     kexec-tools-debuginfo-2.0.0-209.el6.i686.rpm
  x86_64
     kexec-tools-2.0.0-209.el6.x86_64.rpm
     kexec-tools-debuginfo-2.0.0-209.el6.x86_64.rpm

- Scientific Linux Development Team