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LWN.net Weekly Edition for May 10, 2007

Episodes from the evolution of Fedora

The Fedora 7 release, due on May 24 (though it appears that schedule may slip a bit), marks the beginning of a new era for this distribution. As that release approaches, a number of issues have come up which merit some attention. Here's a review of some events in Fedora land.

One of the core developments in Fedora 7, so to speak, is the merging of the "Core" and "Extras" distributions. As of the next release, it is all simply "Fedora." Given the nearness of the release, one would have thought that this merger would have happened some time ago. As it happens, that merger is just being finished up now. Much of the ground work was done over the preceding months, leading up to the actual joining of the repositories, source management subsystems, and build systems happening now. As of this writing, the new source archives and build systems are up, but the flow of packages into the Rawhide distribution has not resumed.

There has been a small amount of concern voiced by a few maintainers of packages formerly found in Extras. In the good old days, they could post an updated package at any time and have it go right into the repository. Now that there is only one repository, the whole thing is currently frozen in the run-up to the release. How to work in the new, unified environment is still not entirely clear to all Extras package maintainers. Overall, though, the number of glitches from the merger appears to be small - so far. More information can be found in the draft post-merge FAQ.

Red Hat's distributions have long been known for including software which is not necessarily completely mature. Over the years, this company has pushed in bleeding-edge technologies like ELF binaries, glibc2, SELinux, and more; the end result has often been a combination of user pain and accelerated development of the code in question. Fedora is in many ways the true descendant of Red Hat Linux, and it continues the practice of packaging very new technologies. Some users are beginning to wonder if that practice has gone just a little too far this time, though.

The software in question is the Nouveau driver. This reverse-engineered code is an eventual replacement for the binary-only drivers supplied by NVIDIA. Someday, Nouveau will be the driver of choice for people with NVIDIA hardware, but today is not that day. The Nouveau driver is still in heavy development with a lot of problems to solve before it is ready for production use. But Fedora 7 includes it anyway so that people with an interest in trying out the new driver can do so.

Fedora 7 does not enable Nouveau for any system unless explicitly told to. In theory, anybody who turns it on should know what they are getting into; in practice, at least one user has already been burned by trying Nouveau in a situation where it did not work. So some voices have been heard to say that Nouveau has been included ahead of its time and should be removed. Fedora developers still want to include it, though:

It is turned off by default just like the new Intel xorg driver in FC6. That did help in users providing feedback when they turn it on manually. It fits our mission of progressing Free software. This is a important project. Anything that we can do to help is worth the effort.

Others say that a project as important as Nouveau should not be subjected to a tide of disappointed users who were lulled into trying the code before its time by their distributor.

Chances are that Nouveau will remain. There is one remaining issue, though: Nouveau is currently co-packaged with the stable "nv" driver that people are actually expected to use. So Nouveau cannot be updated without pushing out a new nv package. Given that Nouveau can be expected to evolve considerably over the life of Fedora 7, impediments to the packaging of updated versions seem like a bad idea. There is talk of splitting Nouveau into its own package, which seems like a more than reasonable way of solving this problem.

Finally, there is the issue of Python 2.5. That is the current version of the language, and the version which will be shipped with Fedora 7. The only problem is that the Zope content management system, which serves as the base for Plone (and others), does not work with this version of Python. So the current plan is for Fedora 7 to ship without Zope or the packages which depend on Zope.

Back in the days when Red Hat Linux fit on a single CD, a core component like Python would not have been updated until everything which depended on it was ready for the change. In fact, Red Hat Linux was glacially slow to move to Python 2 for just this reason. Fedora is a much larger distribution which lacks the same sort of firm central control, so it has become much harder to delay an update like this. And, unlike Debian, Fedora is unwilling to delay a distribution release until all such issues are worked out.

Some Zope users would like to see Fedora ship a "compat-python24" package so that Zope will continue to work. There is some opposition to this idea, though:

As the python maintainer, I am *STRONGLY* opposed to a compat-python24 package. Because at the end of the day, bug reports will get filed against the wrong python package (because end-users aren't going to know or case). Security problems are still going to end up having to be dealt with and likely through me because the CVE will originally get filed against python and no one will think about compat-python.

Jeremy Katz, the maintainer quoted above, would like to see a rule allowing a package maintainer to veto the addition of older "compat" packages so that they could avoid having to deal with these sorts of problems.

He seems likely to win this particular argument, meaning that there will probably be no Python 2.4 in Fedora 7. The implication is that interested people will end up creating a set of Zope and Python 2.4 packages for Fedora 7 and hosting them on a third-party server somewhere. It will be a small amount of extra hassle for affected users, but that can be worked around. The issue of security support (crucially important for a complex, network-facing system like Zope) should be considered by anybody wanting to run this code, however.

There have been suggestions that the maintainer of the Zope package should undertake the task of making it work with the version of Python found in Fedora 7:

I believe very strongly that it _is_ the package maintainer's job to work with upstream code to make it work with Fedora, and this kind of thing _is_ a packaging issue.

There's a reason we have Fedora package maintainers instead of just automatically pulling in upstream tarballs and building them with rpmbuild -ta. It's because the role of the package maintainer is to make the package a _part_ of Fedora -- that's what makes Fedora a coherent distribution and not just a semi-random collection of packages.

In this view, making Zope work with Fedora's version of Python is much like making it work with SELinux or Fedora's init scripts setup - just part of the job of making a package for the distribution. Once again, this role was probably easier to carry out back in the single-disk days. In any case, the current Fedora Zope maintainer is not going to port Zope to Python 2.5 - that is apparently a rather large job.

This, too, will pass, and Fedora 8 may well be able to welcome Zope back into the fold. In the mean time, though, the Fedora developers are trying to figure out just how their distribution should react to issues like this. As Fedora evolves and becomes more open to the community, it will have to better define its policies and set them down so that developers know what to expect.

Comments (20 posted)

A think tank's view of free software

Back in early March, a company called the Olliance Group held a gathering of about 100 corporate manager types at a resort in California's wine country. This "Open Source think tank" has now produced a 16-page report [PDF]. It is, indeed, an interesting look at how a certain part of the corporate world views free software - though, perhaps, not entirely in the ways its authors intended.

When a self-appointed "think tank" gets together to talk about free software, one is right to be cautious. When one of that event's top-level sponsors is Microsoft, an extra degree of nervousness seems appropriate. The other top-level sponsor, naturally, is Novell; the remainder of the list is NEC, Unisys, Jasper Soft, OpenLogic, and SugarCRM. Not the most community-oriented bunch one could have come up with.

LWN readers will be glad to know that "Overall, the CIOs unanimously agreed that open source is viewed as a viable option in software procurement decisions for their companies." Once they made that admission, however, this group started to raise its complaints about open source, many of which could have come from the 1990's. The first was lack of support - evidently there still is not enough commercial support for open source software. The report notes that "this is something the open source industry will have to address to increase adoption by companies." One would think that if there is truly a need for more support these companies would see that need as a business opportunity rather than an obligation.

Another problem, it seems, is interoperability:

CIOs desire greater interoperability built directly into open source products. This is an area where proprietary solutions maintain an advantage over open source, as it is far easier to integrate and use a suite of proprietary applications that are guaranteed to interoperate and that have common interfaces that make it easier for end-users to learn and use the suite.

This is a surprising claim, given that free software developers generally work toward interoperability with everything. The next claim is just as surprising:

Open source lacks compliance with many standards when compared with proprietary solutions. These standards include universal standards such as ISO, and industry-specific standards (financial industry standards, health care industry standards, etc.). It was acknowledged however, that open source offers some advantages in the area of technology standards through its openness and transparency and its ability to facilitate the creation of de facto standards such as Eclipse and ODF.

The description of OpenDocument as a "de facto standard" borders on the dishonest. The various reasons why certain "industry standards" may not be supported as well as others are not examined.

Think tank attendees bemoaned the fact that monetizing open source remains challenging. Then, there is this problem:

Open source generally depends on a corps of motivated volunteer developers to develop features. Often, the features that developers are interested in working on are different then features that customers are requesting. For example, Openoffice customers want more Visual Basic macros to ensure interoperability with Microsoft Office, but OO developers have not been all that interested in building VB macros.

The idea that a company whose business model depends on better VB support could devote resources to the creation of that support is not mentioned anywhere in the report.

Licensing is an issue which is mentioned several times in the report:

Open source licensing is a big source of confusion due to the number of open source licenses, and a lack of understanding on how licenses impact business, as well as how licenses interact with one another. Some licenses require technology to be shared with the community, other licenses require attribution, and numerous licenses have different ways of dealing with software patents. Furthermore, many licenses are incompatible. License proliferation, confusion and incompatibility are barriers to the continued growth and adoption of open source.

Clearly, we would be better off with the simplicity, compatibility, and fairness found in proprietary software licenses. Beyond that:

Think Tank participants bemoaned the lack of a business-friendly license that adequately addresses issues such as copyright, patents, attribution and indemnification. While nobody was suggesting "yet another license" as the solution, the dissatisfaction by commercial vendors and customers with the existing licenses was clear.

It would be most enlightening to see what this "business-friendly license" would involve, but the attendees apparently ran out of time before they could elaborate on that point.

The GPLv3 draft was also discussed, with a generally negative response.

Another problem:

These issues also point to the need for better governance of open source contributions. Currently, projects have many different standards governing code contributions - some communities vet the code, some require contribution agreements to be signed and others have no such requirements. The lack of standards and governance on contributions raises concerns on the source and legitimacy of code that is incorporated into projects.

This is a claim that needs to be backed up: despite the intense attention which has been given to the provenance of code in a number of high-profile projects, the number of real problems has been exceedingly small. If the attendees of this think tank wish to claim that the code found in free software projects is less likely to be legitimate than proprietary code, they need to come up with some evidence to that effect. Sadly, space constraints appear to have prevented this evidence from being included in the report.

Other worries include a lack of open source developers - their numbers are not keeping up with the growth of the industry. The fact that quite a few developers are coming out of universities is considered to be a good thing, but not without reservations: "However a concern was expressed that due to the popularity of open source development at universities, graduates may be lacking key skills such as sound architecture, defining customer needs and product management." We also hear that open source "tends to fragment easily," presenting problems for vendors. "Commercial open source tends to be less fragmented, while 'pure' open source tends to be more fragmented."

All is not bad, though. Open source offers "flexibility in procurement" and "flexibility in deployment" where "companies can mix and match open source software as they please" - despite all of those interoperability and standards compliance problems we heard about earlier. Faster product cycles are seen to be good, as are faster bug fixes. Plus:

In addition, there is "perceived" value in the ability to fix or enhance open source code at the CIOs pleasure even if the vast majority of user organizations do not .

This "perceived" value is as close as this report ever gets to any sort of freedom-related issue.

There is plenty more to look at in this report, but perhaps it is best to finish with this observation:

Finally, OSS and proprietary models continue to converge. Proprietary companies are taking elements of the open source model, including faster development cycles, and free, downloadable trial versions. OSS companies are taking elements of the proprietary model, by offering support, updates and indemnification.

This report gives no space to the developers of all this software, beyond complaining that both their numbers and their motivation to implement Visual Basic macros are insufficient. There is no thought toward maintaining healthy development and user communities, addressing problematic legal issues, or contributing back to the community in any way. These are people who see free software as a well from which they can draw resources for their businesses, but that software is just a raw material. They want to repackage and sell that material in as proprietary a manner as possible.

If this group represents the future of the open source business community, we could be in real trouble. A look at the list of sponsors given at the top of this article is cause for comfort, however, as most of the companies which have found real success with free software chose not to support this event. So there is reason to believe that this "think tank" is not representative of the wider business community, that, instead, it's a group of leaders of businesses who wish they were doing better at "monetizing" free software.

Comments (43 posted)

The Grumpy Editor's next project

This article is part of the LWN Grumpy Editor series.
LWN readers need not be told that this publication is strongly biased in favor of free software. So it should come as no surprise that we follow the path we preach for others. The entire LWN operation is based on free software, from our desktops to the web servers. We are a free software success story, just like all those other companies using free software.

Chances are, however, that many of those companies share the one exception which can be found here at LWN: our business accounting is done using a well-known, proprietary, small business bookkeeping tool. It has all the problems associated with such tools: it holds our company data in an opaque, proprietary format, it does not interoperate with the rest of our operation, it does not work as reliably as we would like, and it occasionally forces an expensive upgrade to a new version for no clear reason. Plus there's that proprietary operating system that the bookkeeping application depends on.

Various attempts to replace this application have failed to take off. It's hard to replace a functioning, important business subsystem, and, frankly, free alternatives in the business accounting area have been slow to reach a mature state. Your editor has recently become determined to change this situation, though. Enough is enough.

A new accounting system will have to meet a number of needs. To begin with, it must be able to import accounts and historical data from the proprietary application. It should operate in a multi-user, network-friendly manner. We need all of the usual accounting functions, from double-entry bookkeeping to easy export of data to our accountant to the creation of the occasional pie chart. And we would really like the ability to integrate it with the LWN site code, since so much of our commerce goes through that code.

There are numerous projects in this space. Your editor's list of candidates at the moment includes (in no particular order):

  • GnuCash: this application is mostly aimed at personal finance (see this review from 2005), but it does have some business features built into it as well.

  • SQL-Ledger: a longstanding web-based business accounting system. The code is GPL-licensed (this week), but its owner (DWS Systems, Inc.) has not always distinguished itself as a community-oriented operation.

  • Ledger-SMB started as a fork of SQL-Ledger. It has gained significant community support and diverged significantly in a short period of time.

  • Lx-Office is another SQL-Ledger fork. It appears to be aimed at the needs of German companies.

  • Compiere is an "integrated ERP & CRM solution" which happens to have an accounting module built into it. Like SQL-Ledger, Compiere is the product of a single company which has not always been as open as its user community would like.

  • Adempiere is a fork of Compiere with a stronger community focus.

  • TinyERP is billed as "the world's most advanced open source ERP & CRM." It appears to have an active community and a fair amount of documentation - as long as one doesn't mind reading a little French here and there.

  • Lazy8 is a general ledger package written in Java. It appears to be less feature complete than many of the others.

  • OFBiz is an Apache "enterprise automation software" project with an emphasis on supporting electronic commerce. It is covered by the Apache license and is used as the base for a number of other applications, both free and commercial. Free applications based on OFBiz include Neogia, opentaps, and SourceTap.

  • Project Open is a web-based system with an emphasis on project management.

  • ERP5 is "a full featured high end Open Source / Libre Software solution published under GPL license and used for mission critial ERP / CRM / MRP / SCM / PDM applications by industrial organisations and government agencies." The current pace of development on this project appears to be a little slow, though, judging from the traffic on its mailing lists.

  • Quasar is a formerly proprietary package which was released under the GPL at the beginning of 2005. Unfortunately, it appears that not a whole lot has happened with this package since then.

  • Several proprietary accounting packages for Linux exist as well. If your editor determines that none of the free utilities is yet up to the task, he will venture into this area. But one can hope that entrusting a vital business function to another proprietary package will not be necessary.

As one can see, there is no shortage of alternatives to look at; no doubt LWN readers will know of a few which your editor missed. Working through this list will be more than enough to keep an editor busy for some time; since your editor has no particular passion for accounting, it's also likely to make him somewhat grumpier than usual. It's clearly not a topic which can be covered in a single article. So expect a series of installments as your editor heads into the accounting jungle and tries to figure out whether it's possible to run a business completely on free software or not.

Comments (38 posted)

Page editor: Jonathan Corbet

Security

Stability v. security fixes

May 9, 2007

This article was contributed by Jake Edge.

A whole pile of security fixes for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (RHEL4) was released at the beginning of May; this event might not be noteworthy except that some of the vulnerabilities were nearly two years old. This stands in contrast to a recent Red Hat article describing the security track record of RHEL4, which was covered on this page, and made no mention of delays of this sort. Digging in a bit deeper to try and understand why seems logical.

Of the thirteen fixes listed by LWN for that day, eleven are categorized as having low severity by Red Hat, one is moderate and one is important. The latter is a recently reported vulnerability in xscreensaver that was given a CVE number less than a month ago. Of the dozen others, eight had CVE numbers from 2006 and four from 2005.

Red Hat classifies security issues based on their analysis of their impact; both "low" and "moderate" vulnerabilities are unlikely to be exploitable, with "moderate" vulnerabilities having worse consequences if it does happen. Under those definitions, it would certainly seem less important to get those fixes out, but it would also seem like a headache to keep track of them. Fedora Core released fixes for these issues ages ago and those seem to have worked out, why did Red Hat sit on them for RHEL4 for so long? Mark Cox, from the Red Hat Security Response Team explains:

So for example CVE-2005-4268 relies on an attacker giving a victim a carefully crafted rather large cpio file, and getting the victim to open it using the cpio command on a 64-bit platform. Even if the attacker manages that, the ability to lead to code execution is unlikely. So we defer these issues; customers don't want to go through an update and test cycle just to fix such an issue. Then, when other issues of a higher severity come up in the same package, or if we are to release an update to that package for any other reason, we also pick up any fixes we previously deferred.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux errata are batched into periodic 'updates'; what was released this week was Update 5 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.

So, for low and some moderate impact bugs, RHEL4 users must wait for patches until some other issue with that package requires attention and then await the next batch of fixes as an update release. An intervening update cycle is not necessarily enough to push these fixes out as there have been several update releases to RHEL4 since they were reported. RHEL customers prize stability, and delayed security updates is part of Red Hat's process for delivering that stability.

Security issues (and bugs in general) are funny beasts and sometimes their implications do not become clear for a long time. Something that seems to have a low impact is suddenly used in an unexpected way by a worm or some other exploit and the impact needs to be recalculated. By holding back these fixes for seemingly trivial security issues, Red Hat could be setting itself up for an unpleasant security surprise someday.

Some customers may also feel that they are more at risk for a particular issue than Red Hat thinks they are. Perhaps they use cpio frequently on possibly untrusted data on their 64-bit machines. As things currently stand, they had no fix available to them (at least via the normal Red Hat update means) for more than a year; there was no easy way for them to even know there is a problem. Red Hat tracks these bugs via bugzilla which is open for anyone to use, but they only put out announcements when they release a fix. It is hard to argue that customers should be trolling security lists and/or bugzilla looking for security issues that might affect them; this is, after all, what they pay Red Hat for.

As with seemingly everything in the world of computers, there is a trade-off here; very few customers would want to be upgrading their production systems frequently for low impact bugs. On the other hand, they may not want to be exposed forever to those same low impact bugs. Batching these kinds of fixes up into security updates once or twice a year seems like a reasonable plan, but holding on to updates for over a year may be just a bit more stability than some customers were looking for.

Comments (8 posted)

New vulnerabilities

dovecot: directory traversal

Package(s):dovecot CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2231
Created:May 8, 2007 Updated:May 21, 2008
Description: Directory traversal vulnerability in index/mbox/mbox-storage.c in Dovecot before 1.0.rc29, when using the zlib plugin, allows remote attackers to read arbitrary gzipped (.gz) mailboxes (mbox files) via a .. (dot dot) sequence in the mailbox name.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0297-02 2008-05-21
Debian DSA-1359-1 2007-08-28
Ubuntu USN-487-1 2007-07-17
Fedora FEDORA-2007-493 2007-05-07

Comments (none posted)

elinks: code execution

Package(s):elinks CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2027
Created:May 7, 2007 Updated:October 30, 2009
Description: Arnaud Giersch discovered that elinks incorrectly attempted to load gettext catalogs from a relative path. If a user were tricked into running elinks from a specific directory, a local attacker could execute code with user privileges.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2009:1471-01 2009-10-01
CentOS CESA-2009:1471 2009-10-06
CentOS CESA-2009:1471 2009-10-30
Gentoo 200706-03 2007-06-06
Ubuntu USN-457-1 2007-05-07
Oracle ELSA-2013-0250 2013-02-11

Comments (none posted)

gimp: symlink issue

Package(s):gimp CVE #(s):
Created:May 8, 2007 Updated:May 9, 2007
Description: The GIMP package in Fedora includes a helper script /usr/sbin/gimp-plugin-mgr for plugins contained in other packages, for example, xsane-gimp. This script manages symlinks from the GIMP plugin directory (which may change between upgrades) to the actual location of the plugins. A bug has been fixed in this erratum of GIMP that was in all older GIMP packages. The bug concerns the execution order in which the symlinks are installed and removed, causing the symlinks to vanish when the GIMP package is updated.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-491 2007-05-07
Fedora FEDORA-2007-489 2007-05-07

Comments (none posted)

ldap-account-manager: privilege escalation, possible cross-site scripting

Package(s):ldap-account-manager CVE #(s):CVE-2006-7191 CVE-2007-1840
Created:May 7, 2007 Updated:May 9, 2007
Description: An untrusted search path vulnerability in lamdaemon.pl in LDAP Account Manager (LAM) before 1.0.0 allows local users to gain privileges via a modified PATH that points to a malicious rm program. (CVE-2006-7191)

lib/modules.inc in LDAP Account Manager (LAM) before 1.3.0 does not escape HTML special characters in LDAP data, which allows remote attackers to have an unknown impact, probably cross-site scripting (XSS). (CVE-2007-1840)

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1287-1 2007-05-07

Comments (none posted)

lftp: shell command execution

Package(s):lftp CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2348
Created:May 4, 2007 Updated:September 16, 2009
Description: mirror --script in lftp before 3.5.9 does not properly quote shell metacharacters, which might allow remote user-assisted attackers to execute shell commands via a malicious script. NOTE: it is not clear whether this issue crosses security boundaries, since the script already supports commands such as "get" which could overwrite executable files.
Alerts:
CentOS CESA-2009:1278 2009-09-15
Red Hat RHSA-2009:1278-02 2009-09-02
rPath rPSA-2007-0085-1 2007-05-03

Comments (none posted)

moin: arbitrary JavaScript execution

Package(s):moin CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2423
Created:May 8, 2007 Updated:March 10, 2008
Description: A flaw was discovered in MoinMoin's error reporting when using the AttachFile action. By tricking a user into viewing a crafted MoinMoin URL, an attacker could execute arbitrary JavaScript as the current MoinMoin user, possibly exposing the user's authentication information for the domain where MoinMoin was hosted.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1514-1 2008-03-09
Ubuntu USN-458-1 2007-05-07

Comments (none posted)

php: several vulnerabilities

Package(s):php CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1864 CVE-2007-2509 CVE-2007-2510
Created:May 8, 2007 Updated:July 18, 2007
Description: A heap buffer overflow flaw was found in the PHP 'xmlrpc' extension. A PHP script which implements an XML-RPC server using this extension could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code as the 'apache' user. Note that this flaw does not affect PHP applications using the pure-PHP XML_RPC class provided in /usr/share/pear. (CVE-2007-1864)

A flaw was found in the PHP 'ftp' extension. If a PHP script used this extension to provide access to a private FTP server, and passed untrusted script input directly to any function provided by this extension, a remote attacker would be able to send arbitrary FTP commands to the server. (CVE-2007-2509)

A buffer overflow flaw was found in the PHP 'soap' extension, regarding the handling of an HTTP redirect response when using the SOAP client provided by this extension with an untrusted SOAP server. No mechanism to trigger this flaw remotely is known. (CVE-2007-2510)

Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-485-1 2007-07-17
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:044 2007-07-12
Debian DSA-1331-1 2007-07-07
Debian DSA-1330-1 2007-07-07
Gentoo 200705-19 2007-05-26
Debian-Testing DTSA-39-1 2007-05-28
Debian-Testing DTSA-40-1 2007-05-28
Ubuntu USN-462-1 2007-05-22
Debian DSA-1296-1 2007-05-21
Debian DSA-1295-1 2007-05-19
Fedora FEDORA-2007-503 2007-05-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:103 2007-05-10
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:102 2007-05-10
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0355-01 2007-05-10
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0349-01 2007-05-09
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0348-01 2007-05-08

Comments (none posted)

pop mail man-in-the-middle attacks

Package(s):evolution thunderbird mutt fetchmail CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1558
Created:May 8, 2007 Updated:July 3, 2009
Description: The APOP protocol allows remote attackers to guess the first 3 characters of a password via man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks that use crafted message IDs and MD5 collisions. NOTE: this design-level issue potentially affects all products that use APOP, including (1) Thunderbird, (2) Evolution, (3) mutt, and (4) fetchmail.
Alerts:
CentOS CESA-2009:1140 2009-07-02
Red Hat RHSA-2009:1140-02 2009-07-02
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1447 2007-08-06
rPath rPSA-2007-0127-1 2007-06-19
Foresight FLEA-2007-0026-1 2007-06-18
rPath rPSA-2007-0122-1 2007-06-14
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0385-01 2007-06-07
rPath rPSA-2007-0114-1 2007-06-04
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:113 2007-06-04
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0386-01 2007-06-04
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0001 2007-06-01
Fedora FEDORA-2007-552 2007-05-31
Fedora FEDORA-2007-552 2007-05-31
Fedora FEDORA-2007-552 2007-05-31
Fedora FEDORA-2007-552 2007-05-31
Fedora FEDORA-2007-550 2007-05-31
Fedora FEDORA-2007-551 2007-05-31
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0401-01 2007-05-30
Fedora FEDORA-2007-539 2007-05-30
Fedora FEDORA-2007-540 2007-05-30
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0344-01 2007-05-30
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:107 2007-05-19
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:105 2007-05-17
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0353-01 2007-05-17
Fedora FEDORA-2007-484 2007-05-07
Fedora FEDORA-2007-485 2007-05-07

Comments (none posted)

pptpd: denial of service

Package(s):pptpd CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0244
Created:May 9, 2007 Updated:September 3, 2007
Description: The PoPToP server daemon contains a bug which allows an attacker to tear down a connection through a malformed GRE packet.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1288-2 2007-09-02
Ubuntu USN-459-2 2007-05-21
Gentoo 200705-18 2007-05-20
Ubuntu USN-459-1 2007-05-14
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:010 2007-05-11
Debian DSA-1288-1 2007-05-08

Comments (none posted)

python: information disclosure

Package(s):python CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2052
Created:May 9, 2007 Updated:July 30, 2009
Description: Python 2.4 and 2.5 contain a bug in PyLocale_strxfrm() which could enable an attacker to read portions of unrelated memory.
Alerts:
CentOS CESA-2009:1176 2009-07-29
Red Hat RHSA-2009:1176-01 2009-07-27
Debian DSA-1620-1 2008-07-27
Debian DSA-1551-1 2008-04-19
Ubuntu USN-585-1 2008-03-11
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1076-02 2007-12-10
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1077-01 2007-12-10
Foresight FLEA-2007-0019-1 2007-05-21
rPath rPSA-2007-0104-1 2007-05-17
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:099 2007-05-08

Comments (none posted)

tetex: buffer overflow

Package(s):tetex CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0650
Created:May 8, 2007 Updated:May 13, 2008
Description: A buffer overflow in the open_sty function in mkind.c for makeindex 2.14 in teTeX might allow user-assisted remote attackers to overwrite files and possibly execute arbitrary code via a long filename. NOTE: other overflows exist but might not be exploitable, such as a heap-based overflow in the check_idx function.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200805-13 2008-05-12
Gentoo 200709-17 2007-09-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:109 2007-05-23
rPath rPSA-2007-0092-1 2007-05-07

Comments (1 posted)

Updated vulnerabilities

acroread: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):acroread CVE #(s):CVE-2006-5857 CVE-2007-0045 CVE-2007-0046
Created:January 11, 2007 Updated:October 26, 2009
Description: Adobes acrobat reader has the following vulnerabilities:

The Adobe Reader Plugin has a cross site scripting vulnerability that can be triggered by processes malformed URLs. Arbitrary JavaScript can be served by a malicious web server, leading to a cross-site scripting attack.

Maliciously crafted PDF files can be used to trigger two vulnerabilities, if an attacker can trick a user into viewing the files, arbitrary code can be executed with the user's privileges.

Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SA:2009:049 2009-10-26
Gentoo 200910-03 2009-10-25
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0021-01 2007-01-22
Gentoo 200701-16 2007-01-22
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:011 2007-01-22
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0017-01 2007-01-11

Comments (1 posted)

aircrack-ng: remote execution of arbitrary code

Package(s):aircrack-ng CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2057
Created:April 23, 2007 Updated:May 23, 2007
Description: Jonathan So reported that the airodump-ng module does not correctly check the size of 802.11 authentication packets before copying them into a buffer. A remote attacker could trigger a stack-based buffer overflow by sending a specially crafted 802.11 authentication packet to a user running airodump-ng with the -w (--write) option. This could lead to the remote execution of arbitrary code with the permissions of the user running airodump-ng, which is typically the root user.
Alerts:
Debian-Testing DTSA-35-1 2007-05-16
Debian DSA-1280-1 2007-04-24
Gentoo 200704-16 2007-04-22

Comments (none posted)

apache: cross-site scripting

Package(s):apache CVE #(s):CVE-2006-3918
Created:August 9, 2006 Updated:April 4, 2008
Description: From the Red Hat advisory: "A bug was found in Apache where an invalid Expect header sent to the server was returned to the user in an unescaped error message. This could allow an attacker to perform a cross-site scripting attack if a victim was tricked into connecting to a site and sending a carefully crafted Expect header."
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:021 2008-04-04
Ubuntu USN-575-1 2008-02-04
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:051 2006-09-08
Debian DSA-1167-1 2005-09-04
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0619-01 2006-08-10
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0618-01 2006-08-08

Comments (none posted)

Asterisk: two SIP denial of service vulnerabilities

Package(s):Asterisk CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1561 CVE-2007-1594
Created:April 3, 2007 Updated:August 27, 2007
Description: The Madynes research team at INRIA has discovered that Asterisk contains a null pointer dereferencing error in the SIP channel when handling INVITE messages. Furthermore qwerty1979 discovered that Asterisk 1.2.x fails to properly handle SIP responses with return code 0. A remote attacker could cause an Asterisk server listening for SIP messages to crash by sending a specially crafted SIP message or answering with a 0 return code.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1358-1 2007-08-26
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:034 2007-06-06
Gentoo 200704-01 2007-04-02

Comments (none posted)

bluez-utils: hidd vulnerability

Package(s):bluez-utils CVE #(s):CVE-2006-6899
Created:January 16, 2007 Updated:May 14, 2007
Description: hidd in BlueZ (bluez-utils) before 2.25 allows remote attackers to obtain control of the Mouse and Keyboard Human Interface Device (HID) via a certain configuration of two HID (PSM) endpoints, operating as a server, aka HidAttack.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0065-01 2007-05-14
Ubuntu USN-413-1 2007-01-24
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:014 2006-01-15

Comments (none posted)

bugzilla: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):bugzilla CVE #(s):CVE-2006-5453 CVE-2006-5454 CVE-2006-5455
Created:November 10, 2006 Updated:August 28, 2007
Description: Bugzilla has the following vulnerabilities:

Input data passed to various fields is not properly sanitized before being passed back to users.

Users can gain unauthorized access to read attachment descriptions while using diff mode.

HTTP GET and HTTP POST requests can be used to perform unauthorized actions due to improper verification.

Input that is passed to showdependencygraph.cgi is not properly sanitized before being returned to users.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1208-1 2006-11-11
Gentoo 200611-04 2006-11-09

Comments (none posted)

busybox: insecure password generation

Package(s):busybox CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1058
Created:May 5, 2006 Updated:May 2, 2007
Description: The BusyBox 1.1.1 passwd command does not use a proper salt when generating passwords. This would create an instance where a brute force attack could take very little time.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0244-02 2007-05-01
Fedora FEDORA-2006-511 2006-05-04
Fedora FEDORA-2006-510 2006-05-04

Comments (2 posted)

capi4k-utils: buffer overflow

Package(s):capi4k-utils CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1217
Created:April 30, 2007 Updated:May 2, 2007
Description: The bufprint() function in capi4k-utils fails to properly check boundaries of data coming from CAPI packets. A local attacker could possibly escalate privileges or cause a Denial of Service by sending a crafted CAPI packet.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200704-23 2007-04-27

Comments (none posted)

clamav: several vulnerabilities

Package(s):clamav CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1745 CVE-2007-1997
Created:April 20, 2007 Updated:May 9, 2007
Description: The chm_decompress_stream function in libclamav/chmunpack.c leaks file descriptors, which has unknown impact and attack vectors involving a crafted CHM file. (CVE-2007-1745)

Integer signedness error in the (1) cab_unstore and (2) cab_extract functions in libclamav/cab.c might allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted CHM file that contains a negative integer, which passes a signed comparison and leads to a stack-based buffer overflow. (CVE-2007-1997)

Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:098 2007-05-08
Debian DSA-1281-1 2007-04-25
Gentoo 200704-21 2007-04-24
Trustix TSLSA-2007-0013 2007-04-20
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:026 2007-04-20

Comments (none posted)

cpio: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):cpio CVE #(s):CVE-2005-4268
Created:January 2, 2006 Updated:March 17, 2010
Description: Richard Harms discovered that cpio did not sufficiently validate file properties when creating archives. Files with e. g. a very large size caused a buffer overflow. By tricking a user or an automatic backup system into putting a specially crafted file into a cpio archive, a local attacker could probably exploit this to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the target user (which is likely root in an automatic backup system).
Alerts:
CentOS CESA-2010:0145 2010-03-17
Red Hat RHSA-2010:0145-01 2010-03-15
rPath rPSA-2007-0094-1 2007-05-07
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0245-02 2007-05-01
Ubuntu USN-234-1 2006-01-02

Comments (none posted)

vixie-cron: privilege escalation

Package(s):cron CVE #(s):CVE-2006-2607
Created:May 31, 2006 Updated:June 1, 2009
Description: The Vixie cron daemon does not check the return code from setuid(); if that call can be made to fail, a local attacker may be able to execute commands as root.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-778-1 2009-06-01
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0539-01 2006-07-12
Gentoo 200606-07 2006-06-09
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:027 2006-05-31
rPath rPSA-2006-0082-1 2006-05-25

Comments (1 posted)

cscope: buffer overflows

Package(s):cscope CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4262
Created:October 2, 2006 Updated:June 16, 2009
Description: Will Drewry of the Google Security Team discovered several buffer overflows in cscope, a source browsing tool, which might lead to the execution of arbitrary code.
Alerts:
CentOS CESA-2009:1101 2009-06-16
Red Hat RHSA-2009:1101-01 2009-06-15
Gentoo 200610-08 2006-10-20
Debian DSA-1186-1 2006-09-30

Comments (none posted)

cscope: buffer overflows

Package(s):cscope CVE #(s):CVE-2004-2541
Created:May 22, 2006 Updated:June 19, 2009
Description: A buffer overflow in Cscope 15.5, and possibly multiple overflows, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a C file with a long #include line that is later browsed by the target.
Alerts:
CentOS CESA-2009:1102 2009-06-19
CentOS CESA-2009:1101 2009-06-16
Red Hat RHSA-2009:1102-01 2009-06-15
Red Hat RHSA-2009:1101-01 2009-06-15
Gentoo 200606-10 2006-06-11
Debian DSA-1064-1 2006-05-19

Comments (1 posted)

cups: denial of service

Package(s):cups CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0720
Created:March 26, 2007 Updated:February 7, 2008
Description: Previous versions of the cups package could be forced to hang via a client "partially negotiating" an ssl connection. In this state, cups would not allow other connections to be made, a denial of service.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:036 2007-02-06
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:086 2007-04-16
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0123-01 2007-04-16
Gentoo 200703-28 2007-03-31
Foresight FLEA-2007-0003-1 2007-03-25

Comments (none posted)

Cyrus-SASL: DIGEST-MD5 Pre-Authentication Denial of Service

Package(s):cyrus-sasl CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1721
Created:April 21, 2006 Updated:September 4, 2007
Description: Cyrus-SASL contains an unspecified vulnerability in the DIGEST-MD5 process that could lead to a Denial of Service. An attacker could possibly exploit this vulnerability by sending specially crafted data stream to the Cyrus-SASL server, resulting in a Denial of Service even if the attacker is not able to authenticate.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0878-01 2007-09-04
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0795-01 2007-09-04
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:025 2006-05-05
Fedora FEDORA-2006-515 2006-05-04
Debian DSA-1042-1 2006-04-25
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:073 2006-04-24
Ubuntu USN-272-1 2006-04-24
Gentoo 200604-09 2006-04-21

Comments (none posted)

dovecot: index cache file handling error

Package(s):dovecot CVE #(s):CVE-2006-5973
Created:November 29, 2006 Updated:May 8, 2007
Description: The dovecot IMAP server has an error in its index cache file handling code which could be exploited by an authenticated user to execute arbitrary code. Only servers with the (non-default) mmap_disable=yes option setting are vulnerable.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2006-1504 2006-12-27
Fedora FEDORA-2006-1396 2006-12-18
rPath rPSA-2006-0220-1 2006-11-30
Ubuntu USN-387-1 2006-11-28

Comments (none posted)

elinks: arbitrary file access

Package(s):elinks CVE #(s):CVE-2006-5925
Created:November 16, 2006 Updated:October 22, 2009
Description: The elinks text-mode browser has an arbitrary file access vulnerability in the Elinks SMB protocol handler. If a user can be tricked into visiting a specially crafted web page, arbitrary files may be read or written with the user's permissions.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-851-1 2009-10-21
Gentoo 200701-27 2007-01-30
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2006.043 2006-12-26
Debian DSA-1240-1 2006-12-21
Gentoo 200612-16 2006-12-14
Debian DSA-1228-1 2006-12-05
Debian DSA-1226-1 2006-12-03
Fedora FEDORA-2006-1278 2006-11-21
Fedora FEDORA-2006-1277 2006-11-21
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:216 2006-11-20
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0742-01 2006-11-15

Comments (none posted)

evolution: format string error

Package(s):evolution CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1002
Created:March 27, 2007 Updated:February 27, 2008
Description: A format string error in the "write_html()" function in calendar/gui/ e-cal-component-memo-preview.c when displaying a memo's categories can potentially be exploited to execute arbitrary code via a specially crafted shared memo containing format specifiers.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:015 2007-08-03
Gentoo 200706-02 2007-06-06
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0158-01 2007-05-03
Foresight FLEA-2007-0010-1 2007-04-05
Fedora FEDORA-2007-404 2007-04-04
Fedora FEDORA-2007-393 2007-04-04
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:070 2007-03-27

Comments (1 posted)

fail2ban: denial of service

Package(s):fail2ban CVE #(s):CVE-2006-6302
Created:February 16, 2007 Updated:July 30, 2007
Description: fail2ban 0.7.4 and earlier does not properly parse sshd logs file, which allows remote attackers to add arbitrary hosts to the /etc/hosts.deny file and cause a denial of service by adding arbitrary IP addresses to the sshd log file, as demonstrated by logging in to ssh using a login name containing certain strings with an IP address.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200702-05 2007-02-16

Comments (3 posted)

ffmpeg: buffer overflows

Package(s):ffmpeg CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4799 CVE-2006-4800
Created:September 14, 2006 Updated:May 28, 2007
Description: the AVI processing code in FFmpeg has a number of buffer overflow vulnerabilities. If an attacker can trick a user into loading a specially crafted crafted AVI, arbitrary code can be executed with the user's privileges.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200609-09 2006-09-13

Comments (2 posted)

file: denial of service

Package(s):file CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2026
Created:April 18, 2007 Updated:May 25, 2007
Description: The gnu regular expression code in file 4.20 allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) via a crafted document with a large number of line feed characters, which is not well handled by OS/2 REXX regular expressions that use wildcards, as originally reported for AMaViS.
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2007-0109-1 2007-05-24
Foresight FLEA-2007-0022-1 2007-05-24
Gentoo 200704-13 2007-04-17

Comments (none posted)

file: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):file CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1536
Created:March 22, 2007 Updated:May 30, 2007
Description: The "file" utility incorrectly checks the allocated heap memory size. If a remote attacker can trick a user into looking at specially crafted files with file, arbitrary code can be executed with the user's privileges.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0391-01 2007-05-30
Slackware SSA:2007-093-01 2007-04-04
Gentoo 200703-26 2007-03-30
Debian DSA-1274-1 2007-04-02
Fedora FEDORA-2007-391 2007-03-30
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0124-01 2007-03-23
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:067 2007-03-22
rPath rPSA-2007-0059-1 2007-03-22
Ubuntu USN-439-1 2007-03-21

Comments (1 posted)

firefox: FTP PASV port-scanning

Package(s):firefox seamonkey CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1562
Created:March 23, 2007 Updated:June 4, 2007
Description: According to this advisory, the FTP protocol includes the PASV (passive) command which is used by Firefox to request an alternate data port. The specification of the FTP protocol allows the server response to include an alternate server address as well, although this is rarely used in practice.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0066 2007-06-01
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0050 2007-06-01
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0001 2007-06-04
rPath rPSA-2007-0112-1 2007-05-31
Foresight FLEA-2007-0023-1 2007-05-31
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0001 2007-06-01
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0001 2007-06-01
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0001 2007-06-01
Fedora FEDORA-2007-554 2007-05-31
Fedora FEDORA-2007-549 2007-05-31
Fedora FEDORA-2007-549 2007-05-31
Fedora FEDORA-2007-549 2007-05-31
Fedora FEDORA-2007-549 2007-05-31
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0402-01 2007-05-30
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0400-01 2007-05-30
rPath rPSA-2007-0062-1 2007-04-04
Ubuntu USN-443-1 2007-03-27
Foresight FLEA-2007-0001-1 2007-03-22

Comments (1 posted)

freeradius: memory leak

Package(s):freeradius CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2028
Created:April 17, 2007 Updated:May 15, 2007
Description: A memory leak in freeRADIUS 1.1.5 and earlier allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a large number of EAP-TTLS tunnel connections using malformed Diameter format attributes, which causes the authentication request to be rejected but does not reclaim VALUE_PAIR data structures.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-499 2007-05-14
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0338-01 2007-05-10
Gentoo 200704-14 2007-04-17
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:085 2007-04-16

Comments (none posted)

freetype: integer overflows

Package(s):freetype CVE #(s):CVE-2006-0747 CVE-2006-1861 CVE-2006-2493 CVE-2006-2661 CVE-2006-3467
Created:June 8, 2006 Updated:June 1, 2010
Description: The FreeType library has several integer overflow vulnerabilities. If a user can be tricked into installing a specially crafted font file, arbitrary code can be executed with the privilege of the user.
Alerts:
Gentoo 201006-01 2010-06-01
Fedora FEDORA-2009-5644 2009-05-28
Fedora FEDORA-2009-5558 2009-05-28
CentOS CESA-2009:0329 2009-05-22
Red Hat RHSA-2009:1062-01 2009-05-22
Red Hat RHSA-2009:0329-02 2009-05-22
Gentoo 200710-09 2007-10-09
Debian DSA-1178-1 2006-09-16
Ubuntu USN-341-1 2006-09-06
Gentoo 200609-04 2006-09-06
rPath rPSA-2006-0157-1 2006-08-25
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:148 2006-08-24
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0635-01 2006-08-21
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0634-01 2006-08-21
Fedora FEDORA-2006-912 2006-08-14
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:045 2006-08-01
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2006.017 2006-07-28
Ubuntu USN-324-1 2006-07-27
Slackware SSA:2006-207-02 2006-07-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:129 2006-07-20
Gentoo 200607-02 2006-07-09
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:037 2006-06-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:099-1 2006-06-13
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:099 2006-06-12
rPath rPSA-2006-0100-1 2006-06-12
Debian DSA-1095-1 2006-06-10
Ubuntu USN-291-1 2006-06-08

Comments (none posted)

gcc: file overwrite vulnerability

Package(s):gcc CVE #(s):CVE-2006-3619
Created:September 6, 2006 Updated:March 14, 2008
Description: The fastjar utility found in the GNU compiler collection does not perform adequate file path checking, allowing the creation or overwriting of files outside of the current directory tree.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:066 2007-03-13
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0473-01 2007-06-11
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0220-02 2007-05-01
Debian DSA-1170-1 2006-09-06

Comments (none posted)

gd: buffer overflow

Package(s):gd CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0455
Created:February 7, 2007 Updated:November 18, 2009
Description: The gd graphics library contains a buffer overflow which could enable a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code. Note that various other packages include code from gd and could also be vulnerable.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1936-1 2009-11-17
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0146-01 2008-02-28
Ubuntu USN-473-1 2007-06-11
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2007.016 2007-05-18
Trustix TSLSA-2007-0007 2007-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2007-150 2007-02-12
Fedora FEDORA-2007-149 2007-02-12
rPath rPSA-2007-0028-1 2007-02-08
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:038 2006-02-06
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:036 2006-02-06
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:035 2006-02-06

Comments (2 posted)

gdb: buffer overflow

Package(s):gdb CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4146
Created:September 15, 2006 Updated:June 12, 2007
Description: A buffer overflow in dwarfread.c and dwarf2read.c debugging code in GNU Debugger (GDB) 6.5 allows user-assisted attackers, or restricted users, to execute arbitrary code via a crafted file with a location block (DW_FORM_block) that contains a large number of operations.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0469-01 2007-06-11
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0229-02 2007-05-01
Ubuntu USN-356-1 2006-10-02
Fedora FEDORA-2006-975 2006-09-14

Comments (none posted)

gdm: improper file permissions

Package(s):gdm CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1057
Created:April 19, 2006 Updated:May 2, 2007
Description: The .ICEauthority file may be created with the wrong ownership and permissions; gdm 2.14.2 fixes the problem.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0286-02 2007-05-01
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:083 2006-05-09
Ubuntu USN-278-1 2006-05-03
Debian DSA-1040-1 2006-04-24
Fedora FEDORA-2006-338 2006-04-19

Comments (none posted)

gedit: format string vulnerability

Package(s):gedit CVE #(s):CAN-2005-1686
Created:June 9, 2005 Updated:February 5, 2009
Description: A format string vulnerability has been discovered in gedit. Calling the program with specially crafted file names caused a buffer overflow, which could be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the gedit user.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2009-1189 2009-01-29
Fedora FEDORA-2009-1187 2009-01-29
Debian DSA-753-1 2005-07-12
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:102 2005-06-15
Red Hat RHSA-2005:499-01 2005-06-13
Gentoo 200506-09 2005-06-11
Ubuntu USN-138-1 2005-06-09

Comments (1 posted)

gimp: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):gimp CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2356
Created:May 1, 2007 Updated:June 11, 2007
Description: From this Secunia advisory: "Marsu has discovered a vulnerability in Gimp, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system. The vulnerability is caused due to an error within the "set_color_table()" function in plug-ins/common/sunras.c. This can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow by e.g. tricking a user into opening a specially crafted .RAS file."
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1301-1 2007-06-09
Ubuntu USN-467-1 2007-05-31
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:108 2007-05-22
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0343-01 2007-05-21
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:011 2007-05-16
Gentoo 200705-08 2007-05-07
rPath rPSA-2007-0090-1 2007-05-03
Foresight FLEA-2007-0015-1 2007-04-30

Comments (3 posted)

grip: buffer overflow

Package(s):grip CVE #(s):CAN-2005-0706
Created:March 10, 2005 Updated:November 19, 2008
Description: Grip, a CD ripper, has a buffer overflow vulnerability that can occur when the CDDB server returns more than 16 matches.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2008-9604 2008-11-19
Fedora FEDORA-2008-9521 2008-11-19
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152919 2005-09-15
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:074 2005-04-20
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:075 2005-04-20
Gentoo 200504-07 2005-04-08
Mandrake MDKSA-2005:066 2005-04-01
Red Hat RHSA-2005:304-01 2005-03-28
Gentoo 200503-21 2005-03-17
Fedora FEDORA-2005-203 2005-03-09
Fedora FEDORA-2005-202 2005-03-09

Comments (none posted)

gzip: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):gzip CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4334 CVE-2006-4335 CVE-2006-4336 CVE-2006-4337 CVE-2006-4338
Created:September 19, 2006 Updated:January 20, 2010
Description: Tavis Ormandy of the Google Security Team discovered two denial of service flaws in the way gzip expanded archive files. If a victim expanded a specially crafted archive, it could cause the gzip executable to hang or crash.

Tavis Ormandy of the Google Security Team discovered several code execution flaws in the way gzip expanded archive files. If a victim expanded a specially crafted archive, it could cause the gzip executable to crash or execute arbitrary code.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1974-1 2010-01-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-557 2007-05-31
Gentoo 200611-24 2006-11-28
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:211760 2006-11-13
Fedora FEDORA-2006-989 2006-10-10
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:056 2006-09-26
Gentoo 200609-13 2006-09-23
Trustix TSLSA-2006-0052 2006-09-22
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:167 2006-09-20
Slackware SSA:2006-262-01 2006-09-20
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2006.020 2006-09-20
Debian DSA-1181-1 2006-09-19
rPath rPSA-2006-0170-1 2006-09-19
Ubuntu USN-349-1 2006-09-19
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0667-01 2006-09-19

Comments (1 posted)

horde-kronolith: local file inclusion

Package(s):horde-kronolith CVE #(s):CVE-2006-6175
Created:January 17, 2007 Updated:March 7, 2008
Description: Kronolith contains a mistake in lib/FBView.php where a raw, unfiltered string is used instead of a sanitized string to view local files. An authenticated attacker could craft an HTTP GET request that uses directory traversal techniques to execute any file on the web server as PHP code, which could allow information disclosure or arbitrary code execution with the rights of the user running the PHP application (usually the webserver user).
Alerts:
Gentoo 200701-11 2007-01-16

Comments (none posted)

ImageMagick: integer overflows

Package(s):imagemagick CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1797
Created:April 4, 2007 Updated:August 11, 2009
Description: Multiple integer overflows in ImageMagick before 6.3.3-5 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via (1) a crafted DCM image, which results in a heap-based overflow in the ReadDCMImage function, or (2) the (a) colors or (b) comments field in a crafted XWD image, which results in a heap-based overflow in the ReadXWDImage function, different issues than CVE-2007-1667.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1858-1 2009-08-10
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0165-01 2008-04-16
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0145-01 2008-04-16
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1340 2007-07-30
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:147 2007-07-20
Ubuntu USN-481-1 2007-07-10
Gentoo 200705-13 2007-05-10
Fedora FEDORA-2007-414 2007-04-17
Fedora FEDORA-2007-413 2007-04-05
rPath rPSA-2007-0064-1 2007-04-04

Comments (none posted)

imlib2: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):imlib2 CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4806 CVE-2006-4807 CVE-2006-4808 CVE-2006-4809
Created:November 6, 2006 Updated:August 13, 2007
Description: M. Joonas Pihlaja discovered that imlib2 did not sufficiently verify the validity of ARGB, JPG, LBM, PNG, PNM, TGA, and TIFF images. If a user were tricked into viewing or processing a specially crafted image with an application that uses imlib2, the flaws could be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the user's privileges.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:156 2007-08-10
Gentoo 200612-20 2006-12-20
Fedora FEDORA-EXTRAS-2006-004 2006-11-09
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:198-1 2006-11-06
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:198 2006-11-06
Ubuntu USN-376-2 2006-11-06
Ubuntu USN-376-1 2006-11-03

Comments (none posted)

ipsec-tools: denial of service

Package(s):ipsec-tools CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1841
Created:April 10, 2007 Updated:August 28, 2007
Description: A flaw was discovered in the IPSec key exchange server "racoon". Remote attackers could send a specially crafted packet and disrupt established IPSec tunnels, leading to a denial of service.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-665 2007-08-27
Debian DSA-1299-1 2007-06-07
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0342-01 2007-05-17
Gentoo 200705-09 2007-05-08
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:008 2007-04-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:084 2007-04-16
Ubuntu USN-450-1 2007-04-09

Comments (none posted)

java: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):java CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4339 CVE-2006-4790 CVE-2006-6731 CVE-2006-6736 CVE-2006-6737 CVE-2006-6745
Created:January 18, 2007 Updated:June 4, 2010
Description: java has multiple vulnerabilities, these include: an RSA exponent padding attack vulnerability, two vulnerabilities which allow untrusted applets to access data in other applets, vulnerabilities that involve applets gaining privileges due to serialization bugs in the JRE and buffer overflows in the java image handling routines that can give attackers read/write/execute capabilities for local files.
Alerts:
Pardus 2010-67 2010-06-04
Gentoo 200705-20 2007-05-26
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0073-01 2007-02-09
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0072-01 2007-02-08
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0062-02 2007-02-07
Gentoo 200701-15 2007-01-22
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:010 2007-01-18

Comments (1 posted)

kdelibs: kate backup file permission leak

Package(s):kdelibs kate kwrite CVE #(s):CAN-2005-1920
Created:July 19, 2005 Updated:September 21, 2010
Description: Kate / Kwrite, as shipped with KDE 3.2.x up to including 3.4.0, creates a file backup before saving a modified file. These backup files are created with default permissions, even if the original file had more strict permissions set. See this advisory for more information.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200611-21 2006-11-27
Debian DSA-804-2 2005-11-10
Debian DSA-804-1 2005-09-08
Red Hat RHSA-2005:612-01 2005-07-27
Ubuntu USN-150-1 2005-07-21
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:122 2005-07-20
Fedora FEDORA-2005-594 2005-07-19

Comments (1 posted)

kdelibs: cross-site scripting

Package(s):kdelibs konqeror CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0537
Created:February 5, 2007 Updated:August 13, 2007
Description: Konqueror 3.5.5 does not properly parse HTML comments, which allows remote attackers to conduct cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks and bypass some XSS protection schemes by embedding certain HTML tags within a comment, a related issue to CVE-2007-0478.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:157 2007-08-10
Gentoo 200703-10 2007-03-10
rPath rPSA-2007-0052-1 2007-03-07
Ubuntu USN-420-1 2007-02-06
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:031 2007-02-02

Comments (none posted)

kernel: denial of service

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1357
Created:April 16, 2007 Updated:November 14, 2007
Description: The atalk_sum_skb function in AppleTalk for Linux kernel 2.6.x before 2.6.21, and possibly 2.4.x, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via an AppleTalk frame that is shorter than the specified length, which triggers a BUG_ON call when an attempt is made to perform a checksum.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:035 2007-06-14
Ubuntu USN-464-1 2007-05-23
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:030 2007-05-10
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:029 2007-05-03
rPath rPSA-2007-0071-1 2007-04-16
Fedora FEDORA-2007-432 2007-04-13
Fedora FEDORA-2007-433 2007-04-13

Comments (none posted)

kernel: denial of service

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4623
Created:October 18, 2006 Updated:November 14, 2007
Description: The kernel DVB layer can be caused to crash with maliciously-formatted unidirectional lightweight encapsulation (ULE) data.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-489-1 2007-07-19
rPath rPSA-2006-0194-1 2006-10-17

Comments (none posted)

kernel: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0005 CVE-2007-1000
Created:March 15, 2007 Updated:November 14, 2007
Description: The Linux kernel has a boundary error problem with the Omnikey CardMan 4040 driver read and write functions. This can be used to cause a buffer overflow and possible execution or arbitrary code with kernel privileges.

The ipv6_getsockopt_sticky function in net/ipv6/ipv6_sockglue.c is vulnerable to a NULL pointer dereference. Local users can use this to crash the kernel or to disclose kernel memory.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-599 2007-06-21
Ubuntu USN-489-1 2007-07-19
Ubuntu USN-486-1 2007-07-17
Debian DSA-1286-1 2007-05-02
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0169-01 2007-04-30
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:078 2007-04-04
Fedora FEDORA-2007-336 2007-03-14
Fedora FEDORA-2007-335 2007-03-14

Comments (none posted)

kernel: denial of service

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2006-0007 CVE-2007-0006
Created:February 15, 2007 Updated:November 14, 2007
Description: Linux kernel versions from 2.6.9 to 2.6.20 have a denial of service vulnerability. A remote attacker can cause the key_alloc_serial function's key serial number collision avoidance code to have a null dereference, resulting in a crash.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-599 2007-06-21
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0099-02 2007-03-14
rPath rPSA-2007-0050-1 2007-03-06
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0085-01 2007-02-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:047 2007-02-21
Fedora FEDORA-2007-226 2007-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2007-225 2007-02-13

Comments (1 posted)

kernel: denial of service

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4535 CVE-2006-4538
Created:September 18, 2006 Updated:January 5, 2009
Description: Sridhar Samudrala discovered a local denial of service vulnerability in the handling of SCTP sockets. By opening such a socket with a special SO_LINGER value, a local attacker could exploit this to crash the kernel. (CVE-2006-4535)

Kirill Korotaev discovered that the ELF loader on the ia64 and sparc platforms did not sufficiently verify the memory layout. By attempting to execute a specially crafted executable, a local user could exploit this to crash the kernel. (CVE-2006-4538)

Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0787-01 2009-01-05
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1049-01 2007-12-03
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:182 2006-10-11
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0689-01 2006-10-05
Debian DSA-1184-2 2006-09-26
Debian DSA-1184-1 2006-09-25
Debian DSA-1183-1 2006-09-25
Ubuntu USN-347-1 2006-09-18

Comments (none posted)

kernel: denial of service

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1861 CVE-2007-2242
Created:May 1, 2007 Updated:February 8, 2008
Description: The netlink protocol has an infinite recursion bug that allows users to cause a kernel crash. Also the IPv6 protocol allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service via crafted IPv6 type 0 route headers (IPV6_RTHDR_TYPE_0) that create network amplification between two routers.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:006 2008-02-07
Ubuntu USN-508-1 2007-08-31
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:171 2007-08-28
Ubuntu USN-489-1 2007-07-19
Ubuntu USN-486-1 2007-07-17
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:051 2007-09-06
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:216 2007-11-13
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0347-01 2007-05-16
Debian DSA-1289-1 2007-05-13
Foresight FLEA-2007-0016-1 2007-05-08
rPath rPSA-2007-0084-1 2007-05-01
Fedora FEDORA-2007-483 2007-05-01
Fedora FEDORA-2007-482 2007-05-01

Comments (none posted)

kernel: denial of service by memory consumption

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2006-2936
Created:July 17, 2006 Updated:November 14, 2007
Description: The ftdi_sio driver (usb/serial/ftdi_sio.c) in Linux kernel 2.6.x up to 2.6.17, and possibly later versions, allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) by writing more data to the serial port than the driver can handle, which causes the data to be queued.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:035 2007-06-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:151 2006-08-25
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:150 2006-08-25
Ubuntu USN-331-1 2006-08-03
rPath rPSA-2006-0130-1 2006-07-17

Comments (none posted)

kernel: denial of service

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0772
Created:February 23, 2007 Updated:November 14, 2007
Description: The Linux kernel before 2.6.20.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (oops) via a crafted NFSACL 2 ACCESS request that triggers a free of an incorrect pointer.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-599 2007-06-21
Ubuntu USN-451-1 2007-04-10
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:021 2007-03-16
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:060 2006-03-09
Fedora FEDORA-2007-291 2007-03-02
Fedora FEDORA-2007-277 2007-03-02
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:018 2007-02-27
rPath rPSA-2007-0036-1 2007-02-23

Comments (none posted)

kernel: denial of service

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2006-5757
Created:November 13, 2006 Updated:November 14, 2007
Description: From the MOKB-05-11-2006 advisory: "The ISO9660 filesystem handling code of the Linux 2.6.x kernel fails to properly handle corrupted data structures, leading to an exploitable denial of service condition. This particular vulnerability seems to be caused by a race condition and a signedness issue. When performing a read operation on a corrupted ISO9660 fs stream, the isofs_get_blocks() function will enter an infinite loop when __find_get_block_slow() callback from sb_getblk() fails ("due to various races between file io on the block device and getblk")."
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-599 2007-06-21
Fedora FEDORA-2006-1223 2006-11-12
Fedora FEDORA-2006-1221 2006-11-10

Comments (none posted)

kernel: denial of service

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2006-2935 CVE-2006-4145 CVE-2006-3745
Created:September 1, 2006 Updated:July 30, 2008
Description: Previous versions of the kernel package are subject to several vulnerabilities. Certain malformed UDF filesystems can cause the system to crash (denial of service). Malformed CDROM firmware or USB storage devices (such as USB keys) could cause system crash (denial of service), and if they were intentionally malformed, can cause arbitrary code to run with elevated privileges. In addition, the SCTP protocol is subject to a remote system crash (denial of service) attack.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0665-01 2008-07-24
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:053 2007-10-12
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:064 2006-11-10
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0710-01 2006-10-19
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:057 2006-09-28
Trustix TSLSA-2006-0051 2006-09-15
Ubuntu USN-346-2 2006-09-14
Ubuntu USN-346-1 2006-09-14
rPath rPSA-2006-0162-1 2006-08-31

Comments (none posted)

kernel: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2006-5749 CVE-2006-4814 CVE-2006-6106
Created:January 5, 2007 Updated:January 8, 2009
Description: A security issue has been reported in Linux kernel due to an error in drivers/isdn/i4l/isdn_ppp.c as the "isdn_ppp_ccp_reset_alloc_state()" function never initializes an event timer before scheduling it with the "add_timer()" function.

The mincore function in the kernel does not properly lock access to user space, which has unspecified impact and attack vectors, possibly related to a deadlock.

Another vulnerability has been reported in Linux kernel caused by a boundary error within the handling of incoming CAPI messages in net/bluetooth/cmtp/capi.c. This can be exploited to overwrite certain Kernel data structures.

Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0787-01 2009-01-05
Red Hat RHSA-2009:0001-01 2009-01-08
CentOS CESA-2008:0211 2008-05-07
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0211-01 2008-05-07
Debian DSA-1503 2008-02-22
Debian DSA-1503-2 2008-03-06
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:035 2007-06-14
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:053 2007-10-12
Ubuntu USN-416-2 2007-03-01
Ubuntu USN-416-1 2007-02-01
rPath rPSA-2007-0031-1 2007-02-09
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:040 2007-02-07
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0014-01 2007-01-30
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:025 2007-01-23
Fedora FEDORA-2007-058 2007-01-18
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:012 2006-01-12
Trustix TSLSA-2007-0002 2007-01-05

Comments (none posted)

krb5: uninitialized pointers

Package(s):krb5 CVE #(s):CVE-2006-6143 CVE-2006-3084
Created:January 10, 2007 Updated:July 7, 2010
Description: The kdamind daemon can, in some situations, perform operations on uninitialized pointers. This bug could conceivably open up the system to a code execution attack by an unauthenticated remote attacker, but it appears to be difficult to exploit. See this advisory for details.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2010:129 2010-07-07
Gentoo 200701-21 2007-01-24
Ubuntu USN-408-1 2007-01-15
rPath rPSA-2007-0006-1 2007-01-11
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:008 2006-01-10
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:004 2007-01-10
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2007.006 2007-01-10
Fedora FEDORA-2007-033 2007-01-09
Fedora FEDORA-2007-034 2007-01-09

Comments (1 posted)

krb5: local privilege escalation

Package(s):krb5 CVE #(s):CVE-2006-3083
Created:August 9, 2006 Updated:July 7, 2010
Description: Some kerberos applications fail to check the results of setuid() calls, with the result that, if that call fails, they could continue to execute as root after thinking they had switched to a nonprivileged user. A local attacker who can cause these calls to fail (through resource exhaustion, presumably) could exploit this bug to gain root privileges.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2010:129 2010-07-07
SuSE SUSE-SR:2006:022 2006-09-08
Gentoo 200608-21 2006-08-23
Ubuntu USN-334-1 2006-08-16
Fedora FEDORA-2006-905 2006-08-09
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:139 2006-09-09
Gentoo 200608-15 2006-08-10
rPath rPSA-2006-0150-1 2006-08-09
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0612-01 2006-08-08
Debian DSA-1146-1 2006-08-09

Comments (none posted)

krb5: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):krb5 CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0956 CVE-2007-0957 CVE-2007-1216
Created:April 3, 2007 Updated:March 24, 2008
Description: A flaw was found in the username handling of the MIT krb5 telnet daemon (telnetd). A remote attacker who can access the telnet port of a target machine could log in as root without requiring a password. MIT krb5 Security Advisory 2007-001

Buffer overflows were found which affect the Kerberos KDC and the kadmin server daemon. A remote attacker who can access the KDC could exploit this bug to run arbitrary code with the privileges of the KDC or kadmin server processes. MIT krb5 Security Advisory 2007-002

A double-free flaw was found in the GSSAPI library used by the kadmin server daemon. MIT krb5 Security Advisory 2007-003

Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:077-1 2007-04-10
Foresight FLEA-2007-0008-1 2007-04-05
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:025 2007-04-05
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:077 2006-04-04
rPath rPSA-2007-0063-1 2007-04-04
Ubuntu USN-449-1 2007-04-04
Gentoo 200704-02 2007-04-03
Fedora FEDORA-2007-409 2007-04-03
Fedora FEDORA-2007-408 2007-04-03
Debian DSA-1276-1 2007-04-03
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0095-01 2007-04-03

Comments (none posted)

ktorrent: incorrect validation

Package(s):ktorrent CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1384 CVE-2007-1385 CVE-2007-1799
Created:March 13, 2007 Updated:October 24, 2007
Description: Bryan Burns of Juniper Networks discovered that KTorrent did not correctly validate the destination file paths nor the HAVE statements sent by torrent peers. A malicious remote peer could send specially crafted messages to overwrite files or execute arbitrary code with user privileges.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1373-2 2007-10-23
Debian DSA-1373-1 2007-09-11
Ubuntu USN-436-2 2007-05-18
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:095 2007-05-01
Gentoo 200705-01 2007-05-01
Slackware SSA:2007-093-02 2007-04-04
Ubuntu USN-436-1 2007-03-12

Comments (1 posted)

libgadu: memory alignment bug

Package(s):libgadu CVE #(s):CAN-2005-2370
Created:July 29, 2005 Updated:June 25, 2007
Description: Szymon Zygmunt and Michal Bartoszkiewicz discovered a memory alignment error in libgadu (from ekg, console Gadu Gadu client, an instant messaging program) which is included in gaim, a multi-protocol instant messaging client, as well. This can not be exploited on the x86 architecture but on others, e.g. on Sparc and lead to a bus error, in other words a denial of service.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-813-1 2005-09-15
Red Hat RHSA-2005:627-01 2005-08-09
Debian DSA-769-1 2005-07-29

Comments (none posted)

libgtop2: buffer overflow

Package(s):libgtop2 CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0235
Created:January 15, 2007 Updated:August 9, 2007
Description: The /proc parsing routines in libgtop are vulnerable to a buffer overflow. If an attacker can run a process in a specially crafted long path then trick a user into running gnome-system-monitor, arbitrary code can be executed with the user's privileges.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-657 2007-08-02
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0765-01 2007-08-07
Debian DSA-1255-1 2007-01-31
rPath rPSA-2007-0014-1 2007-01-23
Gentoo 200701-17 2007-01-23
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:023 2007-01-18
Ubuntu USN-407-1 2007-01-15

Comments (none posted)

libmodplug: boundary errors

Package(s):libmodplug CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4192
Created:December 11, 2006 Updated:May 4, 2011
Description: Luigi Auriemma has reported various boundary errors in load_it.cpp and a boundary error in the "CSoundFile::ReadSample()" function in sndfile.cpp. A remote attacker can entice a user to read crafted modules or ITP files, which may trigger a buffer overflow resulting in the execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the application.
Alerts:
CentOS CESA-2011:0477 2011-05-04
Red Hat RHSA-2011:0477-01 2011-05-02
Ubuntu USN-521-1 2007-09-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:001 2007-01-02
Gentoo 200612-04 2006-12-10

Comments (none posted)

libpng: buffer overflow

Package(s):libpng CVE #(s):CVE-2006-3334
Created:July 19, 2006 Updated:December 15, 2008
Description: In pngrutil.c, the function png_decompress_chunk() allocates insufficient space for an error message, potentially overwriting stack data, leading to a buffer overflow.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200812-15 2008-12-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:213 2006-11-16
rPath rPSA-2006-0133-1 2006-07-19
Gentoo 200607-06 2006-07-19

Comments (none posted)

libpng: heap based buffer overflow

Package(s):libpng CVE #(s):CVE-2006-0481
Created:February 13, 2006 Updated:December 15, 2008
Description: A heap based buffer overflow bug was found in the way libpng strips alpha channels from a PNG image. An attacker could create a carefully crafted PNG image file in such a way that it could cause an application linked with libpng to crash or execute arbitrary code when the file is opened by a victim.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200812-15 2008-12-14
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0205-01 2006-02-13

Comments (1 posted)

libtiff: buffer overflow

Package(s):libtiff CVE #(s):CVE-2006-2193
Created:June 15, 2006 Updated:September 1, 2008
Description: The t2p_write_pdf_string function in libtiff 3.8.2 and earlier is vulnerable to a buffer overflow. Attackers can use a TIFF file with UTF-8 characters in the DocumentName tag to overflow a buffer, causing a denial of service, and possibly the execution of arbitrary code.
Alerts:
CentOS CESA-2008:0848 2008-08-30
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0848-01 2008-08-28
Fedora FEDORA-2006-952 2006-09-05
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:044 2006-08-01
Gentoo 200607-03 2006-07-09
SuSE SUSE-SR:2006:014 2006-06-20
Trustix TSLSA-2006-0036 2006-06-16
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:102 2006-06-14

Comments (none posted)

libxml2 - arbitrary code execution

Package(s):libxml2 CVE #(s):CAN-2004-0110
Created:February 26, 2004 Updated:August 19, 2009
Description: Yuuichi Teranishi discovered a flaw in libxml2 versions prior to 2.6.6. When fetching a remote resource via FTP or HTTP, libxml2 uses special parsing routines. These routines can overflow a buffer if passed a very long URL. If an attacker is able to find an application using libxml2 that parses remote resources and allows them to influence the URL, then this flaw could be used to execute arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2009-8594 2009-08-15
Fedora FEDORA-2009-8582 2009-08-15
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:1324 2004-07-19
Conectiva CLA-2004:836 2004-03-31
Gentoo 200403-01 2004-03-06
Trustix TSLSA-2004-0010 2004-03-05
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.003 2004-03-05
Netwosix NW-2004-0004 2004-03-04
Debian DSA-455-1 2004-03-03
Mandrake MDKSA-2004:018 2004-03-03
Red Hat RHSA-2004:091-02 2004-03-03
Whitebox WBSA-2004:090-01 2004-03-01
Red Hat RHSA-2004:090-01 2004-02-26
Fedora FEDORA-2004-087 2004-02-25
Red Hat RHSA-2004:091-01 2004-02-26

Comments (none posted)

libxml2: multiple buffer overflows

Package(s):libxml2 CVE #(s):CAN-2004-0989
Created:October 28, 2004 Updated:August 19, 2009
Description: libxml2 prior to version 2.6.14 has multiple buffer overflow vulnerabilities, if a local user passes a specially crafted FTP URL, arbitrary code may be executed.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2009-8594 2009-08-15
Fedora FEDORA-2009-8582 2009-08-15
Ubuntu USN-89-1 2005-02-28
Red Hat RHSA-2004:650-01 2004-12-16
Conectiva CLA-2004:890 2004-11-18
Red Hat RHSA-2004:615-01 2004-11-12
Mandrake MDKSA-2004:127 2004-11-04
Debian DSA-582-1 2004-11-02
Gentoo 200411-05 2004-11-02
Trustix TSLSA-2004-0055 2004-10-29
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.050 2004-10-31
Ubuntu USN-10-1 2004-10-28
Fedora FEDORA-2004-353 2004-10-28

Comments (none posted)

lighttpd: denial of service

Package(s):lighttpd CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1869 CVE-2007-1870
Created:April 18, 2007 Updated:June 11, 2007
Description: lighttpd 1.4.12 and 1.4.13 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (cpu and resource consumption) by disconnecting while lighttpd is parsing CRLF sequences, which triggers an infinite loop and file descriptor consumption. (CVE-2007-1869)

lighttpd before 1.4.14 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a request to a file whose mtime is 0, which results in a NULL pointer dereference. (CVE-2007-1870)

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1303-1 2007-06-10
Gentoo 200705-07 2007-05-07
Foresight FLEA-2007-0011-1 2007-04-20
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:007 2007-04-20
rPath rPSA-2007-0072-1 2007-04-18

Comments (none posted)

lookup-el: insecure temporary file

Package(s):lookup-el CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0237
Created:March 19, 2007 Updated:December 10, 2007
Description: Tatsuya Kinoshita discovered that Lookup, a search interface to electronic dictionaries on emacsen, creates a temporary file in an insecure fashion when the ndeb-binary feature is used, which allows a local attacker to craft a symlink attack to overwrite arbitrary files.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200712-07 2007-12-09
Debian DSA-1269-1 2007-03-18

Comments (none posted)

lynx: arbitrary command execution

Package(s):lynx CVE #(s):CVE-2005-2929
Created:November 14, 2005 Updated:September 14, 2009
Description: An arbitrary command execute bug was found in the lynx "lynxcgi:" URI handler. An attacker could create a web page redirecting to a malicious URL which could execute arbitrary code as the user running lynx.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200909-15 2009-09-12
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152832 2005-12-17
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.026 2005-12-03
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1079 2005-11-14
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1078 2005-11-14
Gentoo 200511-09 2005-11-13
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:211 2005-11-12
Red Hat RHSA-2005:839-01 2005-11-11

Comments (none posted)

mod_jk: stack overflow

Package(s):mod_jk CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0774
Created:March 5, 2007 Updated:May 30, 2007
Description: A stack overflow flaw was found in the URI handler of mod_jk. A remote attacker could visit a carefully crafted URL being handled by mod_jk and trigger this flaw, which could lead to the execution of arbitrary code as the 'apache' user.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200703-16 2007-03-16
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0096-01 2007-03-02

Comments (none posted)

mod_perl: denial of service

Package(s):mod_perl CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1349
Created:April 12, 2007 Updated:July 18, 2007
Description: Apache mod_perl versions 1.30 and below have a vulnerability in PerlRun.pm and RegistryCooker.pm. PATH_INFO is not properly escaped before use in a regular expression, allowing remote attackers to cause a denial of service via a specially crafted URI.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-488-1 2007-07-17
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0396-02 2007-06-20
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0486-01 2007-06-18
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0395-01 2007-06-14
Fedora FEDORA-2007-577 2007-06-11
Fedora FEDORA-2007-576 2007-06-11
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0316 2007-06-09
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2007.011 2007-05-18
Gentoo 200705-04 2007-05-02
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:083 2007-04-11

Comments (1 posted)

mplayer: buffer overflow

Package(s):mplayer CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1246
Created:March 8, 2007 Updated:April 1, 2008
Description: MPlayer versions up to 1.0rc1 have a buffer overflow in the loader/dmo/DMO_VideoDecoder.c DMO_VideoDecoder_Open function. user-assisted remote attackers can use this to create a buffer overflow and possibly execute arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1536-1 2008-03-31
Gentoo 200705-21 2007-05-30
Foresight FLEA-2007-0013-1 2007-04-23
Slackware SSA:2007-109-02 2007-04-20
Gentoo 200704-09 2007-04-14
Ubuntu USN-433-1 2007-03-09
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:057 2007-03-08
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:055 2007-03-08

Comments (none posted)

mysql: denial of service

Package(s):mysql CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1420
Created:March 22, 2007 Updated:May 21, 2008
Description: MySQL subselect queries using "ORDER BY" can be used by an attacker with access to a MySQL instance in order to create an intermittent denial of service.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0364-01 2008-05-21
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:139 2007-07-04
rPath rPSA-2007-0107-1 2007-05-23
Gentoo 200705-11 2007-05-08
Ubuntu USN-440-1 2007-03-21

Comments (none posted)

mysql: format string bug

Package(s):mysql CVE #(s):CVE-2006-3469
Created:July 21, 2006 Updated:July 30, 2008
Description: Jean-David Maillefer discovered a format string bug in the date_format() function's error reporting. By calling the function with invalid arguments, an authenticated user could exploit this to crash the server.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0768-01 2008-07-24
Slackware SSA:2006-211-01 2006-07-31
Ubuntu USN-321-1 2006-07-21

Comments (none posted)

MySQL: privilege violations

Package(s):mysql CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4031 CVE-2006-4226
Created:August 25, 2006 Updated:July 30, 2008
Description: MySQL 4.1 before 4.1.21 and 5.0 before 5.0.24 allows a local user to access a table through a previously created MERGE table, even after the user's privileges are revoked for the original table, which might violate intended security policy (CVE-2006-4031).

MySQL 4.1 before 4.1.21, 5.0 before 5.0.25, and 5.1 before 5.1.12, when run on case-sensitive filesystems, allows remote authenticated users to create or access a database when the database name differs only in case from a database for which they have permissions (CVE-2006-4226).

Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0768-01 2008-07-24
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0364-01 2008-05-21
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0152-01 2007-04-03
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0083-01 2007-02-19
Fedora FEDORA-2006-1298 2006-11-27
Fedora FEDORA-2006-1297 2006-11-27
Ubuntu USN-338-1 2006-09-05
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:149 2006-08-24

Comments (none posted)

MySQL: logging bypass

Package(s):mysql CVE #(s):CVE-2006-0903
Created:April 4, 2006 Updated:May 21, 2008
Description: MySQL 5.0.18 and earlier allows local users to bypass logging mechanisms via SQL queries that contain the NULL character, which are not properly handled by the mysql_real_query function. NOTE: this issue was originally reported for the mysql_query function, but the vendor states that since mysql_query expects a null character, this is not an issue for mysql_query.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0364-01 2008-05-21
Ubuntu USN-274-2 2006-05-15
Ubuntu USN-274-1 2006-04-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:064 2006-04-03

Comments (2 posted)

nbd: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):nbd CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3534
Created:January 6, 2006 Updated:March 7, 2011
Description: Kurt Fitzner discovered that the NBD (network block device) server did not correctly verify the maximum size of request packets. By sending specially crafted large request packets, a remote attacker who is allowed to access the server could exploit this to execute arbitrary code with root privileges.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SR:2006:001 2006-01-13
Ubuntu USN-237-1 2006-01-06

Comments (none posted)

ncompress: buffer underflow

Package(s):ncompress CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1168
Created:August 10, 2006 Updated:February 21, 2012
Description: The ncompress compression utility has a missing boundary check. A local user can use a maliciously created file to cause a a .bss buffer underflow.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200610-03 2006-10-06
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0663-01 2006-09-12
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:140 2006-08-09
Debian DSA-1149-1 2006-08-10
Red Hat RHSA-2012:0308-03 2012-02-21
Scientific Linux SL-busy-20120321 2012-03-21
Red Hat RHSA-2012:0810-04 2012-06-20
Scientific Linux SL-busy-20120709 2012-07-09
Mageia MGASA-2012-0171 2012-07-19
Mandriva MDVSA-2012:129 2012-08-10
Mandriva MDVSA-2012:129-1 2012-08-10

Comments (none posted)

net-snmp: denial of service

Package(s):net-snmp CVE #(s):CVE-2005-4837
Created:May 2, 2007 Updated:May 4, 2007
Description: From the Ubuntu advisory: the SNMP service did not correctly handle TCP disconnects. Remote subagents could cause a denial of service if they dropped a connection at a specific time. Note that this vulnerability has been known since 2005.
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2007-0089-1 2007-05-03
Ubuntu USN-456-1 2007-05-02

Comments (none posted)

openldap: security bypass

Package(s):openldap CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4600
Created:September 29, 2006 Updated:June 12, 2007
Description: slapd in OpenLDAP before 2.3.25 allows remote authenticated users with selfwrite Access Control List (ACL) privileges to modify arbitrary Distinguished Names (DN).
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0430-01 2007-06-11
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0310-02 2007-05-01
Trustix TSLSA-2006-0055 2006-10-06
rPath rPSA-2006-0176-1 2006-09-29
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:171 2006-09-28

Comments (none posted)

OpenSSH: denial of service

Package(s):openssh CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4925 CVE-2006-5052
Created:October 6, 2006 Updated:November 15, 2007
Description: packet.c in ssh in OpenSSH allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) by sending an invalid protocol sequence with USERAUTH_SUCCESS before NEWKEYS, which causes newkeys[mode] to be NULL.

An unspecified vulnerability in portable OpenSSH before 4.4, when running on some platforms, allows remote attackers to determine the validity of usernames via unknown vectors involving a GSSAPI "authentication abort."

Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0703-02 2007-11-15
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0540-04 2007-11-07
Fedora FEDORA-2007-394 2007-04-03
Gentoo 200611-06 2006-11-13
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:062 2006-10-20
rPath rPSA-2006-0185-1 2006-10-05

Comments (none posted)

openssh: remote denial of service

Package(s):openssh CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4924 CVE-2006-5051
Created:September 27, 2006 Updated:September 17, 2008
Description: Openssh 4.4 fixes some security issues, including a pre-authentication denial of service, an unsafe signal hander and on portable OpenSSH a GSSAPI authentication abort could be used to determine the validity of usernames on some platforms.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1638-1 2008-09-16
Debian DSA-1212-1 2006-11-15
Fedora FEDORA-2006-1011 2006-10-03
Debian DSA-1189-1 2006-10-04
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:179 2006-10-03
Ubuntu USN-355-1 2006-10-02
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2006.022 2006-10-01
Slackware SSA:2006-272-02 2006-09-29
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0698-01 2006-09-28
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0697-01 2006-09-28
Gentoo 200609-17:02 2006-09-27
rPath rPSA-2006-0174-1 2006-09-27
Gentoo 200609-17 2006-09-27

Comments (none posted)

php: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):php CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1001 CVE-2007-1285 CVE-2007-1718 CVE-2007-1583
Created:April 16, 2007 Updated:December 4, 2007
Description: A denial of service flaw was found in the way PHP processed a deeply nested array. A remote attacker could cause the PHP interpreter to crash by submitting an input variable with a deeply nested array. (CVE-2007-1285)

A flaw was found in the way the mbstring extension set global variables. A script which used the mb_parse_str() function to set global variables could be forced to enable the register_globals configuration option, possibly resulting in global variable injection. (CVE-2007-1583)

A flaw was discovered in the way PHP's mail() function processed header data. If a script sent mail using a Subject header containing a string from an untrusted source, a remote attacker could send bulk e-mail to unintended recipients. (CVE-2007-1718)

A heap based buffer overflow flaw was discovered in PHP's gd extension. A script that could be forced to process WBMP images from an untrusted source could result in arbitrary code execution. (CVE-2007-1001)

Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-549-2 2007-12-03
Ubuntu USN-549-1 2007-11-29
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2007.019 2007-05-28
Fedora FEDORA-2007-526 2007-05-24
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:032 2007-05-23
Slackware SSA:2007-127-01 2007-05-08
Debian DSA-1283-1 2007-04-29
Ubuntu USN-455-1 2007-04-27
Debian DSA-1282-1 2007-04-26
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0153-01 2007-04-20
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:090 2007-04-18
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:089 2007-04-18
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:088 2007-04-18
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:087 2007-04-18
Fedora FEDORA-2007-455 2007-04-18
rPath rPSA-2007-0073-1 2007-04-18
Fedora FEDORA-2007-415 2007-04-17
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0155-01 2007-04-16
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0154-01 2007-04-16
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0162-01 2007-04-16

Comments (none posted)

php: several vulnerabilities

Package(s):php CVE #(s):CVE-2006-4481 CVE-2006-4484 CVE-2006-4485
Created:September 8, 2006 Updated:June 13, 2008
Description: The file_exists and imap_reopen functions in PHP before 5.1.5 do not check for the safe_mode and open_basedir settings, which allows local users to bypass the settings (CVE-2006-4481).

A buffer overflow in the LWZReadByte function in ext/gd/libgd/gd_gif_in.c in the GD extension in PHP before 5.1.5 allows remote attackers to have an unknown impact via a GIF file with input_code_size greater than MAX_LWZ_BITS, which triggers an overflow when initializing the table array (CVE-2006-4484).

The stripos function in PHP before 5.1.5 has unknown impact and attack vectors related to an out-of-bounds read (CVE-2006-4485).

Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:013 2008-06-13
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:077 2007-03-26
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:005 2008-03-06
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0146-01 2008-02-28
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1643 2008-02-13
Foresight FLEA-2008-0007-1 2008-02-11
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1122 2008-02-05
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1131 2008-02-05
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:003 2008-02-07
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:038 2007-02-07
rPath rPSA-2008-0046-1 2008-02-06
Gentoo 200802-01 2008-02-06
rPath rPSA-2006-0182-1 2006-10-05
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:052 2006-09-21
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0669-01 2006-09-21
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:162 2006-09-07

Comments (1 posted)

php: buffer overflows

Package(s):php CVE #(s):CVE-2006-5465
Created:November 3, 2006 Updated:January 18, 2010
Description: The Hardened-PHP Project discovered buffer overflows in htmlentities/htmlspecialchars internal routines to the PHP Project. Of course the whole purpose of these functions is to be filled with user input. (The overflow can only be when UTF-8 is used)
Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2010:007 2010-01-15
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:067 2006-11-15
rPath rPSA-2006-0205-1 2006-11-09
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0731-01 2006-11-10
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0730-01 2006-11-06
Debian DSA-1206-1 2006-11-06
Fedora FEDORA-2006-1169 2006-11-06
Fedora FEDORA-2006-1168 2006-11-06
Slackware SSA:2006-307-01 2006-11-06
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2006.028 2006-11-06
Ubuntu USN-375-1 2006-11-02
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:196 2006-11-02

Comments (none posted)

phpbb2: missing input sanitizing

Package(s):phpbb2 CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1896
Created:May 22, 2006 Updated:February 11, 2008
Description: It was discovered that phpbb2, a web based bulletin board, insufficiently sanitizes values passed to the "Font Color 3" setting, which might lead to the execution of injected code by admin users.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1066-1 2006-05-20

Comments (none posted)

phpbb2: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):phpbb2 CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3310 CVE-2005-3415 CVE-2005-3416 CVE-2005-3417 CVE-2005-3418 CVE-2005-3419 CVE-2005-3420 CVE-2005-3536 CVE-2005-3537
Created:December 22, 2005 Updated:February 11, 2008
Description: The phpbb2 web forum has a number of vulnerabilities including: a web script injection problem, a protection mechanism bypass, a security check bypass, a remote global variable bypass, cross site scripting vulnerabilities, an SQL injection vulnerability, a remote regular expression modification problem, missing input sanitizing, and a missing request validation problem.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-925-1 2005-12-22

Comments (none posted)

postgresql: SQL injection

Package(s):postgresql CVE #(s):CVE-2006-2313 CVE-2006-2314
Created:May 24, 2006 Updated:June 6, 2007
Description: The PostgreSQL team has put out a set of "urgent updates" (in the form of the 7.3.15, 7.4.13, 8.0.8, and 8.1.4 releases) closing a newly-discovered set of SQL injection issues. Details about the problem can be found on the technical information page; in short: multi-byte encodings can be used to defeat normal string sanitizing techniques. The update fixes one problem related to invalid multi-byte characters, but punts on another by simply disallowing the old, unsafe technique of escaping single quotes with a backslash.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0249 2007-06-06
Trustix TSLSA-2006-0059 2006-10-27
Gentoo 200607-04 2006-07-09
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:030 2006-06-09
Ubuntu USN-288-3 2006-06-09
Ubuntu USN-288-2 2006-06-09
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:098 2006-06-07
Debian DSA-1087-1 2006-06-03
Ubuntu USN-288-1 2006-05-29
rPath rPSA-2006-0080-1 2006-05-24
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0526-02 2006-05-23
Fedora FEDORA-2006-578 2006-05-23
Fedora FEDORA-2006-579 2006-05-23

Comments (1 posted)

postgresql: privilege escalation

Package(s):postgresql CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2138
Created:April 24, 2007 Updated:June 18, 2007
Description: PostgreSQL 8.2 and all back versions are vulnerable to a privilege escalation exploit in SECURITY DEFINER functions.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1311-1 2007-06-17
Debian DSA-1309-1 2007-06-16
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0174 2007-06-03
Fedora FEDORA-2007-565 2007-06-06
Fedora FEDORA-2007-566 2007-06-06
Gentoo 200705-12 2007-05-10
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0336-01 2007-05-08
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0337-01 2007-05-03
Ubuntu USN-454-1 2007-04-26
Trustix TSLSA-2007-0015 2007-04-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:094 2007-04-25
rPath rPSA-2007-0081-1 2007-04-24

Comments (none posted)

qemu: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):qemu CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1320 CVE-2007-1321 CVE-2007-1322 CVE-2007-1323 CVE-2007-1366
Created:May 1, 2007 Updated:January 19, 2009
Description: Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the QEMU processor emulator, which may lead to the execution of arbitrary code or denial of service.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2008-11705 2008-12-24
Fedora FEDORA-2008-10000 2008-11-22
Fedora FEDORA-2008-9556 2008-11-12
SuSE SUSE-SR:2009:002 2009-01-19
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:162 2008-08-07
Fedora FEDORA-2008-4386 2008-05-28
Fedora FEDORA-2008-4604 2008-05-28
Fedora FEDORA-2007-713 2007-10-08
Debian DSA-1384-1 2007-10-05
Fedora FEDORA-2007-2270 2007-10-03
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0323-01 2007-10-02
Debian-Testing DTSA-38-1 2007-05-26
Debian DSA-1284-1 2007-05-01

Comments (none posted)

qt: "/../" injection

Package(s):qt CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0242
Created:April 4, 2007 Updated:September 13, 2007
Description: Andreas Nolden discovered a bug in qt3, where the UTF8 decoder does not reject overlong sequences, which can cause "/../" injection or (in the case of konqueror) a "<script>" tag injection.
Alerts:
CentOS CESA-2011:1324 2011-09-22
Scientific Linux SL-qt4-20110921 2011-09-21
Red Hat RHSA-2011:1324-01 2011-09-21
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0883-01 2007-09-13
Debian DSA-1292-1 2007-05-15
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:006 2007-04-13
Ubuntu USN-452-1 2007-04-11
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:075-1 2007-04-10
rPath rPSA-2007-0066-1 2007-04-04
Slackware SSA:2007-093-03 2007-04-04
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:075 2007-04-03
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:076 2007-04-03
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:074 2007-04-03

Comments (2 posted)

quagga: denial of service

Package(s):quagga CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1995
Created:May 2, 2007 Updated:July 3, 2007
Description: A malicious peer can cause the quagga routing daemon to crash by sending a properly crafted BGP packet.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0838 2007-07-03
Fedora FEDORA-2007-525 2007-06-06
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0389-01 2007-05-30
Ubuntu USN-461-1 2007-05-17
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2007.015 2007-05-18
Debian DSA-1293-1 2007-05-17
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:096 2007-05-02
Gentoo 200705-05 2007-05-02

Comments (none posted)

quake: buffer overflow

Package(s):quake3-bin CVE #(s):CVE-2006-2236
Created:May 10, 2006 Updated:January 12, 2009
Description: Games based on the Quake 3 engine are vulnerable to a buffer overflow exploitable by a hostile game server.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200901-06 2009-01-11
Gentoo 200605-12 2006-05-10

Comments (none posted)

rpm: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):rpm CVE #(s):CVE-2006-5466
Created:November 6, 2006 Updated:August 28, 2007
Description: An error was found in the RPM library's handling of query reports. In some locales, certain RPM packages would cause the library to crash. If a user was tricked into querying a specially crafted RPM package, the flaw could be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the user's privileges.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-668 2007-08-27
Gentoo 200611-08 2006-11-13
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:200 2006-11-07
Ubuntu USN-378-1 2006-11-04

Comments (none posted)

Mozilla: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):seamonkey firefox thunderbird CVE #(s):CVE-2006-6077 CVE-2007-0008 CVE-2007-0009 CVE-2007-0775 CVE-2007-0777 CVE-2007-0778 CVE-2007-0779 CVE-2007-0780 CVE-2007-0800 CVE-2007-0981 CVE-2007-0995 CVE-2007-0996
Created:February 26, 2007 Updated:July 23, 2007
Description: Several flaws were found in the way SeaMonkey processed certain malformed JavaScript code. A malicious web page could execute JavaScript code in such a way that may result in SeaMonkey crashing or executing arbitrary code as the user running SeaMonkey. (CVE-2007-0775, CVE-2007-0777)

Several cross-site scripting (XSS) flaws were found in the way SeaMonkey processed certain malformed web pages. A malicious web page could display misleading information which may result in a user unknowingly divulging sensitive information such as a password. (CVE-2006-6077, CVE-2007-0995, CVE-2007-0996)

A flaw was found in the way SeaMonkey cached web pages on the local disk. A malicious web page may be able to inject arbitrary HTML into a browsing session if the user reloads a targeted site. (CVE-2007-0778)

A flaw was found in the way SeaMonkey displayed certain web content. A malicious web page could generate content which could overlay user interface elements such as the hostname and security indicators, tricking a user into thinking they are visiting a different site. (CVE-2007-0779)

Two flaws were found in the way SeaMonkey displayed blocked popup windows. If a user can be convinced to open a blocked popup, it is possible to read arbitrary local files, or conduct an XSS attack against the user. (CVE-2007-0780, CVE-2007-0800)

Two buffer overflow flaws were found in the Network Security Services (NSS) code for processing the SSLv2 protocol. Connecting to a malicious secure web server could cause the execution of arbitrary code as the user running SeaMonkey. (CVE-2007-0008, CVE-2007-0009)

A flaw was found in the way SeaMonkey handled the "location.hostname" value during certain browser domain checks. This flaw could allow a malicious web site to set domain cookies for an arbitrary site, or possibly perform an XSS attack. (CVE-2007-0981)

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1336-1 2007-07-22
Slackware SSA:2007-085-01 2007-03-26
Gentoo 200703-22 2007-03-20
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:022 2007-03-20
Gentoo 200703-18 2007-03-18
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0108-02 2007-03-14
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0097-02 2007-03-14
Gentoo 200703-08 2007-03-09
Slackware SSA:2007-066-03 2007-03-08
Slackware SSA:2007-066-04 2007-03-08
Slackware SSA:2007-066-05 2007-03-08
Ubuntu USN-431-1 2007-03-07
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:052 2007-03-06
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:019 2007-03-06
Fedora FEDORA-2007-309 2007-03-05
Fedora FEDORA-2007-308 2007-03-05
rPath rPSA-2007-0040-3 2007-02-26
Gentoo 200703-05 2007-03-03
Gentoo 200703-04 2007-03-02
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:050-1 2007-03-02
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0078-01 2007-03-02
Ubuntu USN-428-2 2007-03-02
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:050 2007-02-28
Ubuntu USN-428-1 2007-02-26
Fedora FEDORA-2007-293 2007-02-27
Fedora FEDORA-2007-293 2007-02-27
Fedora FEDORA-2007-293 2007-02-27
Fedora FEDORA-2007-293 2007-02-27
Fedora FEDORA-2007-293 2007-02-27
Fedora FEDORA-2007-279 2007-02-26
Fedora FEDORA-2007-279 2007-02-26
Fedora FEDORA-2007-289 2007-02-26
Fedora FEDORA-2007-289 2007-02-26
Fedora FEDORA-2007-289 2007-02-26
Fedora FEDORA-2007-289 2007-02-26
Fedora FEDORA-2007-281 2007-02-26
Fedora FEDORA-2007-278 2007-02-26
Fedora FEDORA-2007-278 2007-02-26
rPath rPSA-2007-0040-1 2007-02-26
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0079-01 2007-02-23
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0077-01 2007-02-23

Comments (1 posted)

shadow-utils: mailbox creation vulnerability

Package(s):shadow-utils CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1174
Created:May 25, 2006 Updated:June 12, 2007
Description: The useradd tool from the shadow-utils package has a potential security problem. When a new user's mailbox is created, the permissions are set to random garbage from the stack, potentially allowing the file to be read or written during the time before fchmod() is called.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0431-01 2007-06-11
rPath rPSA-2007-0096-1 2007-05-11
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0276-02 2007-05-01
Gentoo 200606-02 2006-06-07
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:090 2006-05-24

Comments (none posted)

slocate: information disclosure

Package(s):slocate CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0227
Created:February 22, 2007 Updated:September 4, 2012
Description: The slocate permission checking code has a local information disclosure vulnerability. During the reporting of matching files, slocate does not respect the parent directory's read permissions, resulting in hidden filenames being viewable by other local users.
Alerts:
Foresight FLEA-2007-0005-1 2007-03-29
Ubuntu USN-425-1 2007-02-22
Slackware SSA:2012-244-05 2012-08-31

Comments (none posted)

snort: remote arbitrary code execution

Package(s):snort CVE #(s):CVE-2006-5276
Created:March 2, 2007 Updated:September 7, 2007
Description: The Snort intrusion detection system is vulnerable to a buffer overflow in the DCE/RPC preprocessor code. Remote attackers can send specially crafted fragmented SMB or DCE/RPC packets which can be used to allow the the remote execution of arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-2060 2007-09-07
Gentoo 200703-01:02 2007-02-23
Gentoo 200703-01 2007-02-23

Comments (1 posted)

tcpdump: denial of service

Package(s):tcpdump CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1218
Created:March 5, 2007 Updated:November 15, 2007
Description: Off-by-one buffer overflow in the parse_elements function in the 802.11 printer code (print-802_11.c) for tcpdump 3.9.5 and earlier allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a crafted 802.11 frame. NOTE: this was originally referred to as heap-based, but it might be stack-based.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0387-02 2007-11-15
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:155 2007-08-09
Debian DSA-1272-1 2007-03-22
Fedora FEDORA-2007-348 2007-03-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-347 2007-03-15
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:056 2006-03-08
Ubuntu USN-429-1 2007-03-06
rPath rPSA-2007-0048-1 2007-03-03

Comments (none posted)

tomcat: directory traversal

Package(s):tomcat CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0450
Created:May 2, 2007 Updated:February 27, 2008
Description: Versions of tomcat prior to 5.5.22 do not properly filter filename separator characters, enabling information disclosure attacks.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:015 2007-08-03
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:241 2007-12-10
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0360-01 2007-05-24
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0328-01 2007-05-24
Fedora FEDORA-2007-514 2007-05-21
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0326-01 2007-05-21
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0327-01 2007-05-14
Gentoo 200705-03 2007-05-01

Comments (none posted)

unzip: long file name buffer overflow

Package(s):unzip CVE #(s):CVE-2005-4667
Created:February 6, 2006 Updated:May 2, 2007
Description: A buffer overflow in UnZip 5.50 and earlier allows local users to execute arbitrary code via a long filename command line argument. NOTE: since the overflow occurs in a non-setuid program, there are not many scenarios under which it poses a vulnerability, unless unzip is passed long arguments when it is invoked from other programs.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0203-02 2007-05-01
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:180159 2006-04-04
Debian DSA-1012-1 2006-03-21
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:050 2006-02-27
Ubuntu USN-248-2 2006-02-15
Ubuntu USN-248-1 2006-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2006-098 2006-02-06

Comments (1 posted)

util-linux: access restriction bypass

Package(s):util-linux CVE #(s):CVE-2006-7108
Created:May 2, 2007 Updated:June 15, 2007
Description: From the Red Hat advisory: a flaw was found in the way the login process handled logins which did not require authentication. Certain processes which conduct their own authentication could allow a remote user to bypass intended access policies which would normally be enforced by the login process.
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2007-0126-1 2007-06-15
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:111 2007-06-04
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0235-02 2007-05-01

Comments (none posted)

vim: arbitrary shell code execution

Package(s):vim CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2438
Created:April 30, 2007 Updated:May 25, 2007
Description: Vim allows two functions, feedkeys() and writefile(), to be used in the sandbox. Functions executed via modelines in files being edited are verified by the sandbox; a user who is coerced into opening a specially-crafted file could cause the system to execute arbitrary shell code supplied by the attacker.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:012 2007-05-25
Ubuntu USN-463-1 2007-05-22
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:101 2007-05-09
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0346-01 2007-05-09
Fedora FEDORA-2007-492 2007-05-07
Foresight FLEA-2007-0014-1 2007-04-30

Comments (1 posted)

vixie-cron: weak permissions may cause errors

Package(s):vixie-cron CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1856
Created:April 17, 2007 Updated:December 4, 2007
Description: During an internal audit, Raphael Marichez of the Gentoo Linux Security Team found that Vixie Cron has weak permissions set on Gentoo, allowing for a local user to create hard links to system and users cron files, while a st_nlink check in database.c will generate a superfluous error.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:234 2007-12-03
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0345-01 2007-05-17
Gentoo 200704-11 2007-04-16

Comments (1 posted)

w3c-libwww: possible stack overflow

Package(s):w3c-libwww CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3183
Created:October 14, 2005 Updated:May 2, 2007
Description: xtensive testing of libwww's handling of multipart/byteranges content from HTTP/1.1 servers revealed multiple logical flaws and bugs in Library/src/HTBound.c
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0208-02 2007-05-01
Ubuntu USN-220-1 2005-12-01
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:210 2005-11-09
Fedora FEDORA-2005-953 2005-10-07
Fedora FEDORA-2005-952 2005-10-07

Comments (1 posted)

wordpress: another pile of vulnerabilities

Package(s):wordpress CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1622 CVE-2007-1893 CVE-2007-1894 CVE-2007-1897
Created:May 2, 2007 Updated:July 6, 2007
Description: Wordpress suffers from another set of vulnerabilities including a couple of cross-site scripting problems, an access restrictions bypass issue, and an SQL injection vulnerability.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0894 2007-07-05
Debian DSA-1285-1 2007-05-01

Comments (none posted)

XFree86 X.org: integer overflows

Package(s):xfree86 x.org CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1003 CVE-2007-1667 CVE-2007-1351 CVE-2007-1352
Created:April 3, 2007 Updated:August 11, 2009
Description: iDefense reported an integer overflow flaw in the XFree86 XC-MISC extension. A malicious authorized client could exploit this issue to cause a denial of service (crash) or potentially execute arbitrary code with root privileges on the XFree86 server. (CVE-2007-1003)

iDefense reported two integer overflows in the way X.org handled various font files. A malicious local user could exploit these issues to potentially execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the X.org server. (CVE-2007-1351, CVE-2007-1352)

An integer overflow flaw was found in the XFree86 XGetPixel() function. Improper use of this function could cause an application calling it to function improperly, possibly leading to a crash or arbitrary code execution. (CVE-2007-1667)

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1858-1 2009-08-10
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:008 2008-04-04
Debian DSA-1454-1 2008-01-07
Debian DSA-1294-1 2007-05-17
Gentoo 200705-10 2007-05-08
Gentoo 200705-06 2007-05-05
Gentoo 200705-02 2007-05-01
Ubuntu USN-453-2 2007-04-26
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:027 2007-04-20
Slackware SSA:2007-109-01 2007-04-20
Ubuntu USN-453-1 2007-04-18
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0157-01 2007-04-16
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0150-01 2007-04-16
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:079-1 2007-04-11
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:080-1 2007-04-10
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:081-1 2007-04-10
Fedora FEDORA-2007-427 2007-04-10
Fedora FEDORA-2007-426 2007-04-10
Fedora FEDORA-2007-425 2007-04-10
Fedora FEDORA-2007-424 2007-04-10
Fedora FEDORA-2007-423 2007-04-09
Fedora FEDORA-2007-422 2007-04-09
Foresight FLEA-2007-0009-1 2007-04-05
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:080 2007-04-04
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:081 2007-04-04
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:079 2007-04-04
rPath rPSA-2007-0065-1 2007-04-04
Ubuntu USN-448-1 2007-04-03
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0132-01 2007-04-03
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0127-01 2007-04-03
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0126-01 2007-04-03
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0125-01 2007-04-03

Comments (none posted)

xine: format string vulnerabilities

Package(s):xine CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0017
Created:January 23, 2007 Updated:August 10, 2007
Description: Multiple format string vulnerabilities in (1) the cdio_log_handler function in modules/access/cdda/access.c in the CDDA (libcdda_plugin) plugin, and the (2) cdio_log_handler and (3) vcd_log_handler functions in modules/access/vcdx/access.c in the VCDX (libvcdx_plugin) plugin, in VideoLAN VLC 0.7.0 through 0.8.6 allow user-assisted remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via format string specifiers in an invalid URI, as demonstrated by a udp://-- URI in an M3U file.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:154 2007-08-09
Debian DSA-1252-1 2007-01-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:027 2007-01-26
Gentoo 200701-24 2007-01-26
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:013 2007-01-23

Comments (none posted)

xine-lib: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):xine-lib CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1387
Created:March 13, 2007 Updated:April 1, 2008
Description: Moritz Jodeit discovered that the DirectShow loader of Xine did not correctly validate the size of an allocated buffer. By tricking a user into opening a specially crafted media file, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with the user's privileges.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1536-1 2008-03-31
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:062 2007-03-13
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:061 2007-03-13
Ubuntu USN-435-1 2007-03-12

Comments (none posted)

xine-lib: buffer overflow

Package(s):xine-lib CVE #(s):CVE-2006-6172
Created:December 5, 2006 Updated:June 5, 2007
Description: A buffer overflow was discovered in the Real Media input plugin in xine-lib. If a user were tricked into loading a specially crafted stream from a malicious server, the attacker could execute arbitrary code with the user's privileges.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:112 2007-06-04
Gentoo 200702-11 2007-02-27
Debian DSA-1244-1 2006-12-28
Gentoo 200612-02 2006-12-09
SuSE SUSE-SR:2006:028 2006-12-08
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:224 2006-12-05
Ubuntu USN-392-1 2006-12-04

Comments (none posted)

xine-lib: buffer overflow

Package(s):xine-lib CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1664
Created:April 27, 2006 Updated:February 27, 2008
Description: xine-lib does an improper input data boundary check on MPEG streams. A specially crafted MPEG file can be created that can cause arbitrary code execution when the file is accessed.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200802-12 2008-02-26
Gentoo 200604-16 2006-04-26

Comments (none posted)

xinit: race condition

Package(s):xinit CVE #(s):CVE-2006-5214
Created:October 17, 2006 Updated:August 9, 2007
Description: A race condition allows local users to see error messages generated during another user's X session. This could allow potentially sensitive information to be leaked.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-659 2007-08-08
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1409 2007-08-02
Ubuntu USN-364-1 2006-10-16

Comments (1 posted)

xmms: BMP handling vulnerability

Package(s):xmms CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0653 CVE-2007-0654
Created:March 28, 2007 Updated:July 26, 2011
Description: xmms suffers from vulnerabilities in its handling of BMP images. Should a hostile image be included in an xmms skin, it could lead to code execution on the user's system.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2011-9421 2011-07-16
Fedora FEDORA-2011-9413 2011-07-16
Debian DSA-1277-1 2007-04-04
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:071 2007-03-29
Ubuntu USN-445-1 2007-03-27

Comments (none posted)

xscreensaver: password check bypass

Package(s):xscreensaver CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1859
Created:May 2, 2007 Updated:June 13, 2007
Description: On a system which uses a remote directory service for passwords, a local attacker can crash xscreensaver by disrupting network connectivity, thus bypassing the password check and gaining access to the system.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-474-1 2007-06-12
Gentoo 200705-14 2007-05-13
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:009 2007-05-04
rPath rPSA-2007-0088-1 2007-05-03
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:097 2007-05-02
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0322-01 2007-05-02

Comments (none posted)

zziplib: buffer overflow

Package(s):zziplib CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1614
Created:April 4, 2007 Updated:September 5, 2007
Description: dmcox discovered a boundary error in the zzip_open_shared_io() function from zzip/file.c . A remote attacker could entice a user to run a zziplib function with an overly long string as an argument which would trigger the buffer overflow and may lead to the execution of arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Debian-Testing DTSA-56-1 2007-09-04
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:093 2007-04-23
Gentoo 200704-05 2007-04-03

Comments (none posted)

Page editor: Jonathan Corbet

Kernel development

Brief items

Kernel release status

There is still no 2.6 prepatch as the merge window remains open. Patches continue to pour into the mainline git repository; see the article below for details.

The current -mm tree is 2.6.21-mm2. Recent changes to -mm include the removal of the adaptive readahead patches (in anticipation of a newer, simpler version), a kernel-based mechanism for unprivileged user mounts, and the removal of the staircase deadline scheduler. Mostly -mm is shedding weight as patches move into the mainline.

For older kernels: 2.6.16.50 was released on May 4, followed by 2.6.16.51 on May 9. Each update contains a handful of important fixes.

Comments (none posted)

Kernel development news

Quotes of the week

Really, we are likely be better off by risking the merge of _bad_ code (which in the swap-prefetch case is the exact opposite of the truth), than to let code stagnate. People are clearly unhappy about certain desktop aspects of swapping, and the only way out of that is to let more people hack that code. Merging code involves more people. It will cause 'noise' and could cause regressions, but at least in this case the only impact is 'performance' and the feature is trivial to disable.
-- Ingo Molnar pushes for swap prefetch

Open source is about release early, release often. Not "hide code in a dark corner until Christoph thinks it is perfect." We have high standards for upstream merged code, but that standard is not perfection. Perfect is the enemy of good.
-- Jeff Garzik for Libertas

If your mission to another star *depends* on every single piece of complex equipment staying up with zero reboots for 200+ years, you have some serious technology problems.
-- Linus Torvalds

Comments (7 posted)

More stuff for 2.6.22

As of this writing, the 2.6.22 merge window remains open, with quite a bit of code still expected to be merged. User-visible changes which have gone in include:

  • The mac80211 (formerly Devicescape) wireless networking stack has finally found its way into the mainline. As of this writing there are no drivers which actually use that stack, but drivers are said to be in the works.

  • The sysfs representation of i2c devices has changed in ways which could break older tools. In particular, versions of lm_sensors prior to 2.10.3 will have problems.

  • A number of old USB touchscreen drivers (itmtouch, mtouchusb, and touchkitusb) have been removed in favor of the new usbtouchscreen driver.

  • The x86_64 architecture has gained relocatable kernel support, a necessary feature for those wanting to use the kexec-based crash dump mechanism.

  • Patching of low-level paravirtualization hooks can be inhibited at boot time with the new noreplace-paravirt boot flag.

  • The REORDER configuration option, which would rearrange functions in the kernel binary for optimal performance, has been removed from the x86_64 architecture.

  • The CIFS filesystem supports IPv6 addresses. There is a new mount option to allow user and group IDs to be overridden. A number of performance improvements for CIFS were also merged.

  • The kernel virtual machine (KVM) API has seen significant changes. If earlier plans still hold, this should be the last set of incompatible KVM changes.

  • There is now a framework for supporting the "RF kill" switches (which disable the transmitter) found on many mobile devices.

  • Support for filesystem "subtypes" has been added. The target here is FUSE-based filesystems, which currently all look the same to the kernel and are hard to specify in fstab. Now a FUSE ssh-based filesystem can have the type "fuse.sshfs".

  • Entries in /proc now exist to provide position and flags information for all open file descriptors.

  • There is a new system call:

        long utimensat(int dirfd, char *filename, struct timespec *times,
                       int flags);
    

    This call allows an application to set the access and modification times for the given filename with nanosecond precision.

  • The device mapper has a new "delay" target which can delay I/O operations; this may seem like a feature of dubious value but it's intended for testing only.

  • Motorola sysv68 disk partition tables are now supported.

  • There is a new private futex mechanism which improves scalability by avoiding the shared global namespace.

  • The PowerPC architecture supports the concept of "slices" - special areas of memory which can have different page sizes. The feature is similar to hugetlbfs, but with more page size flexibility.

  • New hardware supported includes Picotux 200 ARM boards, ADS7846 touchscreen devices, D-Link DSM-G600 boards, MIPS RM9122 integrated serial ports, PMC-Sierra MSP71xx serial devices, MS7712SE01 boards, L-BOX RE2 router boards, SH7780 and SH7722 Solution Engine boards, Sun XVR-500 and XVR-2500 framebuffers, SUN4U PCI-E controllers, Apple system management controllers, Ricoh RS5C313 clock chips, Maxim DS1WM one-wire ASIC cores, Alchemy au1500 programmable serial controllers, Intel LE80578-based framebuffers, PowerPC 750 "Holly" platforms, PowerPC 440GP "Ebony" reference boards, Maxim MAX6650 and MAX6651 fan controllers, Analog Devices AD741x monitoring chips, Intel Core temperature sensors, PA Semi PA6T-1682M random number generators, VIA VT8623 framebuffers, and various drivers for the new "Blackfin" architecture.

Changes visible to kernel developers include:

  • The i2c layer has seen significant new changes meant to make i2c drivers look more like drivers for other buses. There are, for example, new probe() and remove() methods for notifying devices when i2c peripherals come and go. Since i2c is not a self-describing bus, the support code still needs help to know where i2c devices might be; for many classes of device, this information can be had from the system BIOS.

  • The crypto API has a new set of functions for use with asynchronous block ciphers. There is also a new cryptd kernel thread which can run any synchronous cipher in an asynchronous mode.

  • The subsystem structure has been removed from the Linux device model; there never really was any need for it. Most code which was expecting a struct subsystem argument has been changed to use the relevant kset instead.

  • There is a new version of the in-kernel rpcbind (portmapper) client which supports versions 2-4 of the rpcbind protocol. The portmapper API has changed as a result.

  • Numerous changes to the paravirt_ops methods have been made. Additionally, paravirt_ops is no longer a GPL-only export.

  • There is a new memory function:

        void *krealloc(const void *p, size_t new_size, gfp_t flags);
    

    As one would expect, it changes the size of the allocated memory, moving it if need be.

  • The SLUB allocator has been merged as an experimental (for now) alternative to the slab code.

  • A new macro has been added to make the creation of slab caches easier:

        struct kmem_cache KMEM_CACHE(struct-type, flags);
    
    The result is the creation of a cache holding objects of the given struct_type, named after that type, and with the additional slab flags (if any).

  • The SLAB_DEBUG_INITIAL flag has been removed, along with the associated SLAB_CTOR_VERIFY flag passed to constructors. The result is a set of changes which ripples through quite a few source files. The unused SLAB_CTOR_ATOMIC flag is also gone.

  • The "quicklist" mechanism has been merged. Quicklists are a simple lookaside cache for page table pages which optimize the allocation and initialization of those pages.

  • The SuperH architecture has working kgdb support again.

  • The ia64 architecture has a new tool which will inject machine check errors into a running system. Not recommended for production machines.

  • The deferrable timers patch has been merged. There is also a new macro for initializing workqueue entries (INIT_DELAYED_WORK_DEFERRABLE()) which causes the job to be queued in a deferrable manner.

  • The old SA_* interrupt flags have not been removed as originally scheduled, but their use will now generate warnings at compile time.

  • There is a new list_first_entry() macro which, surprisingly, gets the first entry from a list.

  • The atomic64_t and local_t types are now fully supported on a wider set of architectures.

  • The "hibernation" (suspend to disk) code has been separated from the "suspend" (to RAM) code as part of a larger effort to distinguish between those two very different operations.

  • Workqueues have been reworked again. There is a new function:

        void cancel_work_sync(struct work_struct *work);
    

    This function tries to cancel a single workqueue entry, be it on the shared (keventd) or a private workqueue. Meanwhile run_scheduled_work() has been removed.

The merging process is not yet done, so expect another big set of patches to go into 2.6.22 before the window closes.

Comments (8 posted)

The return of kevent?

The last time this page looked at the kevent interface, it seemed to have reached the end of its run. The eventfd patches had stolen the thunder, providing a way for applications to wait on many types of events using the standard polling interfaces. The kevent developer has shelved the work on the assumption that it would not get in. That assumption appeared to be justified, given that Andrew Morton, in his 2.6.22 merge plans document said that the eventfd patches would be included.

As was mentioned last week, one obstacle came up in the form of pollfs, an implementation of a very similar idea. There were a couple of relatively harsh reviews of the pollfs code, and its profile appears to have lowered considerably. It is possible that a new, improved version of pollfs could show up in the near future, but it would have to be a lot better to grab a significant amount of attention. The pollfs code has probably shown up too late to the game.

There's another late arrival who will have to be listened to, however: glibc maintainer Ulrich Drepper. Having sat out the discussion of eventfd, he is now back and opposing its inclusion into the mainline:

It's Linus decision whether he wants to add yet more code, yet more possible problems, yet more maintenance overhead/nightmare for an interim solution which isn't necessary, which cannot solve all the problems, and which is not as scalable as other proposed methods.

I can only say that I would be trickly [sic] against it. It makes just no sense.

Ulrich has a number of complaints about the eventfd approach:

  • The eventfd code, by relying on poll() and variants, does not provide a way for applications to obtain events without entering the kernel. For high-bandwidth applications - big network servers, for example - eliminating system calls is one of the keys to adequate performance. The kevent code, with its user-space event ring, provides that sort of mechanism while eventfd does not.

  • The use of poll() also makes it hard for the kernel to pass information back to the application - the communication channel only includes a few bits. The kevent interface allows for a fair amount of information to be packaged with each event. Eventfd gets around this problem by allowing applications to read more event information from the relevant file descriptors - but that requires another system call.

  • Ulrich argues that the poll() interface poses unsolvable issues with regard to threads and cancellation processing. This argument is not universally accepted, however.

  • The current eventfd code does not let applications wait on futexes, and Davide Libenzi, the eventfd developer, is uninclined to add that support. The pollfs patches do support futex waits, though Ulrich had some issues with the implementation. In general, Ulrich would like to see a single system call where applications can wait for anything, so leaving out primitives like futexes will leave him unsatisfied.

The end result of this is that Ulrich opposes the merging of eventfd; he would rather see the effort go into making kevent (or a replacement with similar functionality) ready for the mainline. A kevent-like interface, he says, will eventually become necessary in any case:

I think we ultimately have to have something like kevent and then all this *fd() work is unnecessary and just adds code to the kernel which has to be kept around and which might hinder further work in this area.

How this issue will be resolved is entirely unclear. There's not been a flood of developers lining up to support Ulrich's position - but they are not opposing him either. Nobody has dusted off the kevent patches for another round of discussion - yet. But one thing that does seem likely is that this whole discussion may delay the merging of eventfd past the 2.6.22 merge window. User-space interfaces are important and, once they are added to the kernel, they are almost impossible to remove. Waiting another development cycle seems like a small price to pay if it helps the developers to get this decision right.

Update: the eventfd code was merged into the mainline on May 11.

Comments (12 posted)

The trouble with volatile

Your editor's copy of The C Programming Language, Second Edition (copyright 1988, still known as "the new C book") has the following to say about the volatile keyword:

The purpose of volatile is to force an implementation to suppress optimization that could otherwise occur. For example, for a machine with memory-mapped input/output, a pointer to a device register might be declared as a pointer to volatile, in order to prevent the compiler from removing apparently redundant references through the pointer.

C programmers have often taken volatile to mean that the variable could be changed outside of the current thread of execution; as a result, they are sometimes tempted to use it in kernel code when shared data structures are being used. Andrew Morton recently called out use of volatile in a submitted patch, saying:

The volatiles are a worry - volatile is said to be basically-always-wrong in-kernel, although we've never managed to document why, and i386 cheerfully uses it in readb() and friends.

In response, Randy Dunlap pulled together some email from Linus on the topic and suggested to your editor that he could maybe help "document why." Here is the result.

The point that Linus often makes with regard to volatile is that its purpose is to suppress optimization, which is almost never what one really wants to do. In the kernel, one must protect accesses to data against race conditions, which is very much a different task.

Like volatile, the kernel primitives which make concurrent access to data safe (spinlocks, mutexes, memory barriers, etc.) are designed to prevent unwanted optimization. If they are being used properly, there will be no need to use volatile as well. If volatile is still necessary, there is almost certainly a bug in the code somewhere. In properly-written kernel code, volatile can only serve to slow things down.

Consider a typical block of kernel code:

    spin_lock(&the_lock);
    do_something_on(&shared_data);
    do_something_else_with(&shared_data);
    spin_unlock(&the_lock);

If all the code follows the locking rules, the value of shared_data cannot change unexpectedly while the_lock is held. Any other code which might want to play with that data will be waiting on the lock. The spinlock primitives act as memory barriers - they are explicitly written to do so - meaning that data accesses will not be optimized across them. So the compiler might think it knows what will be in shared_data, but the spin_lock() call will force it to forget anything it knows. There will be no optimization problems with accesses to that data.

If shared_data were declared volatile, the locking would still be necessary. But the compiler would also be prevented from optimizing access to shared within the critical section, when we know that nobody else can be working with it. While the lock is held, shared_data is not volatile. This is why Linus says:

Also, more importantly, "volatile" is on the wrong _part_ of the whole system. In C, it's "data" that is volatile, but that is insane. Data isn't volatile - _accesses_ are volatile. So it may make sense to say "make this particular _access_ be careful", but not "make all accesses to this data use some random strategy".

When dealing with shared data, proper locking makes volatile unnecessary - and potentially harmful.

The volatile storage class was originally meant for memory-mapped I/O registers. Within the kernel, register accesses, too, should be protected by locks, but one also does not want the compiler "optimizing" register accesses within a critical section. But, within the kernel, I/O memory accesses are always done through accessor functions; accessing I/O memory directly through pointers is frowned upon and does not work on all architectures. Those accessors are written to prevent unwanted optimization, so, once again, volatile is unnecessary.

Another situation where one might be tempted to use volatile is when the processor is busy-waiting on the value of a variable. The right way to perform a busy wait is:

    while (my_variable != what_i_want)
        cpu_relax();

The cpu_relax() call can lower CPU power consumption or yield to a hyperthreaded twin processor; it also happens to serve as a memory barrier, so, once again, volatile is unnecessary. Of course, busy-waiting is generally an anti-social act to begin with.

There are still a few rare situations where volatile makes sense in the kernel:

  • The above-mentioned accessor functions might use volatile on architectures where direct I/O memory access does work. Essentially, each accessor call becomes a little critical section on its own and ensures that the access happens as expected by the programmer.

  • Inline assembly code which changes memory, but which has no other visible side effects, risks being deleted by GCC. Adding the volatile keyword to asm statements will prevent this removal.

  • The jiffies variable is special in that it can have a different value every time it is referenced, but it can be read without any special locking. So jiffies can be volatile, but the addition of other variables of this type is frowned upon. Jiffies is considered to be a "stupid legacy" issue in this regard.

For most code, none of the above justifications for volatile apply. As a result, the use of volatile is likely to be seen as a bug and will bring additional scrutiny to the code. Developers who are tempted to use volatile should take a step back and think about what they are truly trying to accomplish.

(Thanks to Randy Dunlap for getting things started and researching the issue, and to Satyam Sharma, and Johannes Stezenbach for comments on the first draft of this article).

Comments (18 posted)

Patches and updates

Kernel trees

Core kernel code

Development tools

Device drivers

Filesystems and block I/O

Memory management

Networking

Architecture-specific

Security-related

Virtualization and containers

Miscellaneous

Page editor: Jonathan Corbet

Distributions

How Debian packages a number

Debian developer Josselin Mouette recently posted an intent to package notification for a useful-seeming library package:

This package contains the "09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0" number. It is a very cool number, which, among other things, can be used by a wide range of HD-DVD deciphering applications.

A small library is provided to access this number in applications. The get_09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 C function returns a pointer to a 16-byte structure containing this number.

Now, it's hard to argue with centralizing access to useful resources, and one would think that the creation of such a package would be a simple task. The response from the Debian community makes it clear that even simple-seeming tasks can be difficult, though.

For starters, what happens when upstream releases a new version of the number? It appears necessary to add a separate version number to the library name. Another helpful developer pointed out the need for a command-line utility to obtain the number from scripts and such. Then there's the matter of bindings for Ruby, Perl, Python, and Lua, each of which would need a separate package. Even that's not enough, though, since the number in question is seen to be architecture-independent, and thus requiring a package separate from the library which uses it. Others pointed out that, now that Java is free, a Java binding will be required as well.

Then there's the matter of GUI tools for GNOME, KDE, and XFCE.

As of this writing, the Debian developers were beginning to grapple with the need for a full set of translations and setting up a special internationalization mailing list for this package. All of this attention to detail and universal support demonstrates how Debian has become such a comprehensive, well-integrated distribution. Look for the upcoming "Lenny" release to have the best l33t h4x0r numb3r of any distributor out there.

Comments (6 posted)

New Releases

64 Studio 1.3.0 released

Release 1.3.0 "Let Me Take You to the Beach" of 64 Studio is out. "64 Studio is a GNU/Linux distribution tailor-made for digital content creation, including audio, video, graphics and publishing tools. A remix of Debian testing, it comes in both AMD64/Intel64 and 32-bit flavours, to run on nearly all PC hardware. Our latest development release (1.3.0) is the very first to be based on a stable release of Debian, the recent Etch release." The release also includes the final Beta of the recently released Ardour 2 digital audio workstation software.

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EnGarde Secure Linux, Community Edition

EnGarde Secure Linux, Community Edition has been released. "EnGarde is the only enterprise-class, Linux-based secure platform for managing a complete Internet presence featuring Web-based management flexibility and SELinux functionality." Download information, a feature list, and screen shots can be found on the EnGarde web page; note that registration and explicit mailing list opt-out are required to download the distribution.

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Gentoo Linux 2007.0 released

Gentoo Linux 2007.0 ("Secret Sauce") has been announced. "This release includes a completely rewritten version of the Gentoo Linux Installer on the AMD64 and x86 LiveCD and LiveDVD images. It also includes GNOME 2.16.2, KDE 3.5.5, Xfce 4.4, Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3, OpenOffice.org 2.1.0, and the 2.6.19 Linux kernel." Download information is over here.

Comments (none posted)

Gentoo debuts a new installer

The Gentoo Linux installer team has launched version 0.5 of GLI, which promises to change the way Gentoo systems are set up. "The major change is that the installer is now interactive, so instead of configuring everything and then letting the install go, it acts more like every other installer that has ever existed."

Full Story (comments: 9)

Slax Tools 070501

Slax Tools has released v070501. Slax Tools are graphical applications that simplify the process of generating custom versions of the live distribution Slax.

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Distribution News

Fedora Core 5 end of life is 2007-06-29

The Fedora Project has announced the end of support for Fedora Core 5 as of June 29, 2007. Fedora 7 is due to be released on May 24, 2007, so FC5 users may upgrade to FC6 or F7 for continued security and critical bug fix support.

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Fedora 7 -- what, when, and why

Fedora 7 is due to be released on May 24, 2007. Max Spevack takes a look how Fedora 7 is different from previous Fedora releases. "In one sentence: "Fedora 7 has been about improving the manner in which all future Fedora releases will be made.""

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Seth Vidal and Toshio Kuratomi joining Red Hat

Seth Vidal and Toshio Kuratomi have accepted jobs at Red Hat. Both are well-established Fedora contributors who will now work for Fedora full time, with a Red Hat paycheck. Congratulations.

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openSUSE survey results now online

The results of the openSUSE survey are available (PDF). "The survey was live for almost 3 months and more than 27,000 user participated. Thank you all for your participation. With your input we all are able to make openSUSE better and better." DesktopLinux also takes a look at the results.

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openSUSE 10.3 Roadmap

The final openSUSE 10.3 roadmap has been posted. Planned features include a single-CD installation process, external repository integration, GNOME 2.20, a KDE4 preview, and more. The next alpha release is due on May 16, with the final 10.3 release happening on October 4.

Full Story (comments: 2)

Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded Edition

The Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded project has been announced. "We will start more detailed planning at the Ubuntu Developer Summit next week in Seville and the first release of this edition will be in October with Ubuntu 7.10. If you are interested in the project, please get involved. We will be working through our normal development processes on Launchpad, the developer mailing lists and IRC."

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Distribution Newsletters

Fedora Weekly News Issue 86

Fedora Weekly News for May 5, 2007 looks at Fedora Core 5 End of Life, CD Bootloader Change, Status of the merge, Rawhide 20070502 Live Images, Fedora 7 Test 4 ISOs for IA64 Available, Announcing New Fedora-php-devel-list, highlights from Planet Fedora and much more.

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Gentoo Weekly Newsletter

The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for April 23, 2007 covers a thank you note from the GWN staff, Developer of the Week (jokey), and more.

The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for April 30, 2007 covers Ant 1.7.0 going stable, Apache 1.x being removed, Italian translation team seeking help and other topics.

Comments (none posted)

Ubuntu Weekly News: Issue #39

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for May 5, 2007 covers the new Mobile and Embedded Initiative, Launchpad's new mentoring framework, and Lo``Cos involved in conferences and installfests, and several other topics.

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DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 201

The DistroWatch Weekly for May 7, 2007 is out. "The biggest news of the past week was the joint announcement by Dell and Canonical which promises to usher in a new era in the way we choose our systems in online computer stores - a brief analysis of the announcement and what it means for us follows. In other news, the Fedora project finally merges its two package repositories, Ian Murdock announces the end of Progeny, and NimbleX offers a never-seen-before web-based way of generating a custom Slackware-based live CD. Also in this issue: a featured article that presents two excellent resources for those who are interested in becoming more proficient in Linux and open source software. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of the April 2007 DistroWatch donation is the LyX project."

Comments (none posted)

Distribution meetings

Call for keys for keysigning in Edinburgh during DebConf7

Here's some necessary information for people who wish to participate in DebConf7 keysignings in Edinburgh.

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Newsletters and articles of interest

What’s new in SELinux for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5? (Red Hat Magazine)

Red Hat Magazine is running an article about SELinux improvements in RHEL5. "In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, 15 services in system space had confined SELinux domains defined. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, over 200 processes are confined by SELinux. The improved SELinux policy is much more precise in how it governs the operation of these services. It’s far less likely that a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 system space process will be compromised or encounter an error caused by an SELinux policy not handling the specific requirements (e.g., file or directory access) of a service." In addition, the "setroubleshoot" tool looks like a big improvement.

Comments (none posted)

What's what with openSUSE, ZENworks, YaST (Linux-Watch)

Linux-Watch looks at package management in openSUSE 10.3 and for Novell's enterprise SUSE Linux operating systems. "SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 will also include the well-known graphical interfaces [YAST] for software management," concluded [Novell PR director Bruce] Lowry. The result will be that the current ZENworks components will be changed by Novell's engineers to work better in the commercial versions of Linux. In the meantime, openSUSE will continue its work with Zypper, openSUSE-updater, and YaST. Zypp will stay in both, as the core package update component."

Comments (none posted)

Impi Linux 7.05 released (Tectonic)

Tectonic covers the release of Impi Linux 7.05 and talks with Impi Linux MD, Gary Fortuin. "Tectonic: Can you give us an idea of some of the features and capabilities that make up this release of Impi? GF: It is based on Ubuntu 7.04, which is modern, user-friendly and "just works". Secondly it is focused on business. File and email encryption, desktop search, groupware-enabled email and directory (LDAP) authentication work out of the box. We have enhanced support for iPods as well as support for NTFS. It also has support for all 11 official languages. Thanks to Translate.org.za for this."

Comments (none posted)

Comodo Releases Zero Touch Linux (Webhosting.info)

Webhosting.info covers the release of Zero Touch Linux. "Comodo, a provider of Identity and Trust Assurance Management solutions, today announced the launch of Red Hat and CentOS-based versions of their back office server suite, Zero Touch Linux. According to the company an installation of ZTL brings in file server, print server, domain controller, dns, mail server, web mail, database server, web server, proxy server, DHCP server, content filtering server and a firewall. The package overcomes the difficulties of deploying a Linux infrastructure by reducing the setup of multiple server types to a one time installation and configuration."

Comments (none posted)

The Perfect Desktop (HowtoForge)

HowtoForge sets up a desktop computer with Ubuntu 7.04 - Feisty Fawn and Debian 4.0 - Etch. "In this tutorial I will show people who are willing to switch to Linux how they can set up a Linux desktop that fully replaces their Windows desktop, i.e. that has all software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops."

Comments (none posted)

Distribution reviews

Digipup: A Linux live CD for amateur radio (Linux.com)

Linux.com reviews Digipup, a derivation of the Puppy Linux live CD that is geared toward amateur radio applications. "Digipup contains three of Dave Freese's (W1HKJ) most popular free software offerings for amateur radio: Fldigi, which does a great job on digital sound card modes like PSK, RTTY, MFSK, and others; Fl_logbook, a small, fast, efficient logging program to record your contacts; and Geoid, which computes the bearing and distance between sites using either latitude and longitude or Maidenhead grid locators."

Comments (none posted)

Mandriva 2007 Spring packs a punch (Linux.com)

Linux.com reviews Mandriva 2007 Spring. "Mandriva recently released its first distro of the year, dubbed Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. Like previous releases, Spring is available in five editions, two of which can be freely downloaded. I installed and worked with the $76 Powerpack edition, which includes support and several gigabytes of packages. Not only does Powerpack score over other multiple CD/DVD free-of-cost distros, it also makes competing non-free distros eat dust."

Comments (none posted)

Lastest Xandros Linux server targets Windows admins (Linux-Watch)

Linux-Watch looks at Xandros Server Standard Edition 2. "The latest Xandros server is meant for use by small and midsize businesses. In particular, the company is aiming it at Windows administrators who want to minimize down-time and cut support costs, according to the company. The new Xandros Linux server is compatible with existing Windows domain and networking topologies. It provides an alternative for Windows administrators looking to replace older versions of Windows server, and it offers the ability to remotely manage Linux servers even from a Windows desktop, through the all-graphical xMC (Xandros Management Console)."

Comments (none posted)

Page editor: Rebecca Sobol

Development

DOSEMU reaches version 1.4.0

The DOSEMU project allows MS-DOS applications to be run under Linux:

DOSEMU stands for DOS Emulation, and allows you to run DOS and many DOS programs, including many DPMI applications such as DOOM and Windows 3.1, under Linux.

DOSEMU runs under Linux, NetBSD and (possibly) FreeBSD according to the HOWTO document. DOSEMU only works on X86 compatible hardware. It is able to access the host system's graphics display, mouse, serial ports, parallel ports, game port, network port, removable drives, and sound card via a Sound Blaster 16 emulator. DOSEMU also includes DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface) support. In short, DOSEMU encapsulates a 1980s vintage DOS machine inside of a modern operating system running on modern hardware.

DOSEMU can run an authentic version of Microsoft DOS, the commercial DR-DOS or an open-source DOS equivalent such as FreeDOS, which is packaged with DOSEMU:

FreeDOS is a free DOS-compatible operating system for IBM-PC compatible systems. FreeDOS is made of up many different, separate programs that act as "packages" to the overall FreeDOS Project.

DOSEMU has been around for a long time, it can be considered a mature project. Releases have been infrequent in recent years. This has changed with the announcement of version 1.4.0. The DOSEMU developers have apparently been very busy adding new capabilities to the software.

A few highlights of this release include:
  • A new native 64-bit port for the x86-64 architecture.
  • The FreeDOS boot process no longer requires user interaction.
  • The X window system interface is now the default.
  • It is possible to reboot the virtual machine with Ctrl-Alt-Del, other Ctrl-Alt key combos are also supported.
  • Linux commands can be run within DOSEMU using the unix.com utility.
  • Numerous improvements have been made to the DPMI system.
  • Numerous improvements have been made to the CD-ROM system.
  • Windows 3.1 is now natively supported.
  • External himem drivers like himem.sys are now supported.
  • Long filename support has been added.
  • Numerous bug fixes and performance improvements have been added.
  • Security fixes have been added.

Just for fun, your author downloaded the new versions of DOSEMU and FreeDOS, dusted off some old floppies and tried out some old DOS applications. A few simple text-mode .exe applications were run without any trouble.

Getting more adventurous, your author decided to try running the old Z80mu CP/M (8080 architecture) emulator under DOSEMU. The example screen shows one emulator running another, Z80mu was able to assemble an old macro assembly language file with no troubles. On a 3 Ghz Athlon 64 processor, the double emulation process ran quite a bit faster than it used to on a native 4 Mhz Z80 system.

The test of the graphics and sound capabilities was not as successful, an early version of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards crashed DOSEMU with: ERROR: EMU86: error 103. No fun was to be had for Larry. The official DOSEMU screenshots page shows that it is possible to run more advanced graphical applications, but your author had no other titles handy for testing.

If you have some old DOS applications that you just can't live without, DOSEMU can be a useful tool. An entire 1980s DOS system can easily be encapsulated and stored in a small part of a modern computer's disk system. Binaries and source code for DOSEMU and FreeDOS are available for download here.

Comments (7 posted)

System Applications

Database Software

PostgreSQL Weekly News

The May 6, 2007 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.

Full Story (comments: none)

Interoperability

Test version of Samba clustering available

Andrew Tridgell has announced that the first test version of CTDB, a scalable clustered Samba implementation, is available. Those who would like to test the software, but don't happen to have a spare cluster sitting around, can still emulate a cluster using loopback interfaces. See the CTDB setup page or the slides from a recent talk [PDF] by Andrew for more information. (Thanks to Nick Piggin).

Comments (none posted)

Web Site Development

mnoGoSearch 3.3.3 released

Version 3.3.3 of mnoGoSearch, a web site search engine, is out with performance improvements and bug fixes. See the change log for release details.

Comments (none posted)

Plone 3.0-beta2 is out

Version 3.0-beta2 of the Plone web content management system is out for testing. "I'm happy to be able to announce the Plone 3.0-beta2 release. This is the second beta release and hopefully the last beta release before we move to release candidate status."

Full Story (comments: none)

Web Services

Secure, Reliable Web Services with Apache (O'Reilly)

Kyle Gabhart introduces WSO2 on O'Reilly's XML.com. "Open source computing has gained a tremendous degree of momentum in the last few years. Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of web services and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). The Apache Foundation alone has more than 20 SOA/WS projects. One of the common obstacles for large enterprises to adopt open source solutions for key systems is the lack of administrative infrastructure and standardized glue for pulling together complementary projects. Essentially, the lack of a true open source "platform" (along with professional consulting and training services) limits more extensive adoption of open source technology. One group that has successfully addressed this open source platform gap is the JBoss Group. Until recently, however, no such group existed to establish a platform around Apache SOA projects. Enter WSO2 (WS "Oh" 2)."

Comments (none posted)

Desktop Applications

Audio Applications

eSpeak 1.24 released

Version 1.24 of eSpeak, a text to speech synthesis converter, is out with new Czech and Greek language support.

Comments (none posted)

Business Applications

ADempiere ERP 3.2 released

Version 3.2 of ADempiere, an Enterprise Resource and Planning application, is out. "ADempiere becomes first true open source production grade ERP With the release of ADempiere MayDay (ADempiere 3.2) today, ADempiere is now the first true open source ERP with production grade quality."

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project-open 3.2 released

Version 3.2 of Project Open, a project management and collaboration application, is out. "The main feature of the new version is an integration with GanttProject, the no. #1 open-source project management application. Together, the two applications form an integrated open-source based application stack covering the complete project cycle for IT departments and IT companies from definition and planning to execution, tracking and invoicing."

Full Story (comments: none)

Desktop Environments

GNOME Software Announcements

The following new GNOME software has been announced this week: You can find more new GNOME software releases at gnomefiles.org.

Comments (none posted)

KDE Games Taking Shape for KDE 4.0 (KDE.News)

KDE.News covers the plans for KDE games in KDE version 4. "On May 1st, the KDE games developer community held its monthly IRC meeting. This time the major topic was discussing which games would stay in the kdegames module for KDE 4 and which ones would have to be removed because they don't meet our self-imposed quality standards. Read on for a discussion of this decision."

Comments (none posted)

KDE Commit-Digest for 6th May 2007 (KDE.News)

The May 6, 2007 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. The content summary says: "Atlantik, KFouleggs, Klickety, KPoker, Kenolaba, KAsteroids, KSnake, KSokoban, KJumpingCube and KTron move to playground/games. KDE 3.90.1 (KDE Alpha 1) is tagged to be released. General improvements in KTorrent. Progress in the generic music store support in Amarok. KFTPGrabber begins the port to KDE 4. The phonon-solid-sprint branch is merged back into trunk. BluRay and HD-DVD support in Solid...."

Comments (none posted)

KDE Software Announcements

The following new KDE software has been announced this week: You can find more new KDE software releases at kde-apps.org.

Comments (none posted)

Xorg Software Announcements

The following new Xorg software has been announced this week: More information can be found on the X.Org Foundation wiki.

Comments (none posted)

Encryption Software

GnuPG 2.0.4 released

Stable version 2.0.4 of GnuPG is out with minor enhancements. "The GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) is GNU's tool for secure communication and data storage. It can be used to encrypt data, create digital signatures, help authenticating using Secure Shell and to provide a framework for public key cryptography. It includes an advanced key management facility and is compliant with the OpenPGP and S/MIME standards."

Full Story (comments: none)

Fonts and Images

Linux Libertine 2.5.9 released

Version 2.5.9 of the Linux Libertine font family is out. "And we are proud to announce our first LaTex-package of the family. You'll find all information at our website http://linuxlibertine.sf.net."

Full Story (comments: none)

Games

Cyphesis 0.5.12 released

Version 0.5.12 of Cyphesis has been announced on the WorldForge game site. Some of the changes include: "The server now warns if the character needs food. The weather has been enhanced to provide more varied rain, and variable visibility. Dependency failures are now reported much more clearly. More tool types are now available for sale at the too merchant. Database functionality is now handled more dynamically, and the server will run when no database is available."

Comments (none posted)

GUI Packages

Qt Jambi Released Under GPL (KDE.News)

KDE.News reports on the GPL release of Qt Jambi. "Yesterday Trolltech released the second beta of Qt Jambi, the Qt API for Java. With this release we also released the source code including the Generator under GPL, opening the option for making KDE libs accessible to Java. Though it does not work together with gcj, it does work together with the open source Harmony Virtual machine and runtime."

Comments (none posted)

Mail Clients

Claws Mail 2.9.2 released

Version 2.9.2 of Claws Mail has been announced, it features a new printer icon and lots of bug fixes.

Comments (none posted)

Music Applications

buzztard 0.2.0 released

Version 0.2.0 of buzztard has been released. "The buzztard team has release version 0.2 "sunrise" of its buzz-alike music composer. This version has lots of UI usability improvements, bug fixes, more instant apply settings and introduces some interactivity features (interaction controller and upnp playback controller)."

Full Story (comments: none)

PHASEX 0.10.1 released

Version 0.10.1 of PHASEX, an experimental softsynth for Linux/ALSA/JACK systems, is out. "PHASEX-0.10.1 is a buildfix and bugfix release, highly recommended for anyone who currently has 0.10.0."

Full Story (comments: none)

Video Applications

Boxtream 0.996 is out

Version 0.996 of Boxtream is out, this release works with "Boxtream is both an audio and video encoder and streamer and an assembly of audio and video hardware, forming a mobile video streaming studio. It is designed to easily record and stream live presentations including a presenter and synchronized slides, or slides only, or presenter only, and was built to stream live courses over the Internet for distance learning students." This version now works with a single firewire device, eliminating the need for expensive video hardware.

Full Story (comments: none)

DJV Imaging 0.6.1 beta announced

Version 0.6.1 beta of DJV Imaging is available. The project description states: "Digital imaging software for movie playback, image processing, and monitor calibration."

Comments (none posted)

Languages and Tools

Caml

Caml Weekly News

The May 8, 2007 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new Caml language articles.

Full Story (comments: none)

Haskell

Haskell Weekly News

The May 7, 2007 edition of the Haskell Weekly News is online. This week sees the release of Atom, a hardware description language embedded in Haskell, along with the usual suite of new libraries and tools. In addition, The Monad.Reader Issue 7 was released, and the Hackage upload festival continues unabated.

Comments (none posted)

Java

Sun makes Java SE development kit available

Sun Microsystems has announced that the Java SE development kit has now been released under version 2 of the GPL. "This announcement represents one of the largest source code contributions to the free software community and the open source release of one of the industry's most significant and pervasive software platforms. Available immediately at the OpenJDK project on java.net (http://openjdk.java.net), is all the unencumbered source code for Sun's future implementation of Java SE 7, as well as binary plugs for the remaining few instances of encumbered code."

Comments (16 posted)

PHP

PHP 5.2.2 and PHP 4.4.7 released

Versions 5.2.2 and 4.4.7 of PHP have been announced. "These releases are major stability and security enhancements of the 5.x and 4.4.x branches, and all users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to it as soon as possible."

Comments (none posted)

Python

Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links

The May 7, 2007 edition of the Python-URL! is online with a new collection of Python article links.

Full Story (comments: none)

Tcl/Tk

Tcl-URL! - weekly Tcl news and links

The May 7, 2007 edition of the Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.

Full Story (comments: none)

UML

Introduction to UML (IT Manager's Journal)

Chad Files introduces UML in an IT Manager's Journal article. "When you're designing and developing new software systems, it is often hard to see how all the pieces are suppose to fit together. Unified Modeling Language (UML) is one tool that allow developers and architects to ease the process and create a big picture before committing to a particular technology. UML is simply a language, as its name suggests. It can be used, along with a working development methodology, to aid in designing and describing a software system."

Comments (none posted)

Version Control

monotone 0.35 released

Version 0.35 of monotone, a distributed version control system, is out. "The set of changes since last release is fairly small, but contains needed fixes."

Full Story (comments: none)

Page editor: Forrest Cook

Linux in the news

Recommended Reading

Linux and The Indianapolis 500 (LXer)

Scott Ruecker looks at the Tux500 campaign. "The idea to have the Open Source community sponsor a car in the Indianapolis 500 put forth recently has more than just the Open Source Press taking notice. Here is my take on it. First a disclaimer: I am in not in any way, shape or form involved with the Tux500 campaign. I happen to know several of the people involved but other than that I have no connection to it whatsoever. With that said I am free to express any opinions I may have on the subject, which I plan on doing right now.."

Comments (16 posted)

Blizzard: OLPC and open source

Worth a glance: Christopher Blizzard's posting on the OLPC project and Microsoft. "For once Microsoft is getting the reverse Linux laptop experience: little support and little documentation for the hardware. The result will be a platform that doesn’t include any of the really novel features that we’re building in, bad power management, no systems management via the firmware and apps that will randomly crash because they can’t fix the virtual memory problem in the same way we’re approaching it. A second class citizen, to be sure."

Comments (29 posted)

Companies

Novell Linux desktop architect goes to Google (DesktopLinux)

DesktopLinux reports that Robert Love has resigned as chief architect of Novell's Linux desktop efforts. "Before serving as Novell's Linux desktop architect, Love worked -- and still does -- as a Linux kernel and GNOME developer. He also worked with MontaVista, the well-known embedded Linux company. While working for MontaVista, Love spearheaded the project of improving Linux's real-time capabilities via a "preemptible kernel patch" that is now a standard feature in the mainstream kernel." Robert Love will be working at Google's Open Source Program Office.

Comments (2 posted)

Oracle, IBM, NEC to market Linux in Japan: Nikkei (KPLC-TV)

KPLC-TV reports on a commercial consortium that plans to promote Linux in Japan. "Major information technology firms, including Oracle Corp. (ORCL.O), IBM Corp. (IBM.N) and NEC Corp. (6701.T), will set up a consortium to sell servers and systems running the Linux operating system in Japan, a financial daily said on Thursday. It would be the first time in the world that major IT firms join hands to market equipment running the free software, the Nikkei newspaper said."

Comments (none posted)

What's a Linux Guy Doing at Sun? (eWeek)

eWeek takes a look at what Ian Murdock is doing at Sun. "What's a Linux guy doing at Sun? That's the question Ian Murdock, chief open source platform strategist at Sun Microsystems Inc., posed in a session he chaired at Sun's CommunityOne Day on May 7 prior to the opening of the JavaOne conference. "Why am I here? 'What's a Linux guy doing at Sun? Have you changed sides?'" Murdock said people constantly ask him. "No, that's not how I look at it.""

Comments (12 posted)

Sysgo tops embedded Linux survey (Electronicstalk.com)

Electronicstalk.com looks at the rise of Sysgo, a commercial embedded Linux supplier. "Sysgo has received top ranking among commercial Embedded Linux suppliers in the recently published LinuxDevices.com seventh annual Embedded Linux Market Survey. This survey also showed Linux continuing to grow as the dominant embedded OS for 32 and 64bit designs (approaching 50%), and that over 60% of developers surveyed look to commercial suppliers for support and service."

Comments (none posted)

Interviews

OpenBSD 4.1: Puffy Strikes Again (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet has an interview with several OpenBSD developers. "OpenBSD 4.1 has just been released. Federico Biancuzzi interviewed several developers to discuss some of the new features for networking, active porting efforts (landisk and UltraSPARC III), work on SMP, and the improvements in spam fighting."

Comments (36 posted)

Daniel James interview (Linux Format)

Linux Format has an interview with Daniel James. "Daniel James is the project directory of the audio distro 64 Studio. He set up 64 Studio Ltd to provide development services to hardware OEMs, and support to users in studios. James also runs a Linux-based recording studio near his home on the Isle of Wight."

Comments (none posted)

Mozilla CEO speaks out on future of Firefox (APC)

APC (Australian Personal Computer) has an interview with Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker. "According to Mozilla Foundation CEO Mitchell Baker, Firefox is just at the beginning of its life cycle. In this one-on-one interview with APCMag.com, she talks about where Firefox came from and where it's going."

Comments (none posted)

Interview with Simon Phipps (Linux Journal)

Glyn Moody talks with Simon Phipps about the open-source roots of Sun and the GPL-ization of Java. "Before joining Sun in 2001, Simon Phipps spent ten years at IBM, where he was Chief Java and XML Evangelist. He first came across free software in the late 1980s, when he was selling freeware from home as a sideline while working at Unisys. Today, Phipps is Sun's Chief Open Source Officer, and he plays a key role as the company moves its entire software portfolio to open source."

Comments (7 posted)

Interview with Flavio Castelli, A Strigi Developer (KDE.News)

KDE.News talks with Flavio Castelli. "We are here today to talk about the Strigi project - the indexing and search technology of KDE 4 - and to interview Flavio Castelli, a key developer of Strigi. Read on for the interview."

Comments (none posted)

Interview with Tim Bray: Atom, JRuby, and the Ecumenical Sun (O'Reilly)

O'Reilly's ONJava.com has an interview with Tim Bray. "If you've ever written a system to parse or generate XML, you owe something of a debt to Tim Bray, he co-authored the initial specification XML 1.0 published in 1998. And, nearly a decade after the introduction of XML, it is a concept familiar to all programmers and many non-programmers. Given this achievement, one might be content to rest on one's laurels, but in talking to Bray you get the sense that, while he might be best known for his contribution to XML, he is singularly focused on the development of the next generation of participatory technologies. Bray is focused on the Atom publishing protocol, contributing to open source, and helping to push Sun toward a more "ecumenical" approach to web development. Most importantly, you get the sense that Bray is trying to use technology to create an Internet that is more transparent and inclusive Internet."

Comments (none posted)

Resources

Real-time Java, Part 4: Real-time garbage collection (developerWorks)

IBM developerWorks continues a series on real-time Java with a look at garbage collection. "RT applications must be able to respond to real-world stimuli within deterministic time intervals. A traditional GC can't meet this requirement because the application must halt for the GC to reclaim any unused memory. The time taken for reclamation is unbounded and subject to fluctuations. Furthermore, the time when the GC will interrupt the application is traditionally unpredictable. The time during which the application is halted is referred to as pause time because application progress is paused for the GC to reclaim free space. Low pause times are a requirement for RT applications because they usually represent the upper timing bound for application responsiveness."

Comments (none posted)

Top 7 Things System Administrators Forget to Do (O'ReillyNet)

Tom Adelstein presents seven tips for system administrators in an O'Reilly article. "Do system administrators really forget to do basic tasks because they're lazy or do the pressures of the job keep them from getting everything done? Tom Adelstein explores the top seven tasks system administrators forget to do."

Comments (none posted)

Reviews

Metasploit 3.0 doesn't pwn systems, black hats pwn systems (Linux.com)

Linux.com reviews the Metasploit Framework v3.0. "Metasploit LLC released version 3.0 of the Metasploit Framework (MSF), the popular penetration testing project, late last month. Version 3.0 is a complete rewrite of the previous tools using primarily the Ruby programming language; versions 1 and 2 were written primarily in Perl. Also new are an experimental GUI, and perhaps the crowning jewel of the release, the db_autopwn module, which automates exploit discovery and execution."

Comments (none posted)

Mono developers to bring Silverlight to Linux (Ars Technica)

Ars Technica looks at the Mono Project's plans for a Silverlight browser plug-in. "Mono project lead developer Miguel de Icaza says that the Mono development community plans to have an experimental Linux-based Silverlight browser plug-in ready for testing by the end of the year. Silverlight, Microsoft's new .NET-based technology for rapid development of interactive rich media applications, is currently only supported on Windows and Mac OS X. The Mono developers intend to use the documentation published by Microsoft to create a plug-in that is compatible with Silverlight 1.1, which is currently still in early stages of development."

Comments (23 posted)

Miscellaneous

Certification on the upswing again (Linux.com)

Linux.com reports on the upswing in Linux certification. "After several years of decline, the demand for certification and training in GNU/Linux and other free software areas is stronger than ever. That's the general opinion of experts in the field, as they discuss where certification has been, current course offerings, customer services, and trends for the future. GNU/Linux certification emerged in the late 1990s as recognition of the operating system first became widespread. However, Jim Lacey, CEO of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI), notes that certification was "overmarketed and oversold," and its demand declined in the first years of the millennium."

Comments (none posted)

Page editor: Forrest Cook

Announcements

Non-Commercial announcements

EFF: 09 f9: A Legal Primer

The EFF has published 09 f9: A legal primer on the counterproductive attempts to suppress the spread of an HD-DVD decryption key. "Is the key copyrightable? It doesn't matter. The AACS-LA takedown letter is not claiming that the key is copyrightable, but rather that it is (or is a component of) a circumvention technology. The DMCA does not require that a circumvention technology be, itself, copyrightable to enjoy protection."

Comments (32 posted)

Volunteer opportunity: OLPC Nepal

For those who haven't made their plans for the summer yet: the One Laptop Per Child Nepal organization is looking for people to head over to the country and help get the project going. "Right now we have three full-time volunteer developers, all of them Nepali. We would love four (4) foreign volunteers to come work with us this summer in Kathmandu. We will pair each foreign volunteer with a Nepali intern. That should bring our content strike force to 11 people. That would really help us to advance OLPC in Nepal." When they say "volunteer" they mean it, though.

Full Story (comments: 3)

Commercial announcements

Allmydata, Inc. releases open-source distributed storage grid

Allmydata, Inc. has announced the first public release of their Tahoe secure, an open-source distributed storage grid system. "The source code that we are releasing is the current working prototype for Allmydata's next-generation product. This release is targeted at hackers who are willing to use a minimal, text-oriented web user interface."

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Dell Joins Microsoft and Novell Collaboration

Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. have announced that Dell Inc. is the first major systems provider to join the business collaboration that was formed by Microsoft and Novell. As part of the agreement, Dell will purchase SUSE Linux* Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft and establish a services and marketing program to migrate existing Linux users who are not Dell Linux customers to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

Comments (13 posted)

JasperSoft partners with SugarCRM

JasperSoft Corporation has announced a partnership with SugarCRM. "JasperSoft Corporation, the market leader in open source business intelligence (BI), today announced Jasper4SugarCRM, a high- performance reporting and analysis BI solution optimized for use with the SugarCRM Sugar Suite. Jasper4SugarCRM delivers a set of standard prebuilt reports and dashboards, ad hoc query and report creation, OLAP analysis, a secure report management repository, report scheduling, report distribution, and integration interfaces for PHP, Web Services, Java, and C/C++."

Comments (none posted)

Koobox.com celebrates 3 years selling pre-installed Linux PCs

Linspire, Inc. has announced three years of selling Linux PCs on Koobox.com. "Linspire, Inc., developer of the Linspire commercial and developer of CNR, a one-click digital software delivery service for desktop Linux programs, along with Mirus Innovations Inc., a leading North America PC manufacturer that brings innovative digital lifestyle products to consumer and small business customers with a focus on high-value and low-cost, today celebrate the Three Year Anniversary of Koobox.com selling Linux-only pre-installed desktop PCs to the mainstream consumer marketplace. An authorized Linspire system builder, Mirus pre-installed desktop Linux systems have been sold through various other mass merchant online retail stores over the years including Sears.com, Kmart.com, and HomeDepot.com."

Comments (none posted)

Public Meetings on Future of Mozilla Customer Support Announced (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine looks at the topic of Mozilla customer support. "Starting next week, the Mozilla Corporation will be hosting twice-weekly meetings to discuss the future of customer support for Mozilla products. Several different support mediums will be discussed in the conferences, including knowledge bases, forums and real-time chat. The meetings, which are open to all, will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the next three weeks. Notes will be published afterwards for those unable to make it."

Comments (none posted)

Mozilla and eBay Launch Firefox Companion for eBay (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine covers the launch of the Firefox Companion for eBay, at this point, no Linux versions appear to exist. "Mozilla Europe has announced the release of the first beta of the Firefox Companion for eBay in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The add-on for Firefox 2 offers a range of features to make it easier for users to participate in eBay auctions while browsing the Web. The most visible feature of the Firefox Companion for eBay is the eBay Sidebar, which lets users monitor items that they are bidding on, selling or watching, with details updated in real time."

Comments (none posted)

NETGEAR(R) to Acquire Infrant Technologies

NETGEAR, Inc. has announced an agreement to acquire Infrant Technologies, Inc. "Founded in March 2001 and based in Fremont, California, Infrant is dedicated to bringing enterprise-level storage technology to small businesses and professional home users at affordable prices. Its ReadyNAS(TM) family of network attached storage (NAS) products implements redundant array of independent disks (RAID) data protection, enabling users to store and protect critical data easily, efficiently and intelligently. The ReadyNAS lineup is powered by Infrant's proprietary network storage processor, Linux-based RAIDiator(TM) operating system and patent-pending Expandable Protection (X- RAID(TM)) technology, which allows for automatic RAID volume expansion as additional drives are added."

Comments (none posted)

Netscape Revives Navigator Brand for Netscape Navigator 9 (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine reports on the revival of the Netscape Navigator brand name. "The official Netscape Blog has announced that the next Netscape browser release will be called Netscape Navigator 9, reviving the name used for Netscape's earliest browser releases at the height of its popularity. Though many users have always referred to both the company and its flagship product as Netscape, the browser was officially called Netscape Navigator for its first three releases."

Comments (none posted)

Sun Java Real-Time System 2.0 announced

Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced the release of Sun Java Real-Time System 2.0 (Java RTS). "... a standards-based extension of the Java platform designed to help developers gain precise control over their Java software. This new release combines the power and scalability of the Solaris(TM) 10 Operating System (OS) with the flexibility of the Java platform to address a growing demand for predictable computing in industries such as aerospace, financial services and scientific research."

Comments (none posted)

Sun Microsystems announces OpenID Program

Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced a new OpenID Program. "Expanding its commitment to deliver secure web-scale identity management solutions, Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced a new initiative around support for OpenID, a decentralized, web-friendly single sign-on mechanism that allows consumers to reuse a single login across different websites, tackling the "login explosion" problem. OpenID is currently limited to facilitating low-risk transactions such as blog comments."

Comments (none posted)

Sun announces GlassFish Communications Application Server

Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced a new communications application server project. "Sun Microsystems, Inc., today announced a multi-faceted collaboration agreement with Ericsson to jointly develop an open source, Java(TM) technology-based communications application server as part of the GlassFish(TM) community. This open source contribution means Java software developers, Independent Software Vendors (ISV), System Integrators and individuals will have access to telecommunications technologies and resources to help accelerate the development of multimedia, VOIP, IM and next generation applications."

Comments (none posted)

Sun Unleashes Java Technology Innovations

Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced a preview of their JavaFX Java technology-based products. "The first of these, JavaFX Mobile, is a complete mobile phone software system available via OEM license to carriers, content owners and consumer electronics manufacturers. JavaFX leverages the security and ubiquity of the Java platform and will support all content and applications currently available across the billions of Java technology-based devices in the world today. Sun today also previewed JavaFX Script, a new scripting language targeted at creative professionals, which will help to radically simplify the process of creating and distributing interactive content that spans all Java technology enabled platforms, from handsets to set tops, laptops to dashboards."

Comments (none posted)

NetBeans IDE 6.0 preview release announced

Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced the release of version 6.0 (preview release) of the NetBeans IDE. "etBeans 6.0 IDE extends support beyond Java and C/C++ by providing a rich set of features for the Ruby and JavaScript dynamic scripting languages, and continues to enable developer productivity with ease-of-use and support for the latest Java Standards. Today we are also announcing further enhancements to the NetBeans GUI Builder which include full support for new desktop technologies, such as Beans Binding (JSR 295) and the Swing Application Framework (JSR 296)."

Comments (none posted)

Unicon Systems announces Linux mobile development kit

Unicon Systems has announced the availability of its Mobile Linux Development Kit. "MKitTM ($599) is the first and only unique mobile Linux development kit on the market. It gives professional developers and manufacturers the ability to create new handheld devices for industrial, security, educational and medical applications, as well as for various consumer electronics products. Unicon's patented, wireless, and mobile chip-on-film Linux computer is based on an ARM9 embedded CPU running full blown Linux 2.6 and attached to the back of a 3.5" touch screen. It is equipped with multiple connectivity options, including two 2.0 high-speed USB host ports and WiFi."

Full Story (comments: none)

New Books

The Myths of Innovation--New from O'Reilly

O'Reilly has published the book The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun.

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Programming Firefox - O'Reilly's Latest Release

O'Reilly has published the book Programming Firefox by Kenneth C. Feldt.

Full Story (comments: none)

Resources

Global summit of open source leaders releases free online report

The Organizers of Open Source Think Tank 2007 have announced a new paper on trends in commercial open source software. "The report [PDF], available online at no charge from Think Tank organizers Olliance Group and DLA Piper looks at how the fast-moving commercial open source industry has dramatically impacted business models, licensing and intellectual property issues, and adoption and usage models for open source software. Think Tank 2007 was supported by JasperSoft, Microsoft, NEC, Novell, OpenLogic, SugarCRM and Unisys. The summit was hosted by the Olliance Group, a leading open source management consulting firm, and DLA Piper, a global law firm with 3,200 lawyers in 24 countries and a leading advisor to the open source industry."

Comments (none posted)

Contests and Awards

Novell Technical Support wins praise

Novell, Inc. has announced the winning of awards by its technical support program. "Novell technical support has recently been recognized by both customers and leading industry groups for its quality, scope, and timeliness. The Association of Support Professionals has just named Novell as a "Best Web Support" winner for 2007, while the Help Desk Institute has honored Novell with its "Team Excellence Award for External Support." In addition, an independent customer study indicates that Novell support for Linux bests Red Hat and Oracle in overall quality, timeliness, and addressing the needs of mixed-source IT environments."

Comments (none posted)

Calls for Presentations

Netfilter Workshop 2007 in Karlsruhe, Germany

The Netfilter Workshop 2007 will take place in Karlsruhe, Germany on September 11-14, 2007. "The attendance is free but requires an invitation. You may consider attending if you are involved in any aspect of the Netfilter development. Please, send us an email to coreteam@netfilter.org before July 7th, 2007 (strict deadline). We have a very limited number of invitations!" A call for papers has also gone out for the event, submissions are due by July 7.

Full Story (comments: none)

Upcoming Events

LinuxConf Europe 2007

LinuxConf Europe is a new development-oriented conference put together as a joint effort by the folks who did the UKUUG and Linux-Kongress events. It will be happening September 2 to 4 in Cambridge, UK, immediately prior to the kernel summit. The call for papers is out now, with proposals due by May 20.

Comments (none posted)

The O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference

The O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference will be held in San Jose, California on June 18-20, 2007. "Among the keynotes are presentations from John Ingram, vice chairman of Ingram Industries, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia; Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine; Brian Murray, group publisher of HarperCollins Publishers; Erin McKean, editor-in-chief of United States Dictionaries for Oxford University Press; Bruce Chizen, CEO of Adobe Systems, Manolis Kelaidis, Designer, Royal College of Art, and Tim O'Reilly, CEO and founder of O'Reilly Media."

Full Story (comments: none)

Linux Installfest workshop in Davis, CA

The next Linux Users' Group of Davis Linux Installfest workshop will take place in Davis, California on Saturday, May 19.

Full Story (comments: none)

Events: May 17, 2007 to July 16, 2007

The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.

Date(s)EventLocation
May 14
May 25
The Pure Data Spring School 2007 Glasgow, Scotland
May 16
May 18
php|tek Chicago, IL, USA
May 17
May 20
RailsConf 2007 Portland, Oregon
May 18
May 19
eLiberatica Open Source and Free Software Conference Brasov, Romania
May 18
May 19
FreedomHEC Los Angeles, CA
May 18
May 19
BSDCan 2007 Ottawa, Canada
May 19
May 20
The 3rd International Workshop on Software Engineering for Secure Systems Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
May 19
May 20
Rockbox International Developers Conference 2007 Stockholm, Sweden
May 19 Grazer LinuxDays 2007 Graz, Austria
May 19
May 20
Make Magazine Maker Faire 2007 San Mateo, CA, USA
May 19 Linuxwochen Austria - Graz Graz, Austria
May 21
May 23
International PHP 2007 Conference Stuttgart, Germany
May 21
May 25
Python Bootcamp with David Beazley Atlanta, USA
May 22
May 23
Open Source Business Conference San Francisco, USA
May 22
May 24
Linux Days 2007, Geneva Geneva, Switzerland
May 23
May 24
PGCon 2007 Ottawa, ON, Canada
May 25 Linuxwochen Austria - Krems Krems, Austria
May 26 PAKCON III Karachi, Pakistan
May 29
May 30
Where 2.0 Conference San Jose, CA, USA
May 29
May 31
European ADempiere Developers Conference Berlin, Germany
May 29
May 30
I FLOSS CONFERENCE RESISTENCIA Resistencia, Argentina
May 30
June 2
Linuxtag Berlin, Germany
May 30
June 1
3rd UNIX Days Conference - Gdansk 2007 Gdansk, Poland
May 30
June 1
Linuxwochen Austria - Wien Wien, Austria
June 2
June 3
Journées Python Francophones Paris, France
June 9
June 10
PyCon Uno - First Python Italian conference Florence, Italy
June 10
June 15
DebCamp Edinburgh, Scotland
June 10 Pluto Meeting 2007 Padova, Italy
June 11
June 14
Third International Conference on Open Source Systems Limerick, Ireland
June 13
June 15
Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit Mountain View, CA, USA
June 16 DebianDay Edinburgh, Scotland
June 16 Firefox Developer Conference Tokyo, Japan
June 17
June 23
Debian Developer Conference Edinburgh, Scotland
June 17
June 22
2007 USENIX Annual Technical Conference Santa Clara, USA
June 18
June 20
O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference San Jose, CA, USA
June 18
June 20
Advanced Workshop on GCC Internals Bombay, India
June 20
June 22
IT Underground Dublin, Ireland
June 20 Open Source Showcase @ OpenAdvantage Birmingham, UK
June 23 Mozilla Developer Day Paris, France
June 25
June 27
SOA World Conference and Expo 2007 New York, NY, USA
June 27
June 30
2007 Linux Symposium Ottawa, Canada
June 27
June 29
Summer School of Sound Lancaster, UK
June 29 NLUUG event theme innovation Enschede Enschede, the Netherlands
June 30
July 7
Akademy 2007 Glasgow, Scotland
July 2
July 6
Learning Programming with PHP Redditch, Worcestershire, UK
July 6 II WHYFLOSS CONFERENCE MADRID Madrid, Spain
July 7 Italian PostgreSQL Day Prato, Tuscany, Italy
July 7
July 8
LugRadio Live 2007 Wolverhampton, United Kingdom
July 9
July 11
EuroPython 2007 Vilnius, Lithuania
July 9
July 13
PostgreSQL 8.2 Bootcamp at the Big Nerd Ranch Atlanta, USA
July 10
July 11
The Linux Foundation Japan Symposium Tokyo, Japan
July 12
July 13
IV GUADEC-ES Granada, Spain
July 12
July 13
DIMVA 2007 Lucerne, Switzerland
July 14 UK Gentoo Meeting 2007 London, UK
July 15
July 21
GNOME Users' And Developers' European Conference Birmingham, England

If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.

Web sites

Mozilla Japan's Foxkeh Mascot launches English website (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine notes the launch of the new Foxkeh web site. "Mozilla Foundation international affiliate Mozilla Japan has launched an English language website for Foxkeh, its cartoon mascot for promoting Mozilla Firefox. The site has English translations of some of the content already available on Foxkeh's Japanese website, including introductory Firefox videos, monthly calendar desktop wallpapers and an amazingly detailed flowchart illustrating the history of Firefox."

Comments (none posted)

quality.mozilla.org launches (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine has announced the launch of the alpha version of the quality.mozilla.org site. "The Mozilla Quality weblog has announced that an initial version of the quality.mozilla.org site has launched. Described as "pre-alpha", the quality.mozilla.org site (QMO for short) is intended to become a central portal for the Mozilla quality assurance community."

Comments (none posted)

Page editor: Forrest Cook

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Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
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