4.3 - RHSA-2008:0715

Problem Description:

An updated nss_ldap package that fixes a security issue and several bugs is now available.

This update has been rated as having low security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

2. Relevant releases/architectures:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 - i386, ia64, ppc, s390, s390x, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop version 4 - i386, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 - i386, ia64, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 - i386, ia64, x86_64

3. Description:

The nss_ldap package contains the nss_ldap and pam_ldap modules. The nss_ldap module is a plug-in which allows applications to retrieve information about users and groups from a directory server. The pam_ldap module allows PAM-aware applications to use a directory server to verify user passwords.

A race condition was discovered in nss_ldap, which affected certain applications that make LDAP connections, such as Dovecot. This could cause nss_ldap to answer a request for information about one user with the information about a different user. (CVE-2007-5794)

As well, this updated package fixes the following bugs:

* in certain situations, on Itanium(R) architectures, when an application performed an LDAP lookup for a highly populated group, for example, containing more than 150 members, the application crashed, or may have caused a segmentation fault. As well, this issue may have caused commands, such as "ls", to return a "ber_free_buf: Assertion" error.

* when an application enumerated members of a netgroup, the nss_ldap module returned a successful status result and the netgroup name, even when the netgroup did not exist. This behavior was not consistent with other modules. In this updated package, nss_ldap no longer returns a successful status when the netgroup does not exist.

* in master and slave server environments, with systems that were configured to use a read-only directory server, if user log in attempts were denied because their passwords had expired, and users attempted to immediately change their passwords, the replication server returned an LDAP referral, instructing the pam_ldap module to resissue its request to a different server; however, the pam_ldap module failed to do so. In these situations, an error such as the following occurred:

LDAP password information update failed: Can't contact LDAP server Insufficient 'write' privilege to the 'userPassword' attribute of entry [entry]

In this updated package, password changes are allowed when binding against a slave server, which resolves this issue.

* when a system used a directory server for naming information, and "nss_initgroups_ignoreusers root" was configured in "/etc/ldap.conf", dbus-daemon-1 would hang. Running the "service messagebus start" command did not start the service, and it did not fail, which would stop the boot process if it was not cancelled.

As well, this updated package upgrades nss_ldap to the version as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

Users of nss_ldap are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which resolves these issues.

4. Solution:

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_58_10188

5. Bugs fixed (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/):

155187 - CVE-2007-5794 nss_ldap randomly replying with wrong user's data [rhel-4.7] 233382 - nss_ldap crashes on large groups (IA64) 253997 - nss_ldap / setnetgrent() returns always 1 despite not retrieving any valid results. 367461 - CVE-2007-5794 nss_ldap randomly replying with wrong user's data 401731 - Rebase nss_ldap to RHEL 5.2 version 429101 - dbus-daemon-1 hangs when using the option nss_initgroups_ignoreusers in /etc/ldap.conf with the user root