4.4 - RHSA-2011:1005

Problem Description:

An updated sysstat package that fixes one security issue, various bugs, and adds one enhancement is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in the References section.

2. Relevant releases/architectures:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) - i386, ia64, ppc, s390x, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) - i386, x86_64

3. Description:

The sysstat package contains a set of utilities which enable system monitoring of disks, network, and other I/O activity.

It was found that the sysstat initscript created a temporary file in an insecure way. A local attacker could use this flaw to create arbitrary files via a symbolic link attack. (CVE-2007-3852)

This update fixes the following bugs:

* On systems under heavy load, the sadc utility would sometimes output the following error message if a write() call was unable to write all of the requested input:

"Cannot write data to system activity file: Success."

In this updated package, the sadc utility tries to write the remaining input, resolving this issue. (BZ#454617)

* On the Itanium architecture, the "sar -I" command provided incorrect information about the interrupt statistics of the system. With this update, the "sar -I" command has been disabled for this architecture, preventing this bug. (BZ#468340)

* Previously, the "iostat -n" command used invalid data to create statistics for read and write operations. With this update, the data source for these statistics has been fixed, and the iostat utility now returns correct information. (BZ#484439)

* The "sar -d" command used to output invalid data about block devices. With this update, the sar utility recognizes disk registration and disk overflow statistics properly, and only correct and relevant data is now displayed. (BZ#517490)

* Previously, the sar utility set the maximum number of days to be logged in one month too high. Consequently, data from a month was appended to data from the preceding month. With this update, the maximum number of days has been set to 25, and data from a month now correctly replaces data from the preceding month. (BZ#578929)

* In previous versions of the iostat utility, the number of NFS mount points was hard-coded. Consequently, various issues occurred while iostat was running and NFS mount points were mounted or unmounted; certain values in iostat reports overflowed and some mount points were not reported at all. With this update, iostat properly recognizes when an NFS mount point mounts or unmounts, fixing these issues. (BZ#675058, BZ#706095, BZ#694767)

* When a device name was longer than 13 characters, the iostat utility printed a redundant new line character, making its output less readable. This bug has been fixed and now, no extra characters are printed if a long device name occurs in iostat output. (BZ#604637)

* Previously, if kernel interrupt counters overflowed, the sar utility provided confusing output. This bug has been fixed and the sum of interrupts is now reported correctly. (BZ#622557)

* When some processors were disabled on a multi-processor system, the sar utility sometimes failed to provide information about the CPU activity. With this update, the uptime of a single processor is used to compute the statistics, rather than the total uptime of all processors, and this bug no longer occurs. (BZ#630559)

* Previously, the mpstat utility wrongly interpreted data about processors in the system. Consequently, it reported a processor that did not exist. This bug has been fixed and non-existent CPUs are no longer reported by mpstat. (BZ#579409)

* Previously, there was no easy way to enable the collection of statistics about disks and interrupts. Now, the SADC_OPTIONS variable can be used to set parameters for the sadc utility, fixing this bug. (BZ#598794)

* The read_uptime() function failed to close its open file upon exit. A patch has been provided to fix this bug. (BZ#696672)

This update also adds the following enhancement:

* With this update, the cifsiostat utility has been added to the sysstat package to provide CIFS (Common Internet File System) mount point I/O statistics. (BZ#591530)

All sysstat users are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which contains backported patches to correct these issues and add this enhancement.

4. Solution:

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

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259

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

251200 - CVE-2007-3852 sysstat insecure temporary file usage 454617 - [RHEL5] Though function write() executed sucessful, sadc end with an error. 484439 - iostat -n enhancement not report NFS client stats correctly 517490 - The 'sar -d ' command outputs invalid data 578929 - March sar data was appended to February data 579409 - The sysstat's programs such as mpstat shows one extra cpu. 598794 - Enable parametrization of sadc arguments 604637 - extraneous newline in iostat report for long device names 622557 - sar interrupt count goes backward 630559 - 'sar -P ALL -f xxxx ' does not display activity information. 675058 - iostat: bogus value appears when device is unmounted/mounted 694767 - iostat doesn't report statistics for shares with long names 696672 - Resource leak 706095 - iostat -n - values in output overflows