Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sun, 19 Jul 2009 23:49:14 +0000 | From | Willy Tarreau <> | Subject | Linux 2.4.37.3 |
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Linux 2.4.37.3 has just been released.
The main fixes are the addition of '-fno-delete-null-pointer-checks' to gcc CFLAGS to prevent it from removing important checks and opening security issues, and fixes to the r8169 driver in relation with CVE-2009-1389. The rest are minor fixes for br2684, vlan and usb.
The addition of the gcc flag already revealed that it was previously hiding a possible null dereference in journal.c (which is apparently not the case, and 2.6 has removed the test). The rest of the code needs to be compared with/without the option in order to track possible dereference bugs hidden by default. The addition of this option will not make the code more nor less stable, it just reduces the risk that a bug normally causing an oops or panic would be maliciously exploited to gain privileges.
The second major issue concerns the r8169 driver. Approximately one month ago was revealed an issue with this driver, causing kernel panics and possibly more if too large frames were sent to the chip (CVE-2009-1389). 2.4 was not affected by the bug, but showed the same symptoms. It turned out that there were multiple issues with the setting of RX descriptors after reuse, and some recent 2.6 fixes allowing automatic recovery were missing. So after two long days trying to figure out why that damn chip insisted in writing more bytes than allowed (and crashing my box), I could spot and fix the issues.
If there are 2.4 users with this cheap NIC, I strongly suggest that they upgrade, especially if they're used to encounter freezes or lack of network connectivity once in a while ; for others, well, do not buy that NIC.
Last, while reviewing gcc flags, I might have found a solution to make gcc 4.2 produce correct code on 2.4. There's nothing certain yet, I still have to run a lot of tests. Volunteers are welcome, as usual.
The patch and changelog will appear soon at the following locations: ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/ ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/patch-2.4.37.3.bz2 ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/ChangeLog-2.4.37.3
Git repository: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-2.4.37.y.git http://www.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-2.4.37.y.git
Git repository through the gitweb interface: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-2.4.37.y.git
Willy --
Summary of changes from v2.4.37.2 to v2.4.37.3 ============================================
Arne Redlich (2): vlan: Slab memleak fix br2684: allocation out of atomic context
Eugene Teo (1): Add '-fno-delete-null-pointer-checks' to gcc CFLAGS
Frank Seidel (1): br2684: fix double freeing skb
Mario Witkowski (1): usb: pr_debug ehci structure bug
Rudolf Svanda (1): usb: Add support for Teac HD-35PU
Willy Tarreau (7): r8169: fix erroneous receive packet size settings r8169: reject fragmented frames to prevent panics with large frames r8169: avoid rx descriptors leak when receiving erroneous frames r8169: reset the chip on receive fifo overflows r8169: rate-limit the messages displayed in interrupt context lib: export memcmp for external modules to build with gcc 3.4 Change VERSION to 2.4.37.3
serue@us.ibm.com (1): agp: remove uid comparison as security check
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