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             AUSCERT External Security Bulletin Redistribution

            ESB-2001.233 -- Debian Security Advisory DSA-059-1
                           man-db symlink attack
                               13 June 2001

===========================================================================

        AusCERT Security Bulletin Summary
        ---------------------------------

Product:                man-db
Vendor:                 Debian
Operating System:       Debian GNU/Linux 2.2
                        Linux
Platform:               Alpha
                        Arm
                        i386
                        m68k
                        PowerPC
                        Sparc
Impact:                 Create Arbitrary Files

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Debian Security Advisory DSA-059-1                   security@debian.org
http://www.debian.org/security/                         Wichert Akkerman
June 12, 2001
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Package        : man-db
Problem type   : symlink attack
Debian-specific: no

Luki R. reported a bug in man-db: it did handle nested calls of
drop_effective_privs() and regain_effective_privs() correctly which
would cause it to regain privileges to early. This could be abused
to make man create files as user man.

This has been fixed in version 2.3.16-4, and we recommend that you 
upgrade your man-db package immediately. If you use suidmanager you 
can also use that to make sure man and mandb are not installed suid
which protects you from this problem. This can be done with the
following commands:

   suidregister /usr/lib/man-db/man root root 0755
   suidregister /usr/lib/man-db/mandb root root 0755
    
Of course even when using suidmanager an upgrade is still strongly 
recommended.

wget url
        will fetch the file for you
dpkg -i file.deb
        will install the referenced file.


Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 alias potato
- - ---------------------------------

  Potato was released for alpha, arm, i386, m68k, powerpc and sparc.

  Source archives:
    http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/source/man-db_2.3.16-4.dsc
      MD5 checksum: 1ab2ce2ae42f04788123ca846481dfbb
    http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/source/man-db_2.3.16-4.tar.gz
      MD5 checksum: 88449c2f090bfb620980996c78fc8193

  Alpha architecture:
    http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-alpha/man-db_2.3.16-4_alpha.deb
      MD5 checksum: 4cfb3906c406b75917f9c58cb1486f36

  ARM architecture:
    http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-arm/man-db_2.3.16-4_arm.deb
      MD5 checksum: 3edfbd8f52b2636ff6a5bc27f9fa1aaa

  Intel IA-32 architecture:
    http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-i386/man-db_2.3.16-4_i386.deb
      MD5 checksum: 652668ab57978209225b4cce92afd7f2

  Motorola 680x0 architecture:
    http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-m68k/man-db_2.3.16-4_m68k.deb
      MD5 checksum: 613fed5e773cb31ac50e8c29edfd35c5

  PowerPC architecture:
    http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-powerpc/man-db_2.3.16-4_powerpc.deb
      MD5 checksum: d70fd2e5b6df82841e628c2a7a9bca97

  Sun Sparc architecture:
    http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-sparc/man-db_2.3.16-4_sparc.deb
      MD5 checksum: 02168687d2c2f72d49337b7ce14d01ca
  These packages will be moved into the stable distribution on its next
  revision.

For not yet released architectures please refer to the appropriate
directory ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/sid/binary-$arch/ .

- - -- 
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apt-get: deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main
dpkg-ftp: ftp://security.debian.org/debian-security dists/stable/updates/main
Mailing list: debian-security-announce@lists.debian.org

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