In its latest security announcement, SuSE Linux carries word of a new exploit affecting xli/xloadimage, and provides status reports and workarounds for security issues that have already been reported.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

______________________________________________________________________________

                        SuSE Security Announcement

        Package:                xli/xloadimage
        Announcement-ID:        SuSE-SA:2001:024
        Date:                   Tuesday, July 24th 2001 17:30 MEST
        Affected SuSE versions: (6.0, 6.1, 6.2,) 6.3, 6.4, 7.0, 7.1, 
7.2
        Vulnerability Type:     remote system compromise
        Severity (1-10):        3
        SuSE default package:   no
        Other affected systems: yes

        Content of this advisory:
        1) security vulnerability resolved: xli
           problem description, discussion, solution and upgrade 
information
        2) pending vulnerabilities, solutions, workarounds
        3) standard appendix (further information)

______________________________________________________________________________

1)  problem description, brief discussion, solution, upgrade 
information

  xli, aka xloadimage, a image viewer for X11 is used by Netscape's 
plugger
  to display TIFF-, PNG- and Sun-Raster-images. The plugger 
configuration
  file is /etc/pluggerrc.
  Due to missing boundary checks in the xli code a buffer overflow 
could be
  triggered by an external attacker to execute commands on the victim's
  system. An exploit is publically available.

  SuSE Linux is not vulnerable by default because of the different 
names.
  On SuSE Linux the command is called xli, while the plugger uses 
xloadimage.
    /etc/pluggerrc:
      exits: xloadimage -quiet -windowid $window $file

  If you have xloadimage installed on your system on your own, you 
should
  comment out the lines in /etc/pluggerrc, that contain xloadimage, for
  a temporary fix.

  Otherwise update the packages for your system.
  Nevertheless, it's recommended to leave the xloadimage entry in
  /etc/pluggerrc commented out, because of the potential risk the
  xloadimage code causes.


  i386 Intel Platform:

  SuSE-7.2
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.2/gra2/xli-1.16-351.i386.rpm
      d35b3ee5b02bfb1bf4f9d8ccefdfa889
    source rpm:
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.2/zq1/xli-1.16-351.src.rpm
      56b928a28cb32cc0103bfa89e74eee05

    SuSE-7.1
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.1/gra2/xli-1.16-351.i386.rpm
      5216c3ebdbd327506790107a927a0c2e
    source rpm:
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.1/zq1/xli-1.16-351.src.rpm
      c3ee309a35fdcf0652626f9712771523

    SuSE-7.0
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.0/gra2/xli-1.16-351.i386.rpm
      dffbd8a0c19d8df8141d4434107fb042
    source rpm:
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.0/zq1/xli-1.16-351.src.rpm
      410666ff06b1d050fd9cd6a16b190143

    SuSE-6.4
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.4/gra2/xli-1.16-351.i386.rpm
      8132e176e41d403978049345941679a0
    source rpm:
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.4/zq1/xli-1.16-351.src.rpm
      d40dc2e9b46b7a9818cfd73dac269758

    SuSE-6.3
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.3/gra2/xli-1.16-351.i386.rpm
      b7cb7b57c78d8d5b765941372d7d7559
    source rpm:
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.3/zq1/xli-1.16-351.src.rpm
      f8c47e0de4bfd59b40b0271aca133e36


    Sparc Platform:

    SuSE-7.1
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/update/7.1/gra2/xli-1.16-301.sparc.rpm
      7df3b152cf2e5e89582007fbeb59ec4c
    source rpm:
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/update/7.1/zq1/xli-1.16-301.src.rpm
      c110d3e3bfbc73f2a37cb91d468acd60

    SuSE-7.0
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/update/7.0/gra2/xli-1.16-300.sparc.rpm
      62d0e49f02a6c6491f1341a6f92aa3b0
    source rpm:
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/update/7.0/zq1/xli-1.16-300.src.rpm
      00201403e740d408f20e8ae77a63f77f


    AXP Alpha Platform:

    SuSE-7.1
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/7.1/gra2/xli-1.16-301.alpha.rpm
      fdc3bb5cd102fa3007c3fe5fb0ae999b
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/7.1/zq1/xli-1.16-301.src.rpm
      72e51e76005f216ea476ff0e2a9890ce

    SuSE-7.0
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/7.0/gra2/xli-1.16-301.alpha.rpm
      ba9efef4991ebc8fda02f00395468468
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/7.0/zq1/xli-1.16-301.src.rpm
      e4d369fd4080965f9a81ba5e97934245

    SuSE-6.4
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.4/gra2/xli-1.16-301.alpha.rpm
      2d37a2be14760c8f3f251c83e141502f
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.4/zq1/xli-1.16-301.src.rpm
      8abca3e1af92ccfea799c3b1da6f333e

    SuSE-6.3
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.3/gra2/xli-1.16-301.alpha.rpm
      76f134e228a39a440c517a3dc673b250
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.3/zq1/xli-1.16-301.src.rpm
      88dbb49098cc0120e72b4ac4b357c1d8


    PPC Power PC Platform:

    SuSE-7.1
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/7.1/gra2/xli-1.16-304.ppc.rpm
      52df89afc2aef3752bc968b7e179e85b
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/7.1/zq1/xli-1.16-304.src.rpm
      00d53cae7c9d856069f720abb746c173

    SuSE-7.0
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/7.0/gra2/xli-1.16-304.ppc.rpm
      065b0453669abfad9d7afd51f9712c22
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/7.0/zq1/xli-1.16-304.src.rpm
      d536054cff521e6f62cc01ef16f910ce

    SuSE-6.4
    
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/6.4/gra2/xli-1.16-304.ppc.rpm
      efbd1b48104f53cef252d3e40918303c
    source rpm:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/6.4/zq1/xli-1.16-304.src.rpm
      310f59a98f63b78d8d3f528aa85546c2


______________________________________________________________________________

2)  Pending vulnerabilities in SuSE Distributions and Workarounds:

  - dqs
    dex@raza-mexicana.org has found an exploitable buffer overflow bug 
in
    the dsh program from the dqs package on SuSE Linux distributions.
    To workaround the problem, do "chmod -s /usr/bin/dsh" and change 
the
    files /etc/permissions* to reflect the change. If you do not need 
the
    dqs package, then deinstall it (rpm -e dqs).
    Packages for most of the supported SuSE Linux distributions are
    available at the usual location 
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse//
    for download and installation/update. Do not forget to change the 
files
    /etc/permissions* to remove the suid-bit from the dsh program. 
Please
    note that we will not issue a dedicated security announcement for 
this
    specific bug.


  - pcp
    Paul Starzetz discovered a security weakness in the setuid root 
program
    /usr/share/pcp/bin/pmpost. The common library in pcp trusts the
    environment that has been supplied by the user, regardless of 
privileged
    execution or not. By consequence, a user can specify the 
configuration
    file and therefore write to files owned by root. The problem is not 
based
    on insecurely following symlinks as stated by Paul Starzetz.
    The pcp package is not installed by default in SuSE Linux 
distributions.
    We have provided update packages for the SuSE Linux distributions 
version
    7.1 and 7.2 that remove the setuid bit from the pmpost binary. 
Versions
    before SuSE-7.1 were not affected because the setuid bit was not 
set.
    We thank Keith Owens and Mark Goodwin from Silicon Graphics for 
responding
    quickly and for publishing a new version of the pcp package which 
will
    be included in future releases of the SuSE Linux distribution. For 
more
    information see the /usr/share/doc/packages/pcp directory of your 
SuSE
    Linux installation after installing the update package, or go to
    obtained from http://oss.sgi.com/projects/pcp/download .
    Please note that there will not be a dedicated security 
announcement
    for this specific bug.


  - fetchmail (fetchml)
    New fetchmail packages are available on the ftp server. The 
packages
    cure a buffer overflow that can be exploited by sending a victim a
    specially designed email, waiting for the victim's fetchmail 
program
    to pick up the email. We are preparing a security announcement for 
this
    problem.


  - openssh
    update packages for the openssh package after (and including) 
SuSE-6.4
    are available on our ftp servers ftp.suse.de (for < 7.1) or
    ftp.suse.com (for >= 7.1). We are currently checking for a 
non-security
    related irregularity in sshd's behaviour under faulty setup 
conditions.


  - exim
    SuSE Linux distributions do not contain the exim Mail Transport 
Agent
    (See http://www.exim.org/ for details) and are therefore not 
susceptible
    to the recently found security-related bugs.


  - webmin
    SuSE Linux distributions do not contain the webmin administration
    web frontend (See http://www.webmin.org/ for details) and are 
therefore
    not vulnerable to the recently found security-related problems in 
the
    software.


______________________________________________________________________________

3)  standard appendix: authenticity verification, additional 
information

  - Package authenticity verification:

    SuSE update packages are available on many mirror ftp servers all 
over
    the world. While this service is being considered valuable and 
important
    to the free and open source software community, many users wish to 
be
    sure about the origin of the package and its content before 
installing
    the package. There are two verification methods that can be used
    independently from each other to prove the authenticity of a 
downloaded
    file or rpm package:
    1) md5sums as provided in the (cryptographically signed) 
announcement.
    2) using the internal gpg signatures of the rpm package.

    1) execute the command
        md5sum <name-of-the-file.rpm>
       after you downloaded the file from a SuSE ftp server or its 
mirrors.
       Then, compare the resulting md5sum with the one that is listed 
in the
       announcement. Since the announcement containing the checksums is
       cryptographically signed (usually using the key 
security@suse.de),
       the checksums show proof of the authenticity of the package.
       We disrecommend to subscribe to security lists which cause the
       email message containing the announcement to be modified so that
       the signature does not match after transport through the mailing
       list software.
       Downsides: You must be able to verify the authenticity of the
       announcement in the first place. If RPM packages are being 
rebuilt
       and a new version of a package is published on the ftp server, 
all
       md5 sums for the files are useless.

    2) rpm package signatures provide an easy way to verify the 
authenticity
       of an rpm package. Use the command
        rpm -v --checksig <file.rpm>
       to verify the signature of the package, where <file.rpm> is the
       filename of the rpm package that you have downloaded. Of course,
       package authenticity verification can only target an uninstalled 
rpm
       package file.
       Prerequisites:
        a) gpg is installed
        b) The package is signed using a certain key. The public part 
of this
           key must be installed by the gpg program in the directory
           ~/.gnupg/ under the user's home directory who performs the
           signature verification (usually root). You can import the 
key
           that is used by SuSE in rpm packages for SuSE Linux by 
saving
           this announcement to a file ("announcement.txt") and
           running the command (do "su -" to be root):
            gpg --batch; gpg < announcement.txt | gpg --import
           SuSE Linux distributions version 7.1 and thereafter install 
the
           key "build@suse.de" upon installation or upgrade, provided 
that
           the package gpg is installed. The file containing the public 
key
           is placed at the toplevel directory of the first CD 
(pubring.gpg)
           and at ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/pubring.gpg-build.suse.de 
.


  - SuSE runs two security mailing lists to which any interested party 
may
    subscribe:

    suse-security@suse.com
        -   general/linux/SuSE security discussion.
            All SuSE security announcements are sent to this list.
            To subscribe, send an email to
                <suse-security-subscribe@suse.com>.

    suse-security-announce@suse.com
        -   SuSE's announce-only mailing list.
            Only SuSE's security annoucements are sent to this list.
            To subscribe, send an email to
                <suse-security-announce-subscribe@suse.com>.

    For general information or the frequently asked questions (faq)
    send mail to:
        <suse-security-info@suse.com> or
        <suse-security-faq@suse.com> respectively.

    ===================================================
    SuSE's security contact is <security@suse.com>.
    The <security@suse.com> public key is listed below.
    ===================================================
______________________________________________________________________________

    The information in this advisory may be distributed or reproduced,
    provided that the advisory is not modified in any way. In 
particular,
    it is desired that the cleartext signature shows proof of the
    authenticity of the text.
    SuSE GmbH makes no warranties of any kind whatsoever with respect
    to the information contained in this security advisory.

Type Bits/KeyID    Date       User ID
pub  2048R/3D25D3D9 1999-03-06 SuSE Security Team <security@suse.de>
pub  1024D/9C800ACA 2000-10-19 SuSE Package Signing Key <build@suse.de>

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Bye,
     Thomas
-- 
  Thomas Biege, SuSE GmbH, Schanzaeckerstr. 10, 90443 Nuernberg
  E@mail: thomas@suse.de      Function: Security Support & Auditing
  "lynx -source http://www.suse.de/~thomas/contact/thomas.asc | pgp 
-fka"
  Key fingerprint = 51 AD B9 C7 34 FC F2 54  01 4A 1C D4 66 64 09 84


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Industry Canada reports that the Government of Canada is considering a digital copyright law, with the stated intent of “prevent[ing] the circumvention of technologies used to protect copyright material,” among other purposes.

– By Grant Gross –

The last remains of the Indrema Linux console project are being shut down, as Indrema partner CollabNet plans to close the idn.indrema.com and gamexchange.indrema.com Web sites shortly.

Both appear to be mostly ghost sites. Before an announcement of the shut-down sent out Monday, the last message in the Indrema discuss mailing list archive at idn.indrema.com was June 1. Even the latest announcement from project hosting service CollabNet, which told subscribers to send questions to the list, generated no response.

Over at gamexchange.indrema.com, there are about 30 commercial projects and about 20 freeware projects listed on the hosted projects page, but most appear to be inactive.

“Nobody has been using the idn.indrema.com site for a long time,” says David Boswell, project manager for CollabNet. “There might still be people using the gamexchange.indrema.com site, though. It’s hard to tell there. there are a lot of projects that have been started there but not much source code in any of them.”

Indrema, which tried to develop a Linux gaming/Web console, shut down in April after running out of cash. Company founder John Gildred said then that Indrema would need more than $10 million to stay afloat.

Boswell promised to check for active projects at gamexchange.indrema.com before shutting it down. Those with concerns about the shut-down should contact Boswell through the discuss@idn.indrema.com mailing list.

“We tried hard to find someone else to pick up the site after
Indrema announced bankruptcy, but unfortunately no one could justify
spending the money on it right now, although there was certainly a lot
of interest in hosting it when we asked around,” Boswell adds. “CollabNet has kept the sites going without a sponsor as long as
possible, but at this point we just need to turn them off.

“I’m coordinating on archiving all the data from both sites and finding a home for it so
people can still get to the data when the sites are down. I’ve enjoyed
working on this project for almost a year now, so it’s sad to see it go, but I
guess that’s just how things are going this year.”

A beta version of the K Desktop Environment (KDE) 1.1.2 for Cygwin is now available from the project’s SourceForge home page. Cygwin is the name given to the POSIX emulation layer for windows, including the Qt library and XFree86 server.

The latest beta release of the Linux Standard Base Filesystem Hierarchy test suite(LSB-FHS) for FHS 2.2 is now available from The Open Group. This release aligns LSB-FHS with the version 2.2 specs of FHS. Read the full post at Linux Weekly News.

This Week’s Summary: CNET analysis of MandrakeSoft’s IPO; PPC “Release Candidate” available
soon; Spotlight on the Clara OCR Free Software project; Business Case of the Week;
Security-related software updates; MandrakeForum headlines. Mandrake in the News
—————————————-
CNET provides
an analysis of MandrakeSoft’s Initial Public Offering: — French Linux company braves IPO
waters — “When I look at the consolidation of the Linux market, I think MandrakeSoft is one of
the few companies that will survive, even though Red Hat has become the de facto standard for
enterprise”.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6627298.html?tag=mn_hd

What’s Cooking at MandrakeSoft?
—————————————-
Mandrake Linux PPC “Release Candidate” available soon. The final Mandrake Linux PPC beta
will soon be released; this is your last chance to test this new port of Mandrake Linux 8.0 and
report any bugs and/or suggestions. The Release Candidate contains the following changes from
the previous beta: * Improved modem detection. * Reworked CD boot scheme to accommodate
newer machines. * Post-install X configuration via XFdrake. * Reworked installer to accommodate
“OldWorld” machines and alternate bootloader setups. * Reworked installer to accommodate
complicated partition map setups. * Security updates. * Added kernel 2.4.4 with PPC specific
patches for video drivers. * Patched xmms for wave/mp3 files. * Many other changes based on
Beta user feedback.

For information on how to get involved, please see the PPC Beta FAQ:
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/demos/PPC/FAQ/

Spotlight on the Clara OCR Free Software project
—————————————-
One of the many exciting Free Software
projects that MandrakeSoft sponsors is Clara OCR. Clara OCR is a free (GPL) Optical Character
Recognition program for Linux/Unix. It features a powerful GUI and a web interface for cooperative
digitalization of printed materials. Clara OCR development started in 1999 and is approaching
production level.

Everyone is invited to test Clara OCR and participate in the project. To learn more about Clara
OCR, please visit the website at http://www.claraocr.org/ where you can view screenshots, read
the FAQ and online tutorial. The project’s announcement page is also available.

Business Case of the Week
—————————————-
“Mandrake
is becoming a consultant’s dream.” A computer consultant recommends Mandrake Linux to his
clients for gateways, DNS, email, web, FTP and database duties: “Every site that called me with a
problem today was running IIS+Windows on their LAN and had contracted the Code Red Worm. I
have sites still running their original Mandrake 6.0 installation (plus updates), and they only ever
call me for problems with the few remaining Windows workstations on their LAN, or for hardware
failures.”
http://www.mandrakebizcases.com/article.php?sid=126&mode=thread&order=0

Read many more examples of Mandrake Linux in the workplace at:
http://www.MandrakeBizCases.com/

If you use MandrakeSoft products in your business, please share your story by submitting your
own personal “Bizcase”.

Software Updates
—————————————-
Security-related
software updates have been released for Tripwire and OpenSSL. See the entire list at:
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/security/mdk-updates.php3?dis=8.0

Top Stories of the Week from MandrakeForum
—————————————-
Ximian Gnome for Mandrake 8.0. A
reader writes: “Does anyone know the status of Ximian Gnome and Mandrake 8.0? I have been
watching Ximian’s web site and they said that a port was being worked on. I have also seen
messages over the last couple of months with no replies. Is this a project that Mandrake is working
on or is it low on the list for the Ximian folks?”

http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1102&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

MandrakeSoft IPO confirmed. Jacques Le Marois (CEO of MandrakeSoft) makes an important
announcement: “I am proud to announce that we have received the “Visa COB” yesterday
evening to go public on the French Marché Libre. We will be listed on the market July 30th.
Mandrakesoft will be the first Linux company listed in Europe on a public market.”
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1099&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

IDE-RAID for Mandrake 8.0. A user asks for advice about IDE-RAID controllers that work with
Mandrake 8.0. Civileme responds with some helpful tips & links, and several users share their
experiences.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1097&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

How would YOU advertise Linux for the Desktop? Putting Linux on a server instead of
windows is a “no-brainer”: a Linux box will provide everything that a Windows box can, and
more, for a fraction of cost and no one except the system administrator knows what runs on a
server machine anyway. But, how would YOU make people switch over from Windows to Linux?
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1096&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

APT vs. URPMI article at Linux.com. Linux.com provides a brief article comparing the software
package management applications URPMI and APT. It’s worth reading, if for nothing else than the
description of the “auto-select” feature of urpmi.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1094&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Fun with regular expressions. “It’s dark and rainy day, and Civileme just came for a
“bug-reports” chat before Cider-bust party. As usually, this brought up some really weird facts,
and I’m sure you are going to LOVE this one:”
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1093&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Which Mandrake product should be used for a server? An anonymous user writes “I am setting
up an Internet server that will act as a web, ftp, smtp, etc server and I was curious as to which
Mandrake product would work best for this.”
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1092&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Ad blocker for Linux??? Several readers submit very good ideas for blocking advertisements
while surfing the Web.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1084&mode=&order=0&thold=0

Windows2000/NT and Mandrake 8.0 on the same disk. Users describe how to manage two,
three, and even four operating systems on the same PC.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1083&mode=&order=0&thold=0

Read these and other stories at:
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/

Latest headlines from the Linux-Mandrake Demo & Tutorial Center
—————————————-
A tutorial about the Mandrake
Software Manager has been translated into Spanish and is now available:
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/es/demos/Spotlight/SoftwareMgr/

———————————–

The latest version of MOSIX for the latest version of the Linux kernel is now available for download. MOSIX is a collection of software packages that enhance the Linux kernel, and enable scalable cluster computing for that operating system. Complete information available at mosix.org. Changelog below:

MOSIX 1.1.0 for Linux 2.4.7 (July 23, 2001)

     Upgrade to Linux 2.4.7 
     Fixed the "file-leak" 
     Fixed a "umask" bug in DFSA 
     Support new option (as in 2.2) to be able to "select" when other processes attempt to read a pipe 
     Fixed several drivers that did not behave well with MOSIX 

Help Net Security has posted an interesting message from system admin Daniel Wittenberg, who discovered that the commercial version of Knox Software’s Arkeia bakcup software creates most of its database files with permissions of 666. Apparently, Knox isn’t very interested in hearing about this issue: When Wittenberg called the company to let them know of the problem, he was basically told they didn’t want to talk to him because he had not purchased a support contract.

PC Magazine has commentary from John Dvorak: “The group could be called the Internet Class, the Digital Age Workers, or
even the Digerati–a term popularized by writer/agent John Brockman in his book of the same
title, which profiles the elite of the technology world. In the newest sense of the term, if you are
reading this column, you would quite likely be categorized as one of the digerati. And
apparently, you are about to become important, as a group, to politicos. Maybe now is the time
to organize into a massive pressure group.”

Thank you, Sircam, may I have another? While Linux users have been merely annoyed at the proliferation of Word documents littering their inboxes the past few days, the Sircam worm continues to wreak havoc on computers running Microsoft’s operating system and Outlook e-mail client. The Globe and Mail reports that Sircam has gone from being something of an irritation last week to become Asia’s top computer security problem, and Trend Micro’s tracking service has logged more than 2,200 reports of new infections within the last 24 hours.