Subject: Re: NetBSD Security Advisory 1999-008
To: matthew green <mrg@eterna.com.au>
From: Stefan Grefen <grefen@hprc.tandem.com>
List: tech-security
Date: 04/13/1999 09:04:03
In message <26497.923972993@eterna.com.au> matthew green wrote:
>
> Topic: Kernel hang or panic in name lookup under certain circumstances
> Version: NetBSD 1.3.X, NetBSD-current to 19990409, and
> early versions of NetBSD-1.4_ALPHA
> Severity: In later versions of -current and in 1.4_ALPHA, unprivileged
> users can panic the system.
>
>
> Abstract
> ========
>
> Unprivileged users can trigger a file-system locking error, causing the
> system to panic or hang. The following command sequence will trigger
> the vulnerability:
>
> % ln -s ./ test
> % ln -s ./ test
You can also do a union mount (eg. mount -F union /usr/src /usr/sup/src) and
run concurrent lookup/create/change opertations on it. (eg. multiple makes or
a make and a find)
This will crash the system with locking errors after some time.
Having a mounted union-fs also prevents a clean shutdown.
As unionfs is known to be 'unstable' I haven't submited a PR.
Stefan
--
Stefan Grefen Tantau Software International Inc.
grefen@hprc.tandem.com stefan.grefen@tantau.de
--- Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge. ---