| Description: | The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system.
This update fixes the following security issues:
Buffer overflow flaws were found in the udf_load_logicalvol() function in the Universal Disk Format (UDF) file system implementation in the Linux kernel. An attacker with physical access to a system could use these flaws to cause a denial of service or escalate their privileges. (CVE-2012-3400, Low)
This update also fixes the following bugs:
Previously, race conditions could sometimes occur in interrupt handling on the Emulex BladeEngine 2 (BE2) controllers, causing the network adapter to become unresponsive. This update provides a series of patches for the be2net driver, which prevents the race from occurring. The network cards using BE2 chipsets no longer hang due to incorrectly handled interrupt events. (BZ#884704)
A boot-time memory allocation pool (the DMI heap) is used to keep the list of Desktop Management Interface (DMI) devices during the system boot. Previously, the size of the DMI heap was only 2048 bytes on the AMD64 and Intel 64 architectures and the DMI heap space could become easily depleted on some systems, such as the IBM System x3500 M2. A subsequent OOM failure could, under certain circumstances, lead to a NULL pointer entry being stored in the DMI device list. Consequently, scanning of such a corrupted DMI device list resulted in a kernel panic. The boot-time memory allocation pool for the AMD64 and Intel 64 architectures has been enlarged to 4096 bytes and the routines responsible for populating the DMI device list have been modified to skip entries if their name string is NULL. The kernel no longer panics in this scenario. (BZ#902683)
The size of the buffer used to print the kernel taint output on kernel panic was too small, which resulted in the kernel taint output not being printed completely sometimes. With this update, the size of the buffer has been adjusted and the kernel taint output is now displayed properly. (BZ#905829)
The code to print the kernel taint output contained a typographical error. Consequently, the kernel taint output, which is displayed on kernel panic, could not provide taint error messages for unsupported hardware. This update fixes the typo and the kernel taint output is now displayed correctly. (BZ#885063)
Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.
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