Gentoo Weekly Newsletter: May 24, 2004

Yuji Carlos Kosugi  Editor
AJ Armstrong  Contributor
Brian Downey  Contributor
Stuart Herbert  Contributor
Kurt Lieber  Contributor
David Narayan  Contributor
Ulrich Plate  Contributor
Simon Holm Thagersen  Danish Translation
Jesper Brodersen  Danish Translation
Arne Mejlholm  Danish Translation
Hendrik Eeckhaut  Dutch Translation
Jorn Eilander  Dutch Translation
Bernard Kerckenaere  Dutch Translation
Peter ter Borg  Dutch Translation
Jochen Maes  Dutch Translation
Roderick Goessen  Dutch Translation
Gerard van den Berg  Dutch Translation
Matthieu Montaudouin  French Translation
Xavier Neys  French Translation
Martin Prieto  French Translation
Antoine Raillon  French Translation
Sebastien Cevey  French Translation
Jean-Christophe Choisy  French Translation
Thomas Raschbacher German Translation
Steffen Lassahn German Translation
Matthias F. Brandstetter German Translation
Lukas Domagala German Translation
Tobias Scherbaum German Translation
Daniel Gerholdt German Translation
Marc Herren German Translation
Tobias Matzat German Translation
Marco Mascherpa  Italian Translation
Claudio Merloni  Italian Translation
Stefano Lucidi  Italian Translation
Katuyuki Konno  Japanese Translation
Hiroyuki Takeda  Japanese Translation
Masato Hatakeyama  Japanese Translation
Masayoshi Nakamura  Japanese Translation
Yasunori Fukudome  Japanese Translation
Tomoyuki Sakurai  Japanese Translation
Lukasz Strzygowski  Polish Translation
Karol Goralski  Polish Translation
Atila "Jedi" Bohlke Vasconcelos  Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Eduardo Belloti  Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
João Rafael Moraes Nicola  Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Marcelo Gonçalves de Azambuja  Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Otavio Rodolfo Piske  Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Pablo N. Hess -- NatuNobilis  Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Pedro de Medeiros  Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Ventura Barbeiro  Portuguese (Brazil) Translation
Bruno Ferreira  Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Gustavo Felisberto  Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
José Costa  Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Luis Medina  Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Ricardo Loureiro  Portuguese (Portugal) Translation
Aleksandr Martyncev  Russian Translator
Sergey Galkin  Russian Translator
Sergey Kuleshov  Russian Translator
Alex Spirin  Russian Translator
Denis Zaletov  Russian Translator
Lanark  Spanish Translation
Fernando J. Pereda  Spanish Translation
Lluis Peinado Cifuentes  Spanish Translation
Zephryn Xirdal T  Spanish Translation
Guillermo Juarez  Spanish Translation
Jesús García Crespo  Spanish Translation
Carlos Castillo  Spanish Translation
Julio Castillo  Spanish Translation
Sergio Gómez  Spanish Translation
Aycan Irican  Turkish Translation
Bugra Cakir  Turkish Translation
Cagil Seker  Turkish Translation
Emre Kazdagli  Turkish Translation
Evrim Ulu  Turkish Translation
Gursel Kaynak  Turkish Translation

Updated 24 May 2004

1.  Gentoo News

Various Gentoo Documentation Updates

The Gentoo Documentation Project reports in their latest status report that they've updated several guides and added a few new ones, including the following:

New roles in Gentoo/PPC

The PPC team has changed some existing roles and assigned new developers to the subproject. First, Luca Barbato was elected operational manager. New developer Daniel Ostrow is taking charge of the stable project. David Holm will be in charge of the kernel, assisted by Luca and Jochen Maes. Jochen is also going to maintain the website and manage the documentation subproject. The Gentoo/PPC subproject is also looking for people who want to work on the team; interested parties should step forward in #gentoo-ppc on irc.freenode.net. For more information on Gentoo/PPC, see their website.

2.  Gentoo Security

Pound format string vulnerability

There is a format string flaw in Pound, allowing remote execution of arbitrary code with the rights of the Pound process.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

ProFTPD Access Control List bypass vulnerability

Version 1.2.9 of ProFTPD introduced a vulnerability that causes CIDR-based Access Control Lists (ACLs) to be treated as "AllowAll", thereby allowing remote users full access to files available to the FTP daemon.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

Icecast denial of service vulnerability

Icecast is vulnerable to a denial of service attack allowing remote users to crash the application.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

KDE URI Handler Vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities in KDE URI handlers makes your system vulnerable to various attacks.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

CVS heap overflow vulnerability

CVS is subject to a heap overflow vulnerability allowing source repository compromise.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

neon heap-based buffer overflow

A vulnerability potentially allowing remote execution of arbitrary code has been discovered in the neon library.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

Buffer overflow in Subversion

There is a vulnerability in the Subversion date parsing code which may lead to denial of service attacks, or execution of arbitrary code. Both the client and server are vulnerable.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

cadaver heap-based buffer overflow

There is a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the neon library used in cadaver, possibly leading to execution of arbitrary code when connected to a malicious server.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

Multiple XSS Vulnerabilities in SquirrelMail

SquirrelMail is subject to several XSS and one SQL injection vulnerability.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

Multiple vulnerabilities in metamail

Several format string bugs and buffer overflows were discovered in metamail, potentially allowing execution of arbitrary code remotely.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

Buffer Overflow in Firebird

A buffer overflow via environmental variables in Firebird may allow a local user to manipulate or destroy local databases and trojan the Firebird binaries.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement

3.  Heard in the Community

gentoo-user

Raving over rzip

"rzip" is an extremely efficient alternative to gzip. Some Gentoo users also gave it a shot and posted some feedback about it here.

XFree and unusual resolutions

If you have a laptop or flat-panel display with a screen resolution that's not one of the "typical" 800x600, 1024x768, or 1600x1200 sizes you may want to take a look here for some tips for making it look good under XFree86.

2004.1: The good, bad, and the ugly

Some people have been reporting problems using the 2004.1 CD on more exotic hardware--lockups, missed hardware detection, and the like. Read some of the feedback here.

Interesting USE flag

One Gentooer discovered an interesting and somewhat humorus USE flag in the "netcat" package this week. Check it out!

4.  Gentoo International

Germany: Rhein-Ruhr Gentooistas Meet Again

Next month on 4 June, same time (19:00 hours), same place as always: The Ruhrgebiet group of Gentoo activists meets at Gasthof Harlos again. An interesting side aspect and quite possibly a significant difference to similar events elsewhere is the availability of DSL at the premises, and just like last month, Gentoo dev Pylon will bring a wireless access point. Polish your antennas, compile your kernels with WLAN support, and off you go to a big friendly evening with the regulars. Possible bowling included, coordination thread in the forums as usual.

5.  Tips and Tricks

Quick 'cd' trick

To return to the previous directory in the shell (bash, ksh, zsh, etc), use cd -

Code Listing 5.1

$ pwd
/home/rd
$ cd /tmp
$ cd -
$ pwd
/home/rd

6.  Moves, Adds, and Changes

Moves

The following developers recently left the Gentoo team:

Adds

The following developers recently joined the Gentoo Linux team:

Changes

The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo Linux project:

7.  Contribute to GWN

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8.  GWN Feedback

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