Portage, Gentoolkit: Temporary file vulnerabilities

1.  Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Version Information

Related bugreports: #68846, #69147

Synopsis

dispatch-conf (included in Portage) and qpkg (included in Gentoolkit) are vulnerable to symlink attacks, potentially allowing a local user to overwrite arbitrary files with the rights of the user running the script.

2.  Impact Information

Background

Portage is Gentoo's package management tool. The dispatch-conf utility allows for easy rollback of configuration file changes and automatic updates of configurations files never modified by users. Gentoolkit is a collection of Gentoo specific administration scripts, one of which is the portage querying tool qpkg.

Description

dispatch-conf and qpkg use predictable filenames for temporary files.

Impact

A local attacker could create symbolic links in the temporary files directory, pointing to a valid file somewhere on the filesystem. When an affected script is called, this would result in the file to be overwritten with the rights of the user running the dispatch-conf or qpkg, which could be the root user.

3.  Resolution Information

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All Portage users should upgrade to the latest version:

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=sys-apps/portage-2.0.51-r3"

All Gentoolkit users should upgrade to the latest version:

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-portage/gentoolkit-0.2.0_pre8-r1"

4.  References

• CVE-2004-1107
• CVE-2004-1108