Low: mysql security and bug fix update

Synopsis

Low: mysql security and bug fix update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory: Low

Topic

Updated mysql packages that fix one security issue and several bugs are now
available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low
security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score,
which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in
the References section.

Description

MySQL is a multi-user, multi-threaded SQL database server. It consists of
the MySQL server daemon (mysqld) and many client programs and libraries.

It was found that the fix for the CVE-2009-4030 issue, a flaw in the way
MySQL checked the paths used as arguments for the DATA DIRECTORY and INDEX
DIRECTORY directives when the "datadir" option was configured with a
relative path, was incorrectly removed when the mysql packages in Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5 were updated to version 5.0.95 via RHSA-2012:0127. An
authenticated attacker could use this flaw to bypass the restriction
preventing the use of subdirectories of the MySQL data directory being used
as DATA DIRECTORY and INDEX DIRECTORY paths. This update re-applies the fix
for CVE-2009-4030. (CVE-2012-4452)

Note: If the use of the DATA DIRECTORY and INDEX DIRECTORY directives were
disabled as described in RHSA-2010:0109 (by adding "symbolic-links=0" to
the "[mysqld]" section of the "my.cnf" configuration file), users were not
vulnerable to this issue.

This issue was discovered by Karel Volny of the Red Hat Quality Engineering
team.

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• Prior to this update, the log file path in the logrotate script did not
  behave as expected. As a consequence, the logrotate function failed to
  rotate the "/var/log/mysqld.log" file. This update modifies the logrotate
  script to allow rotating the mysqld.log file. (BZ#647223)
  
• Prior to this update, the mysqld daemon could fail when using the EXPLAIN
  flag in prepared statement mode. This update modifies the underlying code
  to handle the EXPLAIN flag as expected. (BZ#654000)
  
• Prior to this update, the mysqld init script could wrongly report that
  mysql server startup failed when the server was actually started. This
  update modifies the init script to report the status of the mysqld server
  as expected. (BZ#703476)
  
• Prior to this update, the "--enable-profiling" option was by default
  disabled. This update enables the profiling feature. (BZ#806365)
  

All MySQL users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which
contain backported patches to resolve these issues. After installing this
update, the MySQL server daemon (mysqld) will be restarted automatically.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously-released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to
use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 526850 - MySQL 5.0.77 crashes on comparison of date & datetime types to NAME_CONST()
• BZ - 528512 - MySQL memory DoS
• BZ - 543730 - mysqld segfaults during SHOW CREATE TABLE
• BZ - 548685 - Extra characters appear in BLOB after mysqldump/import
• BZ - 654000 - Mysql bug 54488 - crash when using explain and prepared statements with subqueries
• BZ - 675906 - Restore / import of mysqldump fails on "Unknown command '\''"
• BZ - 806365 - mysql-server-5.0.95-1.el5_7.1 has Profiling disabled by default
• BZ - 860808 - CVE-2012-4452 mysql: regression of CVE-2009-4030

CVEs

• CVE-2012-4452

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#low
• https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012-0127.html
• https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2010-0109.html