Low: php-pear security and bug fix update

Synopsis

Low: php-pear security and bug fix update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory: Low

Topic

An updated php-pear package that fixes one security issue and multiple bugs
is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

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

The php-pear package contains the PHP Extension and Application Repository
(PEAR), a framework and distribution system for reusable PHP components.

It was found that the "pear" command created temporary files in an insecure
way when installing packages. A malicious, local user could use this flaw
to conduct a symbolic link attack, allowing them to overwrite the contents
of arbitrary files accessible to the victim running the "pear install"
command. (CVE-2011-1072)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• The php-pear package has been upgraded to version 1.9.4, which provides a
  number of bug fixes over the previous version. (BZ#651897)
  
• Prior to this update, php-pear created a cache in the
  "/var/cache/php-pear/" directory when attempting to list all packages. As a
  consequence, php-pear failed to create or update the cache file as a
  regular user without sufficient file permissions and could not list all
  packages. With this update, php-pear no longer fails if writing to the
  cache directory is not permitted. Now, all packages are listed as expected.
  (BZ#747361)
  

All users of php-pear are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which
corrects these issues.

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/kb/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 651897 - update php-pear to 1.9.4
• BZ - 681982 - CVE-2011-1072 php-pear: symlink vulnerability in PEAR installer
• BZ - 747361 - pear list-all fails for regular user

CVEs

• CVE-2011-1072

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#low