Low: freeradius2 security and bug fix update

Synopsis

Low: freeradius2 security and bug fix update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory: Low

Topic

Updated freeradius2 packages that fix one security issue and multiple 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

FreeRADIUS is an open-source Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service
(RADIUS) server which allows RADIUS clients to perform authentication
against the RADIUS server. The RADIUS server may optionally perform
accounting of its operations using the RADIUS protocol.

It was found that the "unix" module ignored the password expiration
setting in "/etc/shadow". If FreeRADIUS was configured to use this module
for user authentication, this flaw could allow users with an expired
password to successfully authenticate, even though their access should have
been denied. (CVE-2011-4966)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• After log rotation, the freeradius logrotate script failed to reload the
  radiusd daemon and log messages were lost. This update has added a command
  to the freeradius logrotate script to reload the radiusd daemon and the
  radiusd daemon re-initializes and reopens its log files after log rotation
  as expected. (BZ#787111)
  
• The radtest script with the "eap-md5" option failed because it passed the
  IP family argument when invoking the radeapclient utility and the
  radeapclient utility did not recognize the IP family. The radeapclient
  utility now recognizes the IP family argument and radtest now works with
  eap-md5 as expected. (BZ#846476)
  
• Previously, freeradius was compiled without the "--with-udpfromto"
  option. Consequently, with a multihomed server and explicitly specifying
  the IP address, freeradius sent the reply with the wrong IP source address.
  With this update, freeradius has been built with the "--with-udpfromto"
  configuration option and the RADIUS reply is always sourced from the IP
  address the request was sent to. (BZ#846471)
  
• Due to invalid syntax in the PostgreSQL admin schema file, the FreeRADIUS
  PostgreSQL tables failed to be created. With this update, the syntax has
  been adjusted and the tables are created as expected. (BZ#818885)
  
• FreeRADIUS has a thread pool that dynamically grows based on load. If
  multiple threads using the "rlm_perl()" function are spawned in quick
  succession, the FreeRADIUS server sometimes terminated unexpectedly with a
  segmentation fault due to parallel calls to the "rlm_perl_clone()"
  function. With this update, a mutex for the threads has been added and the
  problem no longer occurs. (BZ#846475)
  
• The man page for "rlm_dbm_parser" was incorrectly installed as
  "rlm_dbm_parse", omitting the trailing "r". The man page now correctly
  appears as rlm_dbm_parser. (BZ#781877)
  

All users of freeradius2 are advised to upgrade to these updated packages,
which contain backported patches to correct these issues. They are also
advised to check for RPM backup files ending in ".rpmnew" or ".rpmsave"
under the /etc/raddb/ directory after the update because the FreeRADIUS
server will attempt to load every file it finds in its configuration
directory. The extra files will often cause the wrong configuration values
to be applied resulting in either unpredictable behavior or the failure of
the server to initialize and run.

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

Users are also advised to check for RPM backup files ending in ".rpmnew" or
".rpmsave" under the /etc/raddb/ directory after the update because the
FreeRADIUS server will attempt to load every file it finds in its
configuration directory. The extra files will often cause the wrong
configuration values to be applied resulting in either unpredictable
behavior or the failure of the server to initialize and run.

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 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 - 781877 - rlm_dbm_parser has man pages in rlm_dbm_parse.8.gz
• BZ - 787111 - freeradius logrotate script does not reload running daemon, causing log files not written after logrotate
• BZ - 818885 - possible errors in /etc/raddb/sql/postgresql/admin.sql template
• BZ - 846471 - freeradius not compiled with --with-udpfromto
• BZ - 846474 - shadow password expiration does not work in freeradius 2.1.10
• BZ - 846475 - Segfault with freeradius-perl threading
• BZ - 846476 - radtest script is not working with eap-md5 option
• BZ - 879045 - CVE-2011-4966 freeradius: does not respect expired passwords when using the unix module

CVEs

• CVE-2011-4966

References

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