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ESX Server 3.0.1, Patch ESX-5031800: Security Update to Prevent Overwriting of Arbitrary Files

Details

Resolved Issues

A possible security issue with GNU tar 1.16 and 1.15.1, and possibly other versions, may allow user-assisted attackers to overwrite arbitrary files via a tar file that contains a GNUTYPE_NAMES record with a symbolic link, which is not properly handled by the extract_archive function in extract.c and extract_mangle function in mangle.c, a variant of CVE-2002-1216. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) assigned the name CVE-2006-6097 to this issue.

Solution

Applicability

This patch is for ESX Server 3.0.1 only. For the ESX Server 3.0.0 patch, refer to http://kb.vmware.com/kb/3003211/.

Installing the Patch

Download Instructions

Download and verify the patch bundle as follows:

Download patch ESX-5031800 from http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/vi3_patches.html.
Log into the ESX Server service console as root.
Create a local depot directory.
# mkdir /var/updates

Note: VMware recommends you use the updates directory.
Change your working directory to /var/updates.

# cd /var/updates
Download the tar file into the /var/updates directory.
Verify the integrity of the downloaded tar file.

# md5sum ESX-5031800.tgz
The md5 checksum output should match the following:

c266474de27c569631b93bf566ad74f2 ESX-5031800.tgz
Extract the compressed tar archive.

# tar -xvzf ESX-5031800.tgz
Change to the newly created directory, /var/updates/ESX-5031800.

# cd ESX-5031800

Installation Instructions

Note: There is no need to shut down the virtual machines on the host or to migrate them using VMotion before applying the patch. No reboot of the ESX Server host is required after applying this patch.

Once you have downloaded and extracted the archive, and if you are in the directory you created above, install the update using the following command:

# esxupdate update

If you want to run esxupdate from a different directory, you must specify the bundle path in the command:

# esxupdate -r file://<directory>/ESX-5031800 update

For example, if the host is called depot:

# esxupdate –r file:///depot/var/updates/ESX-5031800 update

During the update process, logs appear on the terminal. You can specify the verbosity of esxupdate logs by using the -v option as shown below:

# esxupdate -v 10 -r file://<directory>/ESX-5031800 update

For more information on using esxupdate, refer to the Patch Management for ESX Server 3 tech note at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx3_esxupdate.pdf.

Keywords

esx301;esxpatch;alertz

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KB Article: 5031800
Updated: Aug 14, 2009

Products:
VMware ESX
Product Versions:
VMware ESX 3.0.x

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