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ESX Server 3.0.1, Patch ESX-5095559: 64-Bit Windows Guest Security Issue; VMware Tools Memory Leak; Boot from Network

Details

Security Issues

This patch fixes an issue where in a 64-bit Windows guest, on a 64-bit host, debugging local programs might create system instability. Using a debugger to step into a syscall instruction can corrupt the virtual machine's register context. This corruption produces unpredictable results including corrupted stack pointers, kernel bugchecks, or vmware-vmx process failures.

Thanks to Ken Johnson for identifying this issue.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) assigned the name CVE-2007-1876 to this issue.

Resolved Issues

This following issues are resolved in this patch:

  • This patch fixes an issue where the Linux virtual machine fails to boot from the network using PXE, and shows the network adapter hardware address as "FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF"
  • This patch is a partial fix for memory leaks that can occur in VMware Tools. You must also install patch ESX-6704314 to complete the fix for this issue. Patches ESX-5095559 and ESX-6704314 can be installed in any order. After both patches have been installed, you must upgrade the VMware Tools package installed in all virtual machines on that host in order to complete this fix and to end warning messages that your virtual machine does not have the latest version of VMware Tools.

Solution

Applicability

This issue is fixed in ESX Server 3.0.2 and higher.

This patch is for ESX Server 3.0.1 only. For the related patch for ESX Server 3.0.0, refer to http://kb.vmware.com/kb/7104553.

Download Instructions

Download and verify the patch bundle as follows:

  1. Download patch ESX-5095559 from http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/vi3_patches.html.
  2. Log in to the ESX Server service console as root.
  3. Create a local depot directory.

    # mkdir -p /var/updates

    Note: VMware recommends that you use the updates directory.

  4. Change your working directory to /var/updates.

    # cd /var/updates

  5. Download the tar file into the /var/updates directory.
  6. Verify the integrity of the downloaded tar file.

    # md5sum ESX-5095559.tgz

    The md5 checksum output should match the following:

    bcded4127598c22d47f06ab03366d2f8 ESX-5095559.tgz

  7. Extract the compressed tar archive.

    # tar -xvzf ESX-5095559.tgz

  8. Change to the newly created directory, /var/updates/ESX-5095559.

    # cd ESX-5095559

Installation Instructions

Note: All virtual machines on the host must be either shut down or migrated using VMotion before applying the patch. No reboot of the ESX Server host is required after applying this patch.

After 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-5095559 update

For example, if the host is called depot:

# esxupdate –r file:///depot/var/updates/ESX-5095559 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-5095559 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

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Actions
  • KB Article: 5095559
  • Updated: Aug 14, 2009
  • Products:
    VMware ESX
  • Product Versions:
    VMware ESX 3.0.x