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ESX Server 3.0.1, Patch ESX-6704314: VMware System Files Security Issue; VMware Tools Memory Leak

Details

Security Issues

This patch fixes an issue where some VMware products support storing configuration information in VMware system files. Under some circumstances, a malicious user can instruct the virtual machine process (VMX) to store malformed data, causing an error. This error might enable a successful denial-of-service attack on guest operating systems.

Thanks to Sungard Ixsecurity for identifying this issue.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) assigned the name CVE-2007-1877 to this issue.

Resolved Issues

This patch is a partial fix for memory leaks that can occur in VMware Tools. You must also install patch ESX-5095559 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 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/1256636.

Download Instructions

Download and verify the patch bundle as follows:

  1. Download patch ESX-6704314 from http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/vi3_patches.html.
  2. Log into 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-6704314.tgz

    The md5 checksum output should match the following:

    2470567517a64726b1c5929c59ed6134 ESX-6704314.tgz

  7. Extract the compressed tar archive.

    # tar -xvzf ESX-6704314.tgz

  8. Change to the newly created directory, /var/updates/ESX-6704314.

    # cd ESX-6704314

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-6704314 update

For example, if the host is called depot:

# esxupdate –r file:///depot/var/updates/ESX-6704314 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-6704314 update

For more information on using esxupdate, please 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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