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ESX Server 3.0.0, Patch ESX-7104553: 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 could create system instability. Using a debugger to step into a syscall instruction might 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

The following isses 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-1256636 to complete the fix for this issue. Patches ESX-7104553 and ESX-1256636 can be installed in any order. After both patches have been installed, you must upgrade VMware Tools 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 3.0.0 only. For the related patch for ESX Server 3.0.1, refer to http://kb.vmware.com/kb/5095559.

Download Instructions

Download and verify the patch bundle as follows :

  1. Download patch ESX-7104553 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-7104553.tgz

    The md5 checksum output should match the following:

    81c4f33331a4cbc565c1d9a44b1ea4fc ESX-7104553.tgz

  7. Extract the compressed tar archive.

    # tar -xvzf ESX-7104553.tgz

  8. Change to the newly created directory, /var/updates/ESX-7104553.

    # cd ESX-7104553

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-7104553 update

For example, if the host is called depot:

# esxupdate –r file:///depot/var/updates/ESX-7104553 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-7104553 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

esx300;esxpatch

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Actions
  • KB Article: 7104553
  • Updated: Aug 14, 2009
  • Products:
    VMware ESX
  • Product Versions:
    VMware ESX 3.0.x