[slackware-security]  REVISED quotacheck security fix in rc.M (SSA:2003-141-06a)

NOTE:  The original advisory quotes a section of the Slackware ChangeLog
which had inadvertently reversed the options to quotacheck.  The correct
option to use is 'm'.  A corrected advisory follows:


An upgraded sysvinit package is available which fixes a problem with
the use of quotacheck in /etc/rc.d/rc.M.  The original version of
rc.M calls quotacheck like this:

    echo "Checking filesystem quotas:  /sbin/quotacheck -avugM"
    /sbin/quotacheck -avugM

The 'M' option is wrong.  This causes the filesystem to be remounted,
and in the process any mount flags such as nosuid, nodev, noexec,
and the like, will be reset.  The correct option to use here is 'm',
which does not attempt to remount the partition:

    echo "Checking filesystem quotas:  /sbin/quotacheck -avugm"
    /sbin/quotacheck -avugm

We recommend sites using file system quotas upgrade to this new package,
or edit /etc/rc.d/rc.M accordingly.


Here are the details from the Slackware 9.0 ChangeLog:
+--------------------------+
Tue May 20 20:13:09 PDT 2003
patches/packages/sysvinit-2.84-i386-26.tgz:  Use option m, not M, for quotacheck.
  Otherwise, the partition might be remounted losing flags like nosuid,nodev,
  noexec.  Thanks to Jem Berkes for pointing this out.
  (* Security fix *)
+--------------------------+



WHERE TO FIND THE NEW PACKAGES:
+-----------------------------+

Updated package for Slackware 9.0: 




MD5 SIGNATURES:
+-------------+

Slackware 9.0 package:
966281dbd4e8cac23264021b9ad48f61  sysvinit-2.84-i386-26.tgz



INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:
+------------------------+

Upgrade using upgradepkg (as root):

upgradepkg sysvinit-2.84-i386-26.tgz

Then, you'll need to move the new version of rc.M into place, as rc.M
is considered a config file and upgradepkg will not overwrite these by
default:

mv /etc/rc.d/rc.M.new /etc/rc.d/rc.M



+-----+

Slackware Linux Security Team 
slackware
security@slackware.com