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Caldera Systems, Inc. Security Advisory
Subject: buffer overflow in man
Advisory number: CSSA-1999:025.0
Issue date: 1999 August, 27
Cross reference:
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1. Problem Description
There is a buffer overflow in man, the manual pager. As it is
setgid to group man, a local user can obtain group man privilege by
exploiting this hole.
2. Vulnerable Versions
Systems : COL 2.2
Packages: previous to /man-1.5f-5
3. Solutions
Workaround:
Disable the setgid bit on /usr/man/man:
chmod g-s /usr/man/man
This will stop any caching of formatted manual pages, but
displaying manual pages will continue to work.
The proper solution is to upgrade to the latest packages
rpm -U man-1.5f-5.i386.rpm
4. Location of Fixed Packages
The upgrade packages can be found on Caldera’s FTP site at:
ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/OpenLinux/updates/2.2/current/RPMS/
The corresponding source code package can be found at:
ftp://ftp.calderaystems.com/pub/OpenLinux/updates/2.2/current/SRPMS
5. Installing Fixed Packages
Upgrade the affected packages with the following commands:
rpm -U man-1.5f-5.i386.rpm
6. Verification
77c77978a2031b0219532794572e3163 RPMS/man-1.5f-5.i386.rpm
af2406b378c270d77a6529858f23218d SRPMS/man-1.5f-5.src.rpm
7. References
This and other Caldera security resources are located at:
http://www.calderasystems.com/news/security/index.html
This security fix closes Caldera’s internal Problem Report
5033
8. Disclaimer
Caldera Systems, Inc. is not responsible for the misuse of any
of the information we provide on this website and/or through our
security advisories. Our advisories are a service to our customers
intended to promote secure installation and use of Caldera
OpenLinux.