Caldera Systems, Inc. Security Advisory
Subject: various security problems with majordomo
Advisory number: CSSA-1999-039.0
Issue date: 2000 January, 25
Cross reference:
1. Problem Description
There are several bugs in majordomo that allow arbitrary users
to execute commands with the privilege of majordomo. If the
sendmail aliases file contains aliases that invoke majordomo, a
compromise of additional system accounts is possible, which may
further on lead to a root compromise. An immediate root exploit has
not been found however.
2. Vulnerable Versions
Systems : up to COL 2.3
Packages: previous to majordomo-1.94.5-1
3. Solutions
Workaround:
Change the group of the wrapper excutable to daemon, and turn
off world execute rights:
chgrp daemon /usr/lib/majordomo/wrapper
chmod o-x /usr/lib/majordomo/wrapper
The proper solution is to upgrade to the latest packages
rpm -U majordomo-1.94.5-1.i386.rpm
If you do not use majordomo, we recommend to remove the package
entirely using
rpm -e majordomo
4. Location of Fixed Packages
The upgrade packages can be found on Caldera’s FTP site at:
ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/OpenLinux/updates/2.3/current/RPMS/
The corresponding source code package can be found at:
ftp://ftp.calderaystems.com/pub/OpenLinux/updates/2.3/current/SRPMS
5. Installing Fixed Packages
Upgrade the affected packages with the following commands:
rpm -U majordomo-1.94.5-1.i386.rpm
6. Verification
39eeb53bb2f565c2e75efbb06e3156aa
RPMS/majordomo-1.94.5-1.i386.rpm
c409cfcde13893f99f50873b176b71d8
SRPMS/majordomo-1.94.5-1.src.rpm
7. References
This and other Caldera security resources are located at:
http://www.calderasystems.com/support/security/index.html
This security fix closes Caldera’s internal Problem Report
5615
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.