Ubuntu Security Notice USN-1223-1
30th September, 2011
puppet vulnerabilities
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
- Ubuntu 11.04
- Ubuntu 10.10
- Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
Summary
Puppet could be made to overwrite files and run programs with administrator privileges.
Software description
- puppet - Centralized configuration management
Details
It was discovered that Puppet unsafely opened files when the k5login type
is used to manage files. A local attacker could exploit this to overwrite
arbitrary files which could be used to escalate privileges. (CVE-2011-3869)
Ricky Zhou discovered that Puppet did not drop privileges when creating
SSH authorized_keys files. A local attacker could exploit this to overwrite
arbitrary files as root. (CVE-2011-3870)
It was discovered that Puppet used a predictable filename when using the
--edit resource. A local attacker could exploit this to edit arbitrary
files or run arbitrary code as the user invoking the program, typically
root. (CVE-2011-3871)
Update instructions
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package version:
- Ubuntu 11.04:
- puppet-common 2.6.4-2ubuntu2.3
- Ubuntu 10.10:
- puppet-common 2.6.1-0ubuntu2.2
- Ubuntu 10.04 LTS:
- puppet-common 0.25.4-2ubuntu6.3
To update your system, please follow these instructions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.