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Bug 136949

Summary: PostgreSQL data loss risk and minor security issues
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Reporter: Tom Lane <tgl>
Component: rh-postgresqlAssignee: Tom Lane <tgl>
Status: CLOSED ERRATA QA Contact:
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 3.0CC: hhorak
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 2004-12-20 17:54:15 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Tom Lane 2004-10-23 20:00:43 UTC 
PostgreSQL 7.3.7 has a risk of data loss explained here:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2004-10/msg00464.php

In addition there are two minor security issues reported to us by iDEFENSE; these were 
judged too minor to warrant assigning CVE names, but they should be fixed anyway.  Both 
are escalation-of-privilege issues that might allow the postgres user to obtain root.  The 
first is that "pg_ctl start" executes a shell command using text obtained from a postgres-
owned configuration file.  This is only a minor risk because "pg_ctl start" should never be 
run as root anyway; but possibly a sysadmin unfamiliar with Postgres could be tricked into 
doing it.  The appropriate fix is to disallow pg_ctl from running as root.  The second issue 
is that the postgresql init script executes a "chown" as root without sufficient care about 
what is being chown'ed; a nefarious postgres user could install a symlink to cause any 
desired file to be chown'd to postgres.  (This was judged a minor issue only because 
installation of the symlink would break the Postgres installation, and thus would be rather 
unlikely to go undetected until next system reboot.)

The first two issues are solved in the upstream Postgres 7.3.8 release, which we should 
upgrade to.  The init-script issue we need to fix locally.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
postgresql-7.3.7-3

How reproducible:


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Additional info:
Comment 2 Tom Lane 2004-10-26 01:04:57 UTC 
This is repaired in rh-postgresql-7.3.8.1.
Comment 3 John Flanagan 2004-12-20 17:54:15 UTC 
An errata has been issued which should help the problem 
described in this bug report. This report is therefore being 
closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information
on the solution and/or where to find the updated files, 
please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report 
if the solution does not work for you.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2004-489.html