From: Eric Sandeen <sandeen@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: [stable] [PATCH] stable - ext[234]: Avoid printk floods in the
 face of directory corruption (CVE-2008-3528)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:35:06 -0500
Message-ID: <48FF644A.50801@redhat.com>
References: <48FF42B8.3030606@redhat.com> <20081022161433.GB29489@kroah.com> <48FF52F4.10702@redhat.com> <20081022163421.GA28836@kroah.com>
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Cc: stable@kernel.org, ext4 development <linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org>
To: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>
In-Reply-To: <20081022163421.GA28836@kroah.com>
Sender: linux-ext4-owner@vger.kernel.org

Greg KH wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 11:21:08AM -0500, Eric Sandeen wrote:
>> Greg KH wrote:
>>> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 10:11:52AM -0500, Eric Sandeen wrote:
>>>> This is a trivial backport of the following upstream commits:
>>>>
>>>> - bd39597cbd42a784105a04010100e27267481c67 (ext2)
>>>> - cdbf6dba28e8e6268c8420857696309470009fd9 (ext3)
>>>> - 9d9f177572d9e4eba0f2e18523b44f90dd51fe74 (ext4)
>>>>
>>>> This addresses CVE-2008-3528
>>>>
>>>> ext[234]: Avoid printk floods in the face of directory corruption
>>> For what kernel releases is this applicable?  .27? .26? .25?  Earlier?
>> Sorry.. it is applicable to pretty much any kernel in the past :)  .27
>> certainly (that's what the patch is against), .26, .25.... yes.
>>
>> It's not a particularly dangerous condition - you have to somehow get
>> the administrator to mount the filesystem before you can trigger the
>> "exploit" (which is a DoS, essentially) - so, I don't know if it's worth
>> porting back to the dawn of time...
> 
> Well, I will not port it back to older kernels than .25, so that's not a
> big deal.
> 
> As for the "admin mount a filesystem", you could put an ext2/3 fs on a
> usb stick and plug it into a box.  It will be mounted automatically, no
> admin rights required, and the DoS would happen, right?

If I wanted to DoS a box sitting in front of me, I'd just pull the plug.

-Eric