Download Patch ESX-1001205 for VMware ESX Server 3.0.0

Release Date: 9/6/07
Last Updated: 9/6/07

Summary

This patch provides updated service console package vixie-cron fixes. Cron is a standard UNIX daemon that runs specified programs at scheduled times. A denial of service issue was found in the way vixie-cron verified crontab file integrity. A local user with the ability to create a hardlink to /etc/crontab could potentially prevent vixie-cron from executing certain system cron jobs.

Thanks to Raphael Marichez for identifying this issue.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) assigned the name CVE-2007-1856 to this issue.

Symptoms

There are no symptoms available for the security fixes.

Impact

This patch resolves the security issue described above.

View KB 1001205 for more information on this patch.

For the related patch for ESX Server 3.0.1, see KB 1001214.

Download Instructions

Download and verify the patch bundle as follows :

1. Download patch ESX-1001205 by clicking on the link above.
2. Log in to the ESX Server service console as root.
3. Create a local depot directory.

   # mkdir -p /var/updates

   Note: VMware recommends that you use the updates directory.

4. Change your working directory to /var/updates.

   # cd /var/updates

5. Download the tar file into the /var/updates directory.
6. Verify the integrity of the downloaded tar file:

   # md5sum ESX-1001205.tgz
   
   The md5 checksum output should match the following:
   
   e6b818cf885d5fd5f93d33b27051df83 ESX-1001205.tgz

7. Extract the compressed tar archive:

   # tar -xvzf ESX-1001205.tgz

8. Change to the newly created directory, /var/updates/ESX-1001205:

   # cd ESX-1001205

Installation Instructions

Once you have downloaded and extracted the archive, and if you are in the directory you created above, install the update using the following command:

# esxupdate update

To run esxupdate from a different directory, you must specify the bundle path in the command:

# esxupdate -r file://<directory>/ESX-1001205 update

for example, if the host is called depot:

# esxupdate -r file:///depot/var/updates/ESX-1001205 update

During the update process, logs appear on the terminal. You can specify the verbosity of esxupdate logs by using the -v option as shown below.

# esxupdate -v 10 file://<directory>/ESX-1001205 update

For more information on using esxupdate, refer to the Patch Management for ESX Server 3 tech note at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx3_esxupdate.pdf.