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              AUSCERT External Security Bulletin Redistribution
                                    
              ESB-98.164 -- SGI Security Advisory 19981005-01-A
                        Vulnerability in IRIX autofsd
                                    
                               23 October 1998

===========================================================================

Silicon Graphics Inc. has released the following advisory concerning
a vulnerability in IRIX autofsd.  This vulnerability may allow local
users to gain root access.

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______________________________________________________________________________
                Silicon Graphics Inc. Security Advisory

        Title:  Vulnerability in IRIX autofsd
        Title:  RSI.0010.10-02-98.IRIX.AUTOFSD
        Number: 19981005-01-A
        Date:   October 22, 1998
______________________________________________________________________________

Silicon Graphics provides this information freely to the SGI user community
for its consideration, interpretation, implementation and use.   Silicon
Graphics recommends that this information be acted upon as soon as possible.

Silicon Graphics provides the information in this Security Advisory on
an "AS-IS" basis only, and disclaims all warranties with respect thereto,
express, implied or otherwise, including, without limitation, any warranty
of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.  In no event shall
SGI be liable for any loss of profits, loss of business, loss of data or
for any indirect, special, exemplary, incidental or consequential damages
of any kind arising from your use of, failure to use or improper use of
any of the instructions or information in this Security Advisory.
______________________________________________________________________________

- - -----------------------
- - --- Issue Statement ---
- - -----------------------

Silicon Graphics Inc. acknowledges the vulnerability in autofsd publicly
reported by RSI.0010.10-02-98.IRIX.AUTOFSD:

http://www.repsec.com/advisory/0010.html

For the protection of all our customers, SGI does not disclose, discuss
or confirm vulnerabilities until a full investigation has occurred and
any necessary patch(es) are available for all currently supported vulnerable
IRIX O/S.

Until Silicon Graphics has more definitive information to provide, customers
are encouraged to assume all security vulnerabilities as exploitable and take
appropriate steps according to local site security policies and requirements.

Steps to disable the autofsd daemon are found in the Temporary Solution
section.

Currently, Silicon Graphics Inc. is investigating and no further information
is available for public release at this time.

As further information becomes available, additional advisories will be
issued via the normal SGI security information distribution methods
including the wiretap mailing list.


- - ----------------------------
- - ----- Temporary Solution ---
- - ----------------------------

The steps below can be used to disable the autofs(1M) daemon.

      =================
      **** WARNING ****
      =================

      Disabling autofs(1M) daemon will prevent users from automatically
      mounting remote file systems. The automount(1M) daemon can be used
      as a temporary workaround. See the ONC3/NFS Administrator's Guide
      which is available online from the insight program or via the web:

      http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/


     1) Become the root user on the system.

              % /bin/su -
              Password:
              #


     2) Verify autofs(1M) daemon is enabled.

              # chkconfig

              Flag                 State
              ====                 =====
              autofs               on


     3) Disable autofs(1M) daemon.

              # chkconfig autofsd off



     4) Verify autofs(1M) daemon has been disabled.

              # chkconfig

              Flag                 State
              ====                 =====
              autofs               off



     5) Reboot the system

              # reboot


- - -----------------------------------------
- - --- SGI Security Information/Contacts ---
- - -----------------------------------------

If there are questions about this document, email can be sent to
cse-security-alert@sgi.com.

                      ------oOo------

Silicon Graphics provides security information and patches for
use by the entire SGI community.  This information is freely
available to any person needing the information and is available
via anonymous FTP and the Web.

The primary SGI anonymous FTP site for security information and patches
is sgigate.sgi.com (204.94.209.1).  Security information and patches
are located under the directories ~ftp/security and ~ftp/patches,
respectively. The Silicon Graphics Security Headquarters Web page is
accessible at the URL http://www.sgi.com/Support/security/security.html.

For issues with the patches on the FTP sites, email can be sent to
cse-security-alert@sgi.com.

For assistance obtaining or working with security patches, please
contact your SGI support provider.

                      ------oOo------

Silicon Graphics provides a free security mailing list service
called wiretap and encourages interested parties to self-subscribe
to receive (via email) all SGI Security Advisories when they are
released. Subscribing to the mailing list can be done via the Web
(http://www.sgi.com/Support/security/wiretap.html) or by sending email
to SGI as outlined below.

% mail wiretap-request@sgi.com
subscribe wiretap <YourEmailAddress>
end
^d

In the example above, <YourEmailAddress> is the email address that you
wish the mailing list information sent to.  The word end must be on a
separate line to indicate the end of the body of the message. The
control-d (^d) is used to indicate to the mail program that you are
finished composing the mail message.


                      ------oOo------

Silicon Graphics provides a comprehensive customer World Wide Web site.
This site is located at http://www.sgi.com/Support/security/security.html .

                      ------oOo------

For reporting *NEW* SGI security issues, email can be sent to
security-alert@sgi.com or contact your SGI support provider.  A
support contract is not required for submitting a security report.

______________________________________________________________________________
  This information is provided freely to all interested parties and may
  be redistributed provided that it is not altered in any way, Silicon
  Graphics is appropriately credited and the document retains and
  includes its valid PGP signature.

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