(RHSA-2009:1670) Important: kernel security and bug fix update

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux
operating system.

Security fixes:

• NULL pointer dereference flaws in the r128 driver. Checks to test if the
  Concurrent Command Engine state was initialized were missing in private
  IOCTL functions. An attacker could use these flaws to cause a local denial
  of service or escalate their privileges. (CVE-2009-3620, Important)

• a NULL pointer dereference flaw in the NFSv4 implementation. Several
  NFSv4 file locking functions failed to check whether a file had been opened
  on the server before performing locking operations on it. A local user on a
  system with an NFSv4 share mounted could possibly use this flaw to cause a
  denial of service or escalate their privileges. (CVE-2009-3726, Important)

• a flaw in tcf_fill_node(). A certain data structure in this function was
  not initialized properly before being copied to user-space. This could lead
  to an information leak. (CVE-2009-3612, Moderate)

• unix_stream_connect() did not check if a UNIX domain socket was in the
  shutdown state. This could lead to a deadlock. A local, unprivileged user
  could use this flaw to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2009-3621, Moderate)

Knowledgebase DOC-20536 has steps to mitigate NULL pointer dereference
flaws.

Bug fixes:

• frequently changing a CPU between online and offline caused a kernel
  panic on some systems. (BZ#545583)

• for the LSI Logic LSI53C1030 Ultra320 SCSI controller, read commands sent
  could receive incorrect data, preventing correct data transfer. (BZ#529308)

• pciehp could not detect PCI Express hot plug slots on some systems.
  (BZ#530383)

• soft lockups: inotify race and contention on dcache_lock. (BZ#533822,
  BZ#537019)

• priority ordered lists are now used for threads waiting for a given
  mutex. (BZ#533858)

• a deadlock in DLM could cause GFS2 file systems to lock up. (BZ#533859)

• use-after-free bug in the audit subsystem crashed certain systems when
  running usermod. (BZ#533861)

• on certain hardware configurations, a kernel panic when the Broadcom
  iSCSI offload driver (bnx2i.ko and cnic.ko) was loaded. (BZ#537014)

• qla2xxx: Enabled MSI-X, and correctly handle the module parameter to
  control it. This improves performance for certain systems. (BZ#537020)

• system crash when reading the cpuaffinity file on a system. (BZ#537346)

• suspend-resume problems on systems with lots of logical CPUs, e.g. BX-EX.
  (BZ#539674)

• off-by-one error in the legacy PCI bus check. (BZ#539675)

• TSC was not made available on systems with multi-clustered APICs. This
  could cause slow performance for time-sensitive applications. (BZ#539676)

• ACPI: ARB_DISABLE now disabled on platforms that do not need it.
  (BZ#539677)

• fix node to core and power-aware scheduling issues, and a kernel panic
  during boot on certain AMD Opteron processors. (BZ#539678, BZ#540469,
  BZ#539680, BZ#539682)

• APIC timer interrupt issues on some AMD Opteron systems prevented
  achieving full power savings. (BZ#539681)

• general OProfile support for some newer Intel processors. (BZ#539683)

• system crash during boot when NUMA is enabled on systems using MC and
  kernel-xen. (BZ#539684)

• on some larger systems, performance issues due to a spinlock. (BZ#539685)

• APIC errors when IOMMU is enabled on some AMD Opteron systems.
  (BZ#539687)

• on some AMD Opteron systems, repeatedly taking a CPU offline then online
  caused a system hang. (BZ#539688)

• I/O page fault errors on some systems. (BZ#539689)

• certain memory configurations could cause the kernel-xen kernel to fail
  to boot on some AMD Opteron systems. (BZ#539690)

• NMI watchdog is now disabled for offline CPUs. (BZ#539691)

• duplicate directories in /proc/acpi/processor/ on BX-EX systems.
  (BZ#539692)

• links did not come up when using bnx2x with certain Broadcom devices.
  (BZ#540381)

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported
patches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for this
update to take effect.