Debian Security Advisory

DSA-1629-2 postfix -- programming error

Date Reported:
19 Aug 2008
Affected Packages:
postfix
Vulnerable:
Yes
Security database references:
In Mitre's CVE dictionary: CVE-2008-2936.
More information:

Sebastian Krahmer discovered that Postfix, a mail transfer agent, incorrectly checks the ownership of a mailbox. In some configurations, this allows for appending data to arbitrary files as root.

Note that only specific configurations are vulnerable; the default Debian installation is not affected. Only a configuration meeting the following requirements is vulnerable:

  • The mail delivery style is mailbox, with the Postfix built-in local(8) or virtual(8) delivery agents.
  • The mail spool directory (/var/spool/mail) is user-writeable.
  • The user can create hardlinks pointing to root-owned symlinks located in other directories.

For a detailed treating of the issue, please refer to the upstream author's announcement.

For the stable distribution (etch), this problem has been fixed in version 2.3.8-2+etch1.

For the testing distribution (lenny), this problem has been fixed in version 2.5.2-2lenny1.

For the unstable distribution (sid), this problem has been fixed in version 2.5.4-1.

We recommend that you upgrade your postfix package.

Fixed in:

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (etch)

Source:
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8.orig.tar.gz
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8-2+etch1.diff.gz
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8-2+etch1.dsc
Architecture-independent component:
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-dev_2.3.8-2+etch1_all.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-doc_2.3.8-2+etch1_all.deb
Alpha:
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8-2+etch1_alpha.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-cdb_2.3.8-2+etch1_alpha.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-mysql_2.3.8-2+etch1_alpha.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-ldap_2.3.8-2+etch1_alpha.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pcre_2.3.8-2+etch1_alpha.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pgsql_2.3.8-2+etch1_alpha.deb
AMD64:
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pcre_2.3.8-2+etch1_amd64.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-mysql_2.3.8-2+etch1_amd64.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-ldap_2.3.8-2+etch1_amd64.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8-2+etch1_amd64.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pgsql_2.3.8-2+etch1_amd64.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-cdb_2.3.8-2+etch1_amd64.deb
ARM:
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-ldap_2.3.8-2+etch1_arm.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pcre_2.3.8-2+etch1_arm.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-mysql_2.3.8-2+etch1_arm.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pgsql_2.3.8-2+etch1_arm.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8-2+etch1_arm.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-cdb_2.3.8-2+etch1_arm.deb
HP Precision:
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-cdb_2.3.8-2+etch1_hppa.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-ldap_2.3.8-2+etch1_hppa.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pgsql_2.3.8-2+etch1_hppa.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8-2+etch1_hppa.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-mysql_2.3.8-2+etch1_hppa.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pcre_2.3.8-2+etch1_hppa.deb
Intel IA-32:
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-cdb_2.3.8-2+etch1_i386.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-mysql_2.3.8-2+etch1_i386.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pcre_2.3.8-2+etch1_i386.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-ldap_2.3.8-2+etch1_i386.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pgsql_2.3.8-2+etch1_i386.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8-2+etch1_i386.deb
Intel IA-64:
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-cdb_2.3.8-2+etch1_ia64.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pcre_2.3.8-2+etch1_ia64.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-ldap_2.3.8-2+etch1_ia64.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8-2+etch1_ia64.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-mysql_2.3.8-2+etch1_ia64.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pgsql_2.3.8-2+etch1_ia64.deb
Big-endian MIPS:
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-mysql_2.3.8-2+etch1_mips.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-cdb_2.3.8-2+etch1_mips.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pcre_2.3.8-2+etch1_mips.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pgsql_2.3.8-2+etch1_mips.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8-2+etch1_mips.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-ldap_2.3.8-2+etch1_mips.deb
PowerPC:
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-cdb_2.3.8-2+etch1_powerpc.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-ldap_2.3.8-2+etch1_powerpc.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pcre_2.3.8-2+etch1_powerpc.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-mysql_2.3.8-2+etch1_powerpc.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8-2+etch1_powerpc.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pgsql_2.3.8-2+etch1_powerpc.deb
IBM S/390:
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-mysql_2.3.8-2+etch1_s390.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8-2+etch1_s390.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-cdb_2.3.8-2+etch1_s390.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pcre_2.3.8-2+etch1_s390.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-ldap_2.3.8-2+etch1_s390.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pgsql_2.3.8-2+etch1_s390.deb
Sun Sparc:
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pgsql_2.3.8-2+etch1_sparc.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-pcre_2.3.8-2+etch1_sparc.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-mysql_2.3.8-2+etch1_sparc.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-cdb_2.3.8-2+etch1_sparc.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix_2.3.8-2+etch1_sparc.deb
http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/p/postfix/postfix-ldap_2.3.8-2+etch1_sparc.deb

MD5 checksums of the listed files are available in the original advisory.