USN-175-1: ntp server vulnerability
Publication date
2 September 2005
Overview
ntp server vulnerability
Releases
Details
Thomas Biege discovered a flaw in the privilege dropping of the NTP
server. When ntpd was configured to drop root privileges, and the
group to run under was specified as a name (as opposed to a numeric
group ID), ntpd changed to the wrong group. Depending on the actual
group it changed to, this could either cause non-minimal privileges,
or a malfunctioning ntp server if the group does not have the
privileges that ntpd actually needs.
On Ubuntu 4.10, ntpd does not use privilege dropping by default, so
you are only affected if you manually activated it. In Ubuntu 5.04,
privilege dropping is used by default, but this bug is already fixed.
Thomas Biege discovered a flaw in the privilege dropping of the NTP
server. When ntpd was configured to drop root privileges, and the
group to run under was specified as a name (as opposed to a numeric
group ID), ntpd changed to the wrong group. Depending on the actual
group it changed to, this could either cause non-minimal privileges,
or a malfunctioning ntp server if the group does not have the
privileges that ntpd actually needs.
On Ubuntu 4.10, ntpd does not use privilege dropping by default, so
you are only affected if you manually activated it. In Ubuntu 5.04,
privilege dropping is used by default, but this bug is already fixed.
Update instructions
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.
Learn more about how to get the fixes.The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
| Ubuntu Release | Package Version | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.10 warty | ntp-server – | ||
| ntp-simple – | |||
| ntp-refclock – | |||
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