Kernel Security Vulnerability on Solaris Systems Using the Sun UltraSPARC T2 and UltraSPARC T2+ Processors May Allow Denial of Service (DoS)

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Kernel Security Vulnerability on Solaris Systems Using the Sun UltraSPARC T2 and UltraSPARC T2+ Processors May Allow Denial of Service (DoS)

1. Impact

A security vulnerability in the processor specific kernel module for Sun UltraSPARC T2 and UltraSPARC T2+ systems may allow a local unprivileged user to panic the system, which is a type of Denial of Service(DoS).

2. Contributing Factors

This issue can occur in the following releases:   

SPARC Platform

• Solaris 10 without patch 137111-01           
• OpenSolaris based upon builds snv_64 through snv_92

for Sun UltraSPARC T2 and UltraSPARC T2+ systems.

Notes:

1. Solaris 8 and 9 do not support the Sun UltraSPARC T2 or UltraSPARC T2+ processor and thus are not impacted by this issue.
2. This issue only affects systems with a Sun UltraSPARC T2 or UltraSPARC T2+ processor and therefore does not affect the x86 platform. 

To determine if a system has either a Sun UltraSPARC T2 or UltraSPARC T2+ processor, the following command can be run:

$ modinfo | grep SUNW,UltraSPARC-T2

   
If output such as:

3  12c3d40   5450   -   0  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T2 ()

or:

4  121c460   6520   -   0  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T2+ ()

   
is seen, then the system has a Sun UltraSPARC T2 or UltraSPARC T2+ processor.

3. Symptoms

If the described issue occurs, the system may panic with a stack strace similar to the following:

panicsys()
vpanic()
panic()
die(0 
trap()
ktl0()
kcopy_nta() 
uiomove()
writerp()
nfs3_write()
vnext_write()
port_fop_write()
vhead_write() 
fop_write()
vn_rdwr()
core_write()        
elf32core() 
do_core()
core()     
psig()
post_syscall()
syscall_trap32()

4. Workaround

To prevent this issue from occurring until patches can be applied, the system-wide core file options can be modified to disable core dumps using coreadm(1M) as in the following example:

# coreadm -d process -d global -d global-setid -d proc-setid

5. Resolution

This issue is addressed in the following releases:

SPARC Platform

• Solaris 10 with patch 137111-01 or later
• OpenSolaris based upon builds snv_93 or later

For more information on Security Sun Alerts, see Technical Instruction ID 213557.

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