1.171. systemtap

Updated systemtap packages that fix one security issue are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in the References section.

SystemTap is an instrumentation system for systems running the Linux kernel, version 2.6. Developers can write scripts to collect data on the operation of the system.

A divide-by-zero flaw was found in the way SystemTap handled malformed debugging information in DWARF format. When SystemTap unprivileged mode was enabled, an unprivileged user in the stapusr group could use this flaw to crash the system. Additionally, a privileged user (root, or a member of the stapdev group) could trigger this flaw when tricked into instrumenting a specially-crafted ELF binary, even when unprivileged mode was not enabled. (CVE-2011-1769)

SystemTap users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch to correct this issue.