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______________________________________________________________________________
		   Caldera Systems, Inc.  Security Advisory

Subject:		serious security problem in cron
Advisory number: 	CSSA-1999:023.0
Issue date: 		1999 August, 27
Last revised:           1999 September, 6
Cross reference:
______________________________________________________________________________


1. Problem Description

   There is a serious security problem in the cron daemon.
   When a program generates output, it invokes the sendmail
   program as root user, passing it as arguments whatever
   the user defined in the MAILTO variable in his/her
   crontab.

   Sendmail understands a number of potentially dangerous
   options. When a normal user specifies these options, sendmail
   will immediately drop all root privilege. Now, since
   cron invokes sendmail as root user, sendmail will happily
   accept whatever dangerous options it is given.

2. Vulnerable Versions

   Systems : COL 2.2, COL 2.3
   Packages: previous to vixie-cron-3.0.1-19

3. Solutions

   Workaround: none

   The proper solution is to upgrade to the latest packages

	rpm -U vixie-cron-3.0.1-19.i386.rpm
	
4. Location of Fixed Packages

   The upgrade packages can be found on Caldera's FTP site at:

   ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/OpenLinux/updates/2.3/current/RPMS/

   The corresponding source code package can be found at:

   ftp://ftp.calderaystems.com/pub/OpenLinux/updates/2.3/current/SRPMS


5. Installing Fixed Packages

   Upgrade the affected packages with the following commands:

        rpm -U vixie-cron-3.0.1-19.i386.rpm
	
6. Verification

   417cd4ff2a369d7383eec6a6793b99e7  vixie-cron-3.0.1-19.i386.rpm
   80cf3430d59e7c5bfc24e75eac9a9f74  vixie-cron-3.0.1-19.src.rpm


7. References

   This and other Caldera security resources are located at:

   http://www.calderasystems.com/news/security/index.html

   This security fix closes Caldera's internal Problem Report 5086

8. Disclaimer
   Caldera Systems, Inc. is not responsible for the misuse of any of the
   information we provide on this website and/or through our security
   advisories. Our advisories are a service to our customers intended to
   promote secure installation and use of Caldera OpenLinux.

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