Subject: ANNOUNCE: nfs-utils 1.0.4 To: nfs@lists.sourceforge.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org cc: Janusz Niewiadomski This release of nfs-utils contains: 1/ Fix for a remotely exploitable buffer-overflow bug. 2/ assorted minor bug fixes 3/ Extensive changes to make use of new functionality in linux-2.6.0 nfsd nfs-utils 1.0.4 can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14 or http://www.{countrycode}.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/nfs/ I consider this release to be a pre-release for 1.1.0 which I hope to release before linux-2.6.0-final. Bug reports are very welcome. 1/ A buffer-overflow bug was found by Janusz Niewiadomski iSEC Security Research http://isec.pl/ It is trivially exploitable to effect a remote denial of service. More subtle exploits may be possible. I recommend that all users of nfs-utils either: 1/ upgrade to 1.0.4 or 2/ Get an update from their vendor (most vendors should have an update available). I also recommend that all NFS services be protected from the internet-at-large by a firewall where that is possible. 2/ See the change log in the source for details on bug fixes. 3/ In 2.4 and earlier kernels, the nfs server needed to know about any client that expected to be able to access files via NFS. This information would be given to the kernel by "mountd" when the client mounted the filesystem, or by "exportfs" at system startup. exportfs would take information about active clients from /var/lib/nfs/rmtab. This approach is quite fragile as it depends on rmtab being correct which is not always easy, particularly when trying to implement fail-over. Even when the system is working well, rmtab suffers from getting lots of old entries that never get removed. With 2.6 we have the option of having the kernel tell mountd when it gets a request from an unknown host, and mountd can give appropriate export information to the kernel. This removes the dependancy on rmtab and means that the kernel only needs to know about currently active clients. To enable this new functionality, you need to: mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfs before running exportfs or mountd. If you are using 2.6.0-testX and exporting files with NFS *please* test this out and let me know of any problems. NeilBrown - July 2003