Varnish is an http accellerator.

I recently requested an update for varnish-2.1.0 in f13 an rawhide. I hope it 
will be accepted for f13, as it contains a fix for CVE-2009-2936 (bz #579536, 
#579533).

CVE-2009-2936 states that it is a security problem that local users on a system 
running varnish have anonymously access to the varnish administration console 
(telnet interface), which, given enough varnish clue, is effectively giving 
them local root access. varnish-2.1.0 fixes this by adding password 
authentication to the administration console. This password fix will probably 
not be backported to the 2.0 series.

f12, f11, epel5 and epel4 have varnish-2.0.6. The configuration interface has 
changed a bit from the 2.0 to the 2.1 series. The change is not large, but a 
lot of users will have to change a configuration line or ten to be able to 
upgrade. This means that automatic upgrade is not possible, and according to 
the rules, we will thus have to stay with 2.0.x for these "old" stable releases 
(at least until some major security problem arises). Upstream will continue 
maintenance of the 2.0 series for at least some 6 months more, I guess.

I can "fix" this in two ways: Either (1) pack 2.1.0 for the "old" stable 
releases of fedora and epel, breaking existing configurations, or, (2) submit 
an update with the administration console switched off by default, possibly 
breaking automated scripts using it via nc or varnishadm.

I may also ignore the case. Upstream disputes the seriousness of this "bug".

I would like an advice on this from the security team, please.

Regards,
Ingvar
--
security mailing list
[email protected]
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/security

Reply via email to