-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 NetBSD Security Advisory 2006-002 ================================= Topic: settimeofday() time wrap Version: NetBSD-current: source prior to December 5, 2005 NetBSD 3.0: not affected NetBSD 2.1: affected NetBSD 2.0.3: affected NetBSD 1.6.2: affected Severity: ability to set the time backwards at securelevel > 1 Fixed: NetBSD-current: December 5, 2005 NetBSD-3 branch: December 6, 2005 NetBSD-2.1 branch: December 6, 2005 NetBSD-2.0 branch: December 6, 2005 NetBSD-2 branch: December 6, 2005 NetBSD-1.6 branch: December 6, 2005 Abstract ======== The prohibition against setting the system time "backwards" at securelevel > 1 can be circumvented. Technical Details ================= Setting the time backwards is not regularly allowed at securelevel > 1. The settime() code in the kernel had no provision against wrapping. Once the clock reached approximately "Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 UTC 2038", it will wrap to "Fri Dec 13 20:45:52 UTC 1901". After that, a root process can set the time to any value, since all values are greater than that. The fixed version of the code does not allow anyone to set the time after "Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 UTC 2037" thus one will have to wait for a year for the time to wrap in order to take advantage of this. Solutions and Workarounds ========================= For all NetBSD versions, you need to obtain fixed kernel sources, rebuild and install the new kernel, and reboot the system. The fixed source may be obtained from the NetBSD CVS repository. The following instructions briefly summarise how to upgrade your kernel. In these instructions, replace: ARCH with your architecture (from uname -m), and KERNCONF with the name of your kernel configuration file. To update from CVS, re-build, and re-install the kernel: # cd src # cvs update -d -P sys/kern/kern_time.c # ./build.sh kernel=KERNCONF # mv /netbsd /netbsd.old # cp sys/arch/ARCH/compile/obj/KERNCONF/netbsd /netbsd # shutdown -r now For more information on how to do this, see: http://www.NetBSD.org/guide/en/chap-kernel.html Thanks To ========= Markus Vervier from RedTeam Pentesting for reporting the bug and Christos Zoulas for the fix. Revision History ================ 2006-01-09 Initial release More Information ================ Advisories may be updated as new information becomes available. The most recent version of this advisory (PGP signed) can be found at ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/security/advisories/NetBSD-SA2006-002.txt.asc Information about NetBSD and NetBSD security can be found at http://www.NetBSD.org/ and http://www.NetBSD.org/Security/. Copyright 2006, The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Redistribution permitted only in full, unmodified form. $NetBSD: NetBSD-SA2006-002.txt,v 1.9 2006/01/09 14:48:35 gendalia Exp $ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (NetBSD) iQCVAwUBQ8J4AD5Ru2/4N2IFAQJsbQP/cTfPihdaPwhq2i8x5xSN/l+yKNFARq/I WCsOz5JZqrohKizkEikdqbYgvkdqNEVlWW5J7aZJ6woZ8tb4gCNIn9OVM8RyIDDV wJ1GAbCZmvtJOMIE43RYF+7vYJXekQjuSzVEnYFwRLrLgppY12cC7nUXvcjgOAqr Dpb+LtQYYh4= =Tg1Q -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----