COMMAND

    xdm/chooser (XFree86)

SYSTEMS AFFECTED

    RedHat 4.2 with XFree86 3.3  (possible others)

PROBLEM

    Paul H.  Hargrove discovered  two potential  problems with  xdm in
    XFree86 3.3.   He confirmed  that both  problems exist  on a  i486
    running Red Hat Linux 4.2 with a 2.0.30 kernel.

    The first problem is a denial of service attack that can easily be
    mounted against xdm.  By telneting  to the TCP port opened by  xdm
    for "Chooser" connections and sending garbage ("asdf asdf  asdf\n"
    is  sufficient)  xdm  can  be  made  to  stop  managing  the local
    display, producing the following in its error log:

        Fatal server error:
        Server is already active for display 0
                If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X0-lock
                and start again.


        When reporting a problem related to a server crash, please send
        the full server output, not just the last messages

        xdm error (pid 27035): server unexpectedly died
        xdm error (pid 27035): Server for display :0 can't be started, session disabled

    If there  is a  session open  at the  time then  xdm will  fail to
    offer a login screen when it  has ended.  If no session  is active
    (the login screen is presented) then the login screen disappears.

    In  either  case  the  problem  can  be corrected by killing the X
    server and  sending a  HUP signal  to xdm  (which was started with
    -nodaemon in this case).

    The second problem is that the Chooser TCP socket is not closed on
    exec, and  thus all  descendents of  xdm (all  X clients, programs
    running  in  xterms,  etc.)  inherit  a  file  descriptor  for the
    Chooser  socket.   While  there  is  no  actual  exploit for this,
    there may be the potential  to either interfere with xdm's  normal
    function or to redirect a client to an untrusted/insecure host.

SOLUTION

    No solution yet.