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Net_Traceroute and Net_Ping security advisory

PEAR Security Advisory (PSA 200911-14-01)

Severity: Serious
Title: PEAR Net_Ping and Net_Traceroute Remote Arbitrary Command Injection
Date: November 14, 2009
ID: 200911-14-01

Synopsis

Multiple remote arbitrary command injections have been found in the Net_Ping
and Net_Traceroute.

Background

Net_Ping is an OS independent wrapper class for executing ping calls from PHP

Net_Traceroute is an OS independent wrapper class for executing traceroute calls from PHP

Affected packages

———————————————————————————————
Package                   /  Vulnerable  /             Unaffected
———————————————————————————————
1  Net_Ping                   < 2.4.5                   >= 2.4.5
2  Net_Traceroute       < 0.21.2                  >= 0.21.2

———————————————————————————————
2 affected packages on all of their supported architectures.
———————————————————————————————

Description

Remote Arbitrary Command Injection

Impact

When input from forms are used directly, the attacker could pass variables that would allow him to execute remote arbitrary command injections.

Workaround

Filter your input to make sure the commands passed are shell escaped or upgrade to the latest version of both packages.

Resolution

The group recommends users of Net_Ping to upgrade to Net_Ping-2.4.5 if they haven’t already:

• http://download.pear.php.net/package/Net_Ping-2.4.5.tgz
• pear upgrade Net_Ping-2.4.5

The group recommends users of Net_Traceroute to upgrade to Net_Traceroute-0.21.2 if they haven’t already:

• http://download.pear.php.net/package/Net_Traceroute-0.21.2.tgz
• pear upgrade Net_Traceroute-0.21.2

Reported By

Thanks to Pasquale Imperato for finding, analyzing and reporting the issue.

Link

http://pear.php.net/advisory20091114-01.txt

14th Nov 2009 11:39pm. Read more or see comments

Ubuntu Karmic Ships with PEAR-Affecting Issues

Be aware that the initial release of Ubuntu Karmic contains a bug that affects PHP and PEAR, whose fix came a tad too late to make the initial release.  The bug is fixed, and will be included in upcoming updates from Ubuntu.

From PEAR’s perspective, the key issue relates to the zlib library.  This is evident in any attempt to install or upgrade a package, since doing so involves downloading a tarball file that must be uncompressed.  The bug causes some zlib functions to be unavailable to PHP, and the Archive_Tar code will silently fail due to this.

If you attempt to install or upgrade a package, it may appear to finish without error, but without a final “install ok” or “upgrade ok” message.  This means the process failed.  The workaround is to include the -Z argument, so that a .tar file will be downloaded rather than a .tgz file:

pear install -Z phpdocumentor

3rd Nov 2009 10:32pm. Read more or see comments

Outage over

The core router issues at the hosting provider have been resolved.  Sorry for the inconvenience.  pear.php.net and the PEAR channel are now back in business.

25th Sep 2009 11:20pm. Read more or see comments