CVE-2020-29479

NameCVE-2020-29479
DescriptionAn issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. In the Ocaml xenstored implementation, the internal representation of the tree has special cases for the root node, because this node has no parent. Unfortunately, permissions were not checked for certain operations on the root node. Unprivileged guests can get and modify permissions, list, and delete the root node. (Deleting the whole xenstore tree is a host-wide denial of service.) Achieving xenstore write access is also possible. All systems using oxenstored are vulnerable. Building and using oxenstored is the default in the upstream Xen distribution, if the Ocaml compiler is available. Systems using C xenstored are not vulnerable.
SourceCVE (at NVD; CERT, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)
ReferencesDSA-4812-1

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source PackageReleaseVersionStatus
xen (PTS)buster, buster (security)4.11.4+107-gef32c7afa2-1fixed
bullseye4.14.6-1fixed
bullseye (security)4.14.5+94-ge49571868d-1fixed
bookworm4.17.3+10-g091466ba55-1~deb12u1fixed
trixie4.17.3+10-g091466ba55-1fixed
sid4.17.3+36-g54dacb5c02-1fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

PackageTypeReleaseFixed VersionUrgencyOriginDebian Bugs
xensourcestretch(unfixed)end-of-life
xensourcebuster4.11.4+57-g41a822c392-2DSA-4812-1
xensource(unstable)4.14.0+88-g1d1d1f5391-1

Notes

[stretch] - xen <end-of-life> (DSA 4602-1)
https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-353.html

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