Red Hat just announced security fixes in several packages.
>
> Numerous security holes have recentely been fixed. Only one of these
> is at all serious, most are minor problems with possible /tmp exploits.
>
> These fixes apply to all users of Red Hat 4.x releases. Similiar fixes
> for the Thunderbird and Mustang beta glibc releases will show up in
> the devel tree on ftp.redhat.com overnight.
>
> Note that many of these fixes now require the mktemp package, which is
> also available as an update for Red Hat 4.2.
>
> Erik
>
> i386
> - ----
> rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.redhat.com/updates/4.2/i386/groff-1.10-8.1.i386.rpm
> rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.redhat.com/updates/4.2/i386/metamail-2.7-7.1.i386.rpm
> rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.redhat.com/updates/4.2/i386/mktemp-0.9-1.i386.rpm
> rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.redhat.com/updates/4.2/i386/rhs-printfilters-1.41.1-1.i386.rpm
> rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.redhat.com/updates/4.2/i386/tetex-dvips-0.4pl8-5.1.i386.rpm
[...]
Ugly temporary file creation allowing
any user in the system trash any file of other users of the system
are surely only "minor" problems.
It isn't matter. Now this kind of problems was fixed
for metamail and tetex and it's VERY COOL.
You can look yourself what is changed in these packages.
If you find lines like
mkdir /tmp/decode.$$
cd /tmp/decode.$$
in /usr/bin/sun-message.csh don't trust your eyes: the problem
was declared to be fixed!
[Hint to Erik: compare the set of patches declared in the head of your spec
file and the set of really applied ones :-> ]
BTW: Do you consider ugly temporary file creation dangerous only in
dvi-to-ps.fpi or in other scripts too?
Run grep ^TEMPDIR /usr/bin/MakeTeX{PK,TFM,MF}.
Best regards,
Andrey V.
Savochkin