Xen Security Advisory 352 v3 (CVE-2020-29486) - oxenstored: node ownership can be changed by unprivileged clients

[Xen.org security team <security@xxxxxxx>]

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            Xen Security Advisory CVE-2020-29486 / XSA-352
                               version 3

   oxenstored: node ownership can be changed by unprivileged clients

UPDATES IN VERSION 3
====================

Public release.

ISSUE DESCRIPTION
=================

Nodes in xenstore have an ownership.  In oxenstored, a owner could
give a node away.  But node ownership has quota implications.

Any guest can run another guest out of quota, or create an unbounded
number of nodes owned by dom0, thus running xenstored out of memory

IMPACT
======

A malicious guest administrator can cause denial of service, against a
specific guest or against the whole host.

VULNERABLE SYSTEMS
==================

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.

MITIGATION
==========

There are no mitigations.

Changing to use of C xenstored would avoid this vulnerability.  However,
given the other vulnerabilities in both versions of xenstored being
reported at this time, changing xenstored implementation is not a
recommended approach to mitigation of individual issues.

CREDITS
=======

This issue was discovered by Edwin Török of Citrix.

RESOLUTION
==========

Applying the appropriate attached patch resolves this issue.

Note that patches for released versions are generally prepared to
apply to the stable branches, and may not apply cleanly to the most
recent release tarball.  Downstreams are encouraged to update to the
tip of the stable branch before applying these patches.

xsa352.patch           xen-unstable - 4.10

$ sha256sum xsa352*
a3b2b2bd4c6b49c472df23f88fb9a5e204d2ba3cd0c3901f8ed057566ef98c85  xsa352.meta
6f9798e20282d4e06f0a8a1abd0d147649e20b33c21559d5a1ea0b1a73a2a4e4  xsa352.patch
$

DEPLOYMENT DURING EMBARGO
=========================

Deployment of the patches and/or mitigations described above (or
others which are substantially similar) is permitted during the
embargo, even on public-facing systems with untrusted guest users and
administrators.

But: Distribution of updated software is prohibited (except to other
members of the predisclosure list).

Predisclosure list members who wish to deploy significantly different
patches and/or mitigations, please contact the Xen Project Security
Team.


(Note: this during-embargo deployment notice is retained in
post-embargo publicly released Xen Project advisories, even though it
is then no longer applicable.  This is to enable the community to have
oversight of the Xen Project Security Team's decisionmaking.)

For more information about permissible uses of embargoed information,
consult the Xen Project community's agreed Security Policy:
  http://www.xenproject.org/security-policy.html
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