Please Install the Updated Packages.

The vixie-cron package contains the Vixie version of cron. Cron is a standard UNIX daemon that runs specified programs at scheduled times. The vixie-cron package adds improved security and more powerful configuration options to the standard version of cron. A race condition was found in the way the crontab program performed file time stamp updates on a temporary file created when editing a user crontab file. A local attacker could use this flaw to change the modification time of arbitrary system files via a symbolic link attack. (CVE-2010-0424) Red Hat would like to thank Dan Rosenberg for reporting this issue. This update also fixes the following bugs: * Cron jobs of users with home directories mounted on a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server or Network File System (NFS) were often refused because jobs were marked as orphaned (typically due to a temporary NSS lookup failure, when NIS and LDAP servers were unreachable). With this update, a database of orphans is created, and cron jobs are performed as expected. (BZ#455664) * Previously, cron did not log any errors if a cron job file located in the /etc/cron.d/ directory contained invalid entries. An upstream patch has been applied to address this problem and invalid entries in the cron job files now produce warning messages. (BZ#460070) * Previously, the &quot @reboot&quot crontab macro incorrectly ran jobs when the crond daemon was restarted. If the user used the macro on multiple machines, all entries with the &quot @reboot&quot option were executed every time the crond daemon was restarted. With this update, jobs are executed only when the machine is rebooted. (BZ#476972) * The crontab utility is now compiled as a position-independent executable (PIE), which enhances the security of the system. (BZ#480930) * When the parent crond daemon was stopped, but a child crond daemon was running (executing a program), the &quot service crond status&quot command incorrectly reported that crond was running. The source code has been modified, and the &quot service crond status&quot command now correctly reports that crond is stopped. (BZ#529632) * According to the pam(8) manual page, the cron daemon, crond, supports access control with PAM (Pluggable Authentication Module). However, the PAM configuration file for crond did not export environment variables correctly and, consequently, setting PAM variables via cron did not work. This update includes a corrected /etc/pam.d/crond file that exports environmen ... Description truncated, for more information please check the Reference URL

vixie-cron on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server)

• https://www.redhat.com/archives/rhsa-announce/2012-February/msg00056.html

---

Updated on 2015-03-25