An apparent Denial of Service (DoS) issue relating to Sun M-class servers
was reported by three OpenBSD developers to the Full-Disclosure mailing
list:

http://lists.grok.org.uk/pipermail/full-disclosure/2008-September/064312.html

The issue as described relates that the OpenBSD/sparc64 kernel can trigger
a fault which causes the dynamic domain of a Sun M-class server to power
down. Sun has investigated this issue and would like to provide the
following details to help clarify the impact as well as the contributing
factors.

• This issue applies to Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 Servers and Sun
  SPARC Enterprise M5000 Servers only.
  
• This issue does not apply to the above systems when Solaris is
  installed.
  
• This issue is seen with OpenBSD/sparc64 due to a device driver and
  thus can not be triggered by an unprivileged user.
  
• The OpenBSD/sparc64 device driver causes a hardware fault to occur
  and since the dynamic domains in Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 and
  M5000 servers share major hardware components the hardware fault
  causes the M-class server processor to shut down the entire platform.
  
• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 and M5000 servers are cold service
  systems and thus to clear a hardware fault the system must be powered
  off.
  

tags: dos m4000 m5000 openbsd vulnerability

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Sun is aware of a Denial of Service (DoS) issue in the Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 server running OpenBSD. This issue could
lead to a hardware failure in one domain that may affect other running domains on the system, thereby requiring complete
power cycle of the hardware to recover from. Sun acknowledges Theo de Raadt of openbsd.org for bringing the issue to our
attention.

Sun has been in contact with the reporters of the issue and is currently investigating to fully understand the root cause,
its impact and to find a resolution. Sun will provide additional information as soon as it becomes available.

Security vulnerabilities or potential security issues in any Sun product may be reported via email to
security {dash} alert {at} sun.com. It is recommended to encrypt all sensitive emails with the Sun Security Coordination Team's PGP key.
More details can be found here

tags: dos m4000 openbsd sparc vulnerability

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