Possible partial D.o.S.

[H VC]

Hi,

I have noticed that sh-utils version that ships with RedHat 7.2 is
2.0.11-5 version. Previous release of RH ( 7.1 ) came with 2.0-13 sh-utils. 
¿ Why this ?
Also I've been playing with su that comes with 2.0.11-5 and I got some 
strange results. I tried to su to a very large, but carefully calculated, 
user, and I have my Linux not responding.
Example :

su `perl -e 'print "A" x 100000000'`

This leave my box in not a really nice condition, I have all Memory consumed 
and then begins to swap ...

I have noticed also that if you try with a user_name that system can map in 
swap, and you have big swap, then you have the system not responding.

Is it a normal feature ?

My system : RedHat 7.2 ( sh-utils-2.0.11-5 )
            128 MB RAM
            K6-II  500 Mhz
            570 MB of swap

Is not "su" able to check for the size of the string before parsing all of 
it ?

Thanks and sorry for my bad english.

HVC

Hugo Vázquez Caramés
Analista de Seguridad Telemática
IT Security Services Winmat
Barcelona
SPAIN

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