Posted on 2019-08-08 by PostgreSQL Global Development Group
The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released an update to all supported versions of our database system, including 11.5, 10.10, 9.6.15, 9.5.19, and 9.4.24, as well as the third beta of PostgreSQL 12. This release fixes two security issues in the PostgreSQL server, two security issues found in one of the PostgreSQL Windows installers, and over 40 bugs reported since the previous release.
Users should install these updates as soon as possible.
A Note on the PostgreSQL 12 Beta
In the spirit of the open source PostgreSQL community, we strongly encourage you to test the new features of PostgreSQL 12 in your database systems to help us eliminate any bugs or other issues that may exist. While we do not advise you to run PostgreSQL 12 Beta 3 in your production environments, we encourage you to find ways to run your typical application workloads against this beta release.
Your testing and feedback will help the community ensure that the PostgreSQL 12 release upholds our standards of providing a stable, reliable release of the world's most advanced open source relational database.
Security Issues
Four security vulnerabilities have been closed by this release:
CVE-2019-10208: TYPE in pg_temp executes arbitrary SQL during SECURITY DEFINER execution
Versions Affected: 9.4 - 11
Given a suitable SECURITY DEFINER function, an attacker can execute arbitrary SQL under the identity of the function owner. An attack requires EXECUTE permission on the function, which must itself contain a function call having inexact argument type match. For example, length('foo'::varchar) and length('foo') are inexact, while length('foo'::text) is exact. As part of exploiting this vulnerability, the attacker uses CREATE DOMAIN to create a type in a pg_temp schema. The attack pattern and fix are similar to that for CVE-2007-2138.
Writing SECURITY DEFINER functions continues to require
following the considerations noted in the documentation:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-createfunction.html#SQL-CREATEFUNCTION-SECURITY
The PostgreSQL project thanks Tom Lane for reporting this problem.
CVE-2019-10209: Memory disclosure in cross-type comparison for hashed subplan
Versions Affected: 11
In a database containing hypothetical, user-defined hash equality operators, an attacker could read arbitrary bytes of server memory. For an attack to become possible, a superuser would need to create unusual operators. It is possible for operators not purpose-crafted for attack to have the properties that enable an attack, but we are not aware of specific examples.
The PostgreSQL project thanks Andreas Seltenreich for reporting this problem.
CVE-2019-10210: EnterpriseDB Windows installer writes PostgreSQL superuser password to unprotected temporary file
Versions Affected: The EnterpriseDB Windows installer for versions 9.4 - 11
The EnterpriseDB Windows installer writes a password to a temporary file in its installation directory, creates initial databases, and deletes the file. During those seconds while the file exists, a local attacker can read the PostgreSQL superuser password from the file.
The PostgreSQL project thanks Noah Misch for reporting this problem.
CVE-2019-10211: EnterpriseDB Windows installer bundled OpenSSL executes code from unprotected directory
Versions Affected: The EnterpriseDB Windows installer for versions 9.4 - 11
When the database server or libpq client library initializes SSL, libeay32.dll attempts to read configuration from a hard-coded directory. Typically, the directory does not exist, but any local user could create it and inject configuration. This configuration can direct OpenSSL to load and execute arbitrary code as the user running a PostgreSQL server or client. Most PostgreSQL client tools and libraries use libpq, and one can encounter this vulnerability by using any of them. This vulnerability is much like CVE-2019-5443, but it originated independently. One can work around the vulnerability by setting environment variable OPENSSL_CONF to "NUL:/openssl.cnf" or any other name that cannot exist as a file.
The PostgreSQL project thanks Daniel Gustafsson of the curl security team for reporting this problem.
Bug Fixes and Improvements
This update also fixes over 40 bugs that were reported in the last several months. Some of these issues affect only version 11, but many affect all supported versions.
Some of these fixes include:
- Fix for ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN TYPE when multiple column types are modified in a single-command. This issue was introduced in the previous cumulative update (11.4, 10.9, 9.6.14, 9.5.18, 9.4.23, and 12 beta 2).
- Ensure that partition key columns will not be dropped as the result of an "indirect drop," such as from a cascade from dropping the key column's data type (e.g. a custom data type). This fix is applied only to newly created partitioned tables: if you believe you have an affected partition table (e.g. one where the partition key uses a custom data type), you will need to create a new table and move your data into it.
- Prevent dropping a partitioned table's trigger if there are pending trigger events in child partitions. This particularly affects foreign key constraints, which are implemented by triggers.
- Several additional fixes for partitioning, including a fix for partition pruning that could lead to inefficient queries.
- Fix for parallel hash joins that could lead to duplicate result rows in EXISTS queries.
- Several fixes for the query planner.
- Several fixes for issues that would lead to query deadlocks.
- Fix for multi-column foreign keys when rebuilding a foreign key constraint,
- Prevent extended statistics from being built for inherited tables.
- Fix for the canonicalization of date ranges that include -infinity/infinity endpoints to ensure the behavior matches the documentation.
- Fix loss of fractional digits when converting very large money values to numeric.
- Fix for PL/pgSQL functions that return composite types.
- Make libpq ignore the \r carriage return in connection service files, which was causing connection failures in some edge cases.
- Several fixes for psql, which includes avoiding incorrect tab completion options after SET variable =.
- Improve reliability of contrib/amcheck's index verification.
- Set initdb to prefer the timezone behavior defined by the C library instead of what is defined by localtime or posixrules. This ensures PostgreSQL uses the "real" timezone name instead of an artificial name.
- Fix pg_dump to ensure that custom operator classes are dumped in the correct order to prevent creating an unrestorable dump.
- Fix possible lockup in pgbench when using -R option.
- Fix spinlock assembly code for MIPS CPUs so that it works on MIPS r6.
For more details, you can read the full copy of the release notes here:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/release/
Updating
All PostgreSQL update releases are cumulative. As with other minor releases, users are not required to dump and reload their database or use pg_upgrade in order to apply this update release; you may simply shutdown PostgreSQL and update its binaries.
Users who have skipped one or more update releases may need to run additional, post-update steps; please see the release notes for earlier versions for details.
PostgreSQL 9.4 will stop receiving fixes on February 13, 2020. Please see our versioning policy for more information.
Testing for Bugs & Compatibility
The stability of each PostgreSQL release greatly depends on you, the community, to test the upcoming version with your workloads and testing tools in order to find bugs and regressions before the general availability of PostgreSQL 12. As this is a Beta, minor changes to database behaviors, feature details, and APIs are still possible. Your feedback and testing will help determine the final tweaks on the new features, so please test in the near future. The quality of user testing helps determine when we can make a final release.
A list of open issues is publicly available in the PostgreSQL wiki. You can report bugs using this form on the PostgreSQL website:
https://www.postgresql.org/account/submitbug/
Beta Schedule
This is the third beta release of version 12. The PostgreSQL Project will release additional betas as required for testing, followed by one or more release candidates, until the final release in late 2019. For further information please see the Beta Testing page.
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