The kernel in Sun Solaris 8, 9, and 10, and OpenSolaris before snv_103, does not properly handle interaction between the filesystem and virtual-memory implementations, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (deadlock and system halt) via vectors involving mmap and write operations on the same file.
The product does not properly acquire or release a lock on a resource, leading to unexpected resource state changes and behaviors.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opensolaris | Oracle | * | snv_103 (excluding) |
| Solaris | Oracle | 8 (including) | 8 (including) |
| Solaris | Oracle | 9 (including) | 9 (including) |
| Solaris | Oracle | 10 (including) | 10 (including) |
Locking is a type of synchronization behavior that ensures that multiple independently-operating processes or threads do not interfere with each other when accessing the same resource. All processes/threads are expected to follow the same steps for locking. If these steps are not followed precisely - or if no locking is done at all - then another process/thread could modify the shared resource in a way that is not visible or predictable to the original process. This can lead to data or memory corruption, denial of service, etc.