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LinuxOperating system · Redhat

CVE-1999-1329

HIGH · 7.2 CVSS v2.0 Published 1999-12-31
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 5.1 or later.
See remediation →
77/100
Remediation priority · High
No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Buffer overflow in SysVInit in Red Hat Linux 5.1 and earlier allows local users to gain privileges.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

Buffer overflow vulnerability in SysVInit on Red Hat Linux 5.1 and earlier allows local unprivileged users to escalate to root privileges. This is a memory corruption flaw in the legacy init system daemon.

MitigationMigrate away from affected systems immediately; Red Hat Linux 5.1 and earlier are end-of-life and should be decommissioned. If legacy systems must be retained, isolate them in a secured environment with no network access.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
LinuxOperating system
Affected:<= 5.1

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Complete
Integrity
Complete
Availability
Complete

AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify the Linux distribution and version
    Run 'cat /etc/redhat-release' or 'cat /etc/issue' to determine the installed Red Hat Linux version
    Affected if The version displayed is 5.1 or earlier
  2. Determine the init system in use
    Run 'ps -p 1 -o comm=' to identify which init process (PID 1) is running on the system
    Affected if The output shows 'init' or 'sysvinit' rather than 'systemd' or 'upstart'
  3. Check SysVInit package version
    Run 'rpm -q sysvinit' or 'dpkg -l | grep sysvinit' depending on package manager to retrieve the installed SysVInit version
    Affected if The version returned is unpatched and corresponds to the Red Hat 5.1 release or earlier
  4. Verify if running as a legacy system
    Check if /proc/1/exe points to /sbin/init and verify the binary with 'ls -la /sbin/init' to confirm SysVInit is the active init system
    Affected if The init binary is the legacy SysVInit rather than a modern alternatives like systemd

The system is affected if it is running Red Hat Linux 5.1 or earlier with SysVInit as the active init system, where an unpatched version of the init daemon is present.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 5.1
Interim mitigation

Migrate away from affected systems immediately; Red Hat Linux 5.1 and earlier are end-of-life and should be decommissioned. If legacy systems must be retained, isolate them in a secured environment with no network access.

Fix this in Linux Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
18.0 hours of engineering $3,200
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-1999-1329 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data