CVE-2003-0335
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 · uneditedrc.M in Slackware 9.0 calls quotacheck with the -M option, which causes the filesystem to be remounted and possibly reset security-relevant mount flags such as nosuid, nodev, and noexec.
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 · high confidenceThe Slackware 9.0 rc.M startup script invokes quotacheck with the -M flag, which forces a filesystem remount. During this remount operation, security-relevant mount options such as nosuid, nodev, and noexec are not preserved and get reset, potentially allowing privileged executables, device access, or executable scripts that should be blocked.
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= 9.0CVSS 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
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Partial
- Integrity
- Partial
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Confirm Slackware Linux versionRun 'cat /etc/slackware-version' or 'lsb_release -a' to identify the installed Slackware versionAffected if The system is running Slackware Linux version 9.0
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Locate the rc.M startup scriptCheck if /etc/rc.d/rc.M exists on the systemAffected if The rc.M file exists (this is the startup script containing the vulnerable command)
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Search for vulnerable quotacheck commandRun 'grep -n "quotacheck" /etc/rc.d/rc.M' to find quotacheck invocations, then inspect the full line to see if it contains the -M flagAffected if The output shows 'quotacheck' followed by the -M flag (e.g., 'quotacheck -M' or 'quotacheck -aM')
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Verify mount options would be lostExamine the full context of the quotacheck command in rc.M to confirm it runs during startup with the -M flag which forces a remount without preserving nosuid, nodev, or noexecAffected if The -M flag is present in the quotacheck command within rc.M and the system uses disk quotas with mount options that should be preserved
A system is affected if it is running Slackware Linux 9.0 and the /etc/rc.d/rc.M script contains a quotacheck command with the -M flag that would reset security mount options during startup.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataRemove the -M flag from the quotacheck command in rc.M, or modify the remount command to explicitly preserve original mount options (e.g., using 'mount -o remount,ro' with preserved flags or removing the -M flag entirely if quotacheck can run without remounting).
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2003-0335 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2003-0335 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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