CVE-2008-5910
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 · uneditedUnspecified vulnerability in txzonemgr in Sun OpenSolaris has unknown impact and local attack vectors, related to a "Temporary file vulnerability," aka Bug ID 6653462.
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 confidenceTemporary file vulnerability in txzonemgr in Sun OpenSolaris allows local attackers to manipulate temporary files via insecure file creation handling, potentially leading to privilege escalation or arbitrary file overwrite. The vulnerability is local and relates to improper handling of temporary files in the zone management utility.
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 dataall versionsCVSS 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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify the operating system versionRun 'uname -a' or check /etc/release to confirm the OS is Sun OpenSolaris or a derivative (such as Indiana OS or early Oracle Solaris)Affected if The OS is any version of Sun OpenSolaris (all versions are affected)
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Locate the txzonemgr utilitySearch for the txzonemgr binary using 'which txzonemgr' or 'find /usr -name txzonemgr 2>/dev/null'Affected if The txzonemgr utility is present on the system (the vulnerability exists in this utility)
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Check for world-writable temporary directoriesInspect the temporary file creation behavior of txzonemgr by examining /tmp permissions with 'ls -lad /tmp' and monitoring the utility during execution for any files it creates in insecure locationsAffected if Temporary files created by txzonemgr are in world-writable locations with predictable names (indicating insecure temporary file handling)
If the system runs Sun OpenSolaris with the txzonemgr utility present, the environment is affected by this vulnerability because all versions of Sun OpenSolaris contain the insecure temporary file handling in txzonemgr.
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 dataReplace insecure temporary file operations with secure methods (e.g., mkstemp, O_EXCL, or atomic file creation) and ensure proper file permissions and ownership checks. Consider applying vendor patches if available for OpenSolaris or migrating to supported Oracle Solaris versions.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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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 sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2008-5910 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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