Ubuntu LinuxOperating system · Canonical
CVE-2017-14179
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 · uneditedApport before 2.13 does not properly handle crashes originating from a PID namespace allowing local users to create certain files as root which an attacker could leverage to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion, possibly gain root privileges, or escape from containers.
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 confidenceApport before version 2.13 fails to properly handle crash signals originating from PID namespaces. When a process in a PID namespace crashes, Apport incorrectly creates crash files owned by root with elevated privileges. This allows local users to flood the filesystem (DoS via resource exhaustion), potentially gain root privileges through file manipulation, or escape from container isolation by leveraging the root-owned files created outside the namespace.
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
Ubuntu LinuxOperating system
= 14.04= 16.04= 17.04= 17.10= 18.04< 2.13CVSS 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
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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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Check Apport versionRun 'dpkg -l apport' or 'apport-cli --version' to see the installed versionAffected if Version is lower than 2.13 (e.g., 2.12.x, 2.10.x, etc.)
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Confirm Apport is installedRun 'which apport' or 'which apport-cli' to verify the binary existsAffected if Apport is not installed on the system (not affected in this case)
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Check if Apport service is activeRun 'systemctl is-active apport' or check if Apport is running via 'ps aux | grep apport'Affected if Apport is actively running and will process crash signals
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Determine if PID namespaces are in useCheck if the system is running containerized workloads or check /proc/1/ns/pid exists, or look for container runtime processes (docker, lxc, etc.)Affected if The system uses PID namespaces (containers, LXC, Docker, etc.) where crash signals from namespace processes could trigger the flaw
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Check Apport crash handling configurationInspect /etc/apport/crashdb.conf or check /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern to see if Apport is configured as the crash handlerAffected if Apport is configured as the default crash handler (core_pattern points to Apport or apport-pid is involved)
You are affected if Apport version is below 2.13 AND Apport is enabled/active AND your system or containers use PID namespaces where crash signals could be processed by Apport.
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 data2.13
Upgrade Apport to version 2.13 or later which implements proper PID namespace crash handling. If immediate upgrade is not possible, consider disabling Apport auto-start or restricting crash handler access in containerized environments.
Fix this in Ubuntu Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,752.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-14179 — 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-2017-14179 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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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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