dbcve.org
Enterprise LinuxOperating system · Redhat

CVE-2023-6917

MEDIUM · 6.7 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-02-28
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 6.2.0 or later.
See remediation →
69/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
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
A vulnerability has been identified in the Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) package, stemming from the mixed privilege levels utilized by systemd services associated with PCP. While certain services operate within the confines of limited PCP user/group privileges, others are granted full root privileges. This disparity in privilege levels poses a risk when privileged root processes interact with directories or directory trees owned by unprivileged PCP users. Specifically, this vulnerability may lead to the compromise of PCP user isolation and facilitate local PCP-to-root exploits, particularly through symlink attacks. These vulnerabilities underscore the importance of maintaining robust privilege separation mechanisms within PCP to mitigate the potential for unauthorized privilege escalation.

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

Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) has a privilege separation vulnerability where systemd services run at mixed privilege levels—some as limited PCP user/group and others as root. Root-level services interact with directories owned by unprivileged PCP users, allowing symlink attacks that can bypass user isolation and enable local PCP-to-root privilege escalation.

MitigationRemediate by ensuring root-privileged PCP services do not interact with directories owned by unprivileged PCP users, or by restructuring services to run with least privilege and implementing symlink protection.

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
Enterprise LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 9.0
Performance Co PilotApplication
Affected:< 6.2.0

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
Privileges
High
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/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 checks

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

  1. Identify installed PCP version
    Run 'rpm -q pcp' or 'pcp --version' to determine if Performance Co-Pilot is installed and its exact version number
    Affected if Version is below 6.2.0 or system is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.0 with PCP installed
  2. Check PCP systemd service privilege levels
    Run 'systemctl list-units --type=service | grep -i pcp' to list PCP services, then run 'systemctl show <service> | grep User' for each to see if they run as root versus unprivileged pcp user
    Affected if Multiple PCP services exist with mixed User values (some as root, some as pcp user)
  3. Identify directories owned by unprivileged PCP user
    Run 'ls -la /var/lib/pcp' and check ownership; also check 'ls -la /var/log/pcp' for directories owned by the 'pcp' user rather than root
    Affected if Directories like /var/lib/pcp or /var/log/pcp are owned by unprivileged 'pcp' user rather than root
  4. Verify root services write to PCP user directories
    Examine systemd service unit files in /etc/systemd/system/ for PCP services running as root and check their configured directories via 'grep -r "Directory" /etc/systemd/system/pcp*.service' or similar
    Affected if Root-privileged PCP services are configured to write to or interact with directories owned by the unprivileged pcp user

Environment is affected if PCP is installed at a vulnerable version (below 6.2.0 on SGI PCP, or any version on RHEL 9.0) AND root-privileged systemd services interact with directories owned by the unprivileged PCP user, enabling potential symlink-based privilege escalation.

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 6.2.0 or later
Fixed in 6.2.0
Interim mitigation

Remediate by ensuring root-privileged PCP services do not interact with directories owned by unprivileged PCP users, or by restructuring services to run with least privilege and implementing symlink protection.

Recommended fix Moderate confidence

PCP version 6.2.0 or later (on Enterprise Linux 9.0)

  1. 1. Update the package cache: sudo dnf check-update
  2. 2. Upgrade the Performance Co-Pilot package: sudo dnf update pcp
  3. 3. Restart PCP services to apply changes: sudo systemctl daemon-reload
  4. 4. Restart PCP-related services: sudo systemctl restart pmcd && sudo systemctl restart pmproxy
  5. 5. Verify the installed PCP version is 6.2.0 or later: pcp --version
Caveat Ensure any custom PCP configurations are compatible with version 6.2.0 before restarting services

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Enterprise Linux Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation6.0 h
  • Implementation12.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
28.0 hours of engineering $4,980
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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-2023-6917 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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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
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