Moderate: python security, bug fix, and enhancement update

Updated python packages that fix three security issues, several bugs, and
add various enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate
security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores,
which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerability
from the CVE links in the References section.

Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming
language.

A flaw was found in the Python urllib and urllib2 libraries where they
would not differentiate between different target URLs when handling
automatic redirects. This caused Python applications using these modules to
follow any new URL that they understood, including the "file://" URL type.
This could allow a remote server to force a local Python application to
read a local file instead of the remote one, possibly exposing local files
that were not meant to be exposed. (CVE-2011-1521)

A race condition was found in the way the Python smtpd module handled new
connections. A remote user could use this flaw to cause a Python script
using the smtpd module to terminate. (CVE-2010-3493)

An information disclosure flaw was found in the way the Python
CGIHTTPServer module processed certain HTTP GET requests. A remote attacker
could use a specially-crafted request to obtain the CGI script's source
code. (CVE-2011-1015)

This erratum also upgrades Python to upstream version 2.6.6, and includes a
number of bug fixes and enhancements. Documentation for these bug fixes
and enhancements is available from the Technical Notes document, linked to
in the References section.

All users of Python are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which
correct these issues, and fix the bugs and add the enhancements noted in
the Technical Notes.

Before applying this update, make sure all previously-released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to
use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259

603073 - python >>> help() >>> modules command traceback when used without DISPLAY
614680 - Try to print repr() when a fatal garbage collection assertion fails
625393 - adjust test_commands unit test to the updated output of the ls command
625395 - include the tests/data directory in the python-test rpm
626756 - test_dbm fails on ppc64 & s390x
627301 - Rebase python from 2.6.5 to 2.6.6 in RHEL 6.1
632200 - CVE-2010-3493 Python: SMTP proxy RFC 2821 module DoS (uncaught exception) (Issue #9129)
634944 - rpmlint errors and warnings
639392 - Generating python backtrace with "py-bt" fails with a traceback
649274 - Infinite recursion in urllib2 on basicauth failure
650588 - subprocess fails in select when descriptors are large (rhel6)
669847 - urllib2's AbstractBasicAuthHandler is limited to 6 requests
680094 - CVE-2011-1015 python (CGIHTTPServer): CGI script source code disclosure
684991 - python update causes rhythmbox to crash
690315 - python occasionally fails to build on machines with more than one core
690560 - CVE-2011-1521 python (urllib, urllib2): Improper management of ftp:// and file:// URL schemes (Issue #11662)

https://www.redhat.com/security/data/cve/CVE-2010-3493.html
https://www.redhat.com/security/data/cve/CVE-2011-1015.html
https://www.redhat.com/security/data/cve/CVE-2011-1521.html
https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/6.1_Technical_Notes/python.html
http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.6.6/NEWS.txt