From the original advisery (http://www.novell.com/linux/security/advisories/2005_06_sr.html): - php4 readfile denial of service A bug in the readfile() function of php4 could be used to to crash the httpd running the php4 code when accessing files with a multiple of the architectures page size leading to a denial of service.
I can't find much info on this. Ccing PHP team, maybe they know more.
URL replaced with a more useful discussion on it. From the security note: "PHP4 is reported prone to a denial of service vulnerability. It is reported that the PHP 'readfile()' function may be utilized to trigger this issue. An attacker that has access to a PHP enabled web host may exploit this vulnerability to crash the HTTP server that is incorporating the vulnerable PHP module." However I can't find any reference to this vuln from the PHP folk, not even in their bug database. I've tried to look at the SuSE SRPM that supposedly have the fix, but there is NO patch in there for the problem, and the RPM came out on Feb 17, which was before the Feb 25 data on the problem.
I asked SuSE for more info
Got more information. It's a "PHP scripts may crash the PHP interpreter" old bug, which most distributions agree not to consider as a security issue : http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=27037 Fixed since 4.3.5RC2.. closing as INVALID
