I.e. can I find a close enough package in the next nearest distro? Or is it complicated, and compiling from source is better? Or can I grab it from debian?(This question is about at least Ubuntu 11.10 and 12.10; I'm betting others are hitting this, so if the advice is different depending on exactly which end-of-lifed Ubuntu, it might help to say how!)P.S. Upgrade will not be accepted as an answer ;-) I know that, but sometimes retiring/upgrading/replacing a server takes time, and I'd like to get bash patched first.
How do I update bash on EOL Ubuntu versions?
ubuntu;shellshock
Short answer for quantal (Ubuntu 12.10): Download and install the bash package from the precise repository.WalkthroughFor quantal (Ubuntu 12.10), I searched for bash packages from nearby releases.  I downloaded packages for raring and precise.Before getting started, I made a backup of my existing bash package, so I could hopefully recover my system if the fresh install failed.  (Requires the dpkg-repack package.)$ dpkg-repack bashAlthough probably I should have just copied the executable /bin/bash to /root/bash.vulnerable, since that would be easier to restore in an emergency.RaringFirst I tried the package from raring:$ dpkg -i bash_4.2-5ubuntu3_i386.debBut that tested as still vulnerable!PreciseSo then I tried the package from precise:$ dpkg -i bash_4.2-2ubuntu2.6_i386.debThat tested as safe, using the bashcheck script.Testing /bin/bash ...GNU bash, version 4.2.25(1)-release (i686-pc-linux-gnu)Variable function parser pre/suffixed [%%, upstream], bugs not exploitableNot vulnerable to CVE-2014-6271 (original shellshock)Not vulnerable to CVE-2014-7169 (taviso bug)Not vulnerable to CVE-2014-7186 (redir_stack bug)Test for CVE-2014-7187 not reliable without address sanitizerNot vulnerable to CVE-2014-6277 (lcamtuf bug #1)Not vulnerable to CVE-2014-6278 (lcamtuf bug #2)But I really wish I had installed an LTS release.  I still plan to do an upgrade when I have time...