Vendir allows to use unsafe paths in configuration

[Zebradil]

This issue was initially discussed in Slack.

What steps did you take:

Here is a shell script to reproduce the issue. It runs commands during docker build, so you can safely run it, as it doesn't change any files on the host system.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

cat <<'EOF' | docker build --progress=plain --file=- .
FROM alpine:20231219
ARG TARGETOS=linux
ARG TARGETARCH=amd64
ARG VENDIR_VERSION=v0.38.0
RUN wget -q \
      https://github.com/carvel-dev/vendir/releases/download/${VENDIR_VERSION}/vendir-${TARGETOS}-${TARGETARCH} \
      -O /usr/bin/vendir
RUN chmod +x /usr/bin/vendir

WORKDIR /some/safe/place
RUN pwd
RUN ls -l /usr
RUN cat <<YAML | /usr/bin/vendir sync -f-
apiVersion: vendir.k14s.io/v1alpha1
kind: Config
directories:
  - path: /usr
    contents:
      - path: foo
        inline:
          paths:
            foo.txt: file-content
YAML
RUN ls -l /usr
EOF

What happened:

Here is the important part of the output of the script. I added comments to explain the steps.

ℹ️ Verify the current directory: it is some nested directory, not root
#8 [5/8] RUN pwd
#8 0.449 /some/safe/place
#8 DONE 0.5s

ℹ️ List files in the /usr directory, as it will be affected later
#9 [6/8] RUN ls -l /usr
#9 0.618 total 0
#9 0.619 drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root            12 Jan 14 11:32 bin
#9 0.619 drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           120 Dec 19 11:07 lib
#9 0.619 drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root            22 Dec 19 11:07 local
#9 0.619 drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           402 Dec 19 11:07 sbin
#9 0.619 drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root            32 Dec 19 11:07 share
#9 DONE 0.7s

ℹ️ Run vendir sync with a config that targets the /usr directory (see the config in the script above)
#10 [7/8] RUN cat <<YAML | /usr/bin/vendir sync -f-
#10 0.674 apiVersion: vendir.k14s.io/v1alpha1
#10 0.674 directories:
#10 0.674 - contents:
#10 0.674   - inline: {}
#10 0.674     path: foo
#10 0.674   path: /usr
#10 0.674 kind: LockConfig
#10 DONE 0.7s

ℹ️ List files in the /usr directory again to see that the original files are gone
#11 [8/8] RUN ls -l /usr
#11 0.621 total 0
#11 0.621 drwx------    1 root     root            14 Jan 14 11:38 foo
#11 DONE 0.7s

The same can be achieved by targeting the /usr directory via ../../../usr path in the vendir configuration.

What did you expect:

Vendir should not allow targeting directories via absolute paths or via traversing up the directory tree.

Anything else you would like to add:

There is a list of disallowed file paths in the current code: https://github.com/carvel-dev/vendir/blob/9d3b17c6c586ace945af11c4acf2df53a51898e1/pkg/vendir/config/directory.go#L25 But it is limited to these exact values: /, .., . and ``.

Environment:

• vendir version: 0.38.0
• OS: Arch Linux x86_64

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[Zebradil]

In the community meeting, we agreed that the fix is to disallow paths outside the current working directory (CWD). Defining the CWD is important here. If I remember correctly, this is the logic (in the order of priority):

• if the --chdir argument is supplied, its value is CWD;
• if the vendir configuration file is on the disk, its location is CWD;
• if the vendir configuration is passed via stdin, the current directory ($PWD) is CWD.

@joaopapereira I'm not entirely sure about the last two points. Could you confirm or correct this? Are there more cases?

[joaopapereira]

• if the vendir configuration file is on the disk, its location is CWD;

I assume that all paths will have to start in the vendir configuration file, so CWD is where that file is

• if the vendir configuration is passed via stdin, the current directory ($PWD) is CWD.

In this scenario, we have to assume that CWD is the current directory.

I think these are all the scenarios, @neil-hickey @cppforlife do you think we might have any other scenarios?