CVE-2024-45305

gix-path is a crate of the gitoxide project dealing with git paths and their conversions. gix-path executes git to find the path of a configuration file that belongs to the git installation itself, but mistakenly treats the local repository's configuration as system-wide if no higher scoped configuration is found. In rare cases, this causes a less trusted repository to be treated as more trusted, or leaks sensitive information from one repository to another, such as sending credentials to another repository's remote. In gix_path::env, the underlying implementation of the installation_config and installation_config_prefix functions calls git config -l --show-origin and parses the first line of the output to extract the path to the configuration file holding the configuration variable of highest scope. It is believed to be very difficult to exploit this vulnerability deliberately, due to the need either to anticipate a situation in which higher-scoped configuration variables would be absent, or to arrange for this to happen. Although any operating system may be affected, users running Apple Git on macOS are much less likely to be affected. This issue has been addressed in release version 0.10.10. All users are advised to upgrade.

gix-path is a crate of the gitoxide project dealing with git paths and their conversions. gix-path executes git to find the path of a configuration file that belongs to the git installation itself, but mistakenly treats the local repository's configuration as system-wide if no higher scoped configuration is found. In rare cases, this causes a less trusted repository to be treated as more trusted, or leaks sensitive information from one repository to another, such as sending credentials to another repository's remote. In gix_path::env, the underlying implementation of the installation_config and installation_config_prefix functions calls git config -l --show-origin and parses the first line of the output to extract the path to the configuration file holding the configuration variable of highest scope. It is believed to be very difficult to exploit this vulnerability deliberately, due to the need either to anticipate a situation in which higher-scoped configuration variables would be absent, or to arrange for this to happen. Although any operating system may be affected, users running Apple Git on macOS are much less likely to be affected. This issue has been addressed in release version 0.10.10. All users are advised to upgrade.

Summary

gix-path executes git to find the path of a configuration file that belongs to the git installation itself, but mistakenly treats the local repository's configuration as system-wide if no higher scoped configuration is found. In rare cases, this causes a less trusted repository to be treated as more trusted, or leaks sensitive information from one repository to another, such as sending credentials to another repository's remote.

Details

In gix_path::env, the underlying implementation of the installation_config and installation_config_prefix functions calls git config -l --show-origin and parses the first line of the output to extract the path to the configuration file holding the configuration variable of highest scope:

https://github.com/Byron/gitoxide/blob/12251eb052df30105538fa831e641eea557f13d8/gix-path/src/env/git/mod.rs#L91

https://github.com/Byron/gitoxide/blob/12251eb052df30105538fa831e641eea557f13d8/gix-path/src/env/git/mod.rs#L112

While the configuration variable of highest scope is not usually in the local scope, there are practical situations where this occurs:

• A configuration file truly associated with the installation is not present on all systems and can occasionally be empty. Likewise, there may be no variables in the global scope.
• Configuration files associated with those higher scopes may be deliberately skipped by setting the GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM and GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL environment variables to /dev/null (or to NUL on Windows). This prevents gix-path from finding the path of configuration files for those scopes, while not preventing downstream components such as the function in gix-config from reporting a local path as being associated with the installation.
• The GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM environment variable can be used to disable configuration associated with the installation. (GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM=1 is more powerful than GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM=/dev/null on systems where an additional "unknown" scope is associated with the installation, as occurs on macOS with Apple Git.) This will cause the local scope to be the highest nonempty scope under even more situations, though in practice it is less dangerous because most, though possibly not all, downstream components would disregard the value.

A user may use either or both of the latter two techniques to turn off an undesired configuration or to create a more replicable environment. Such a user would expect that this results in a more controlled configuration.

Often, when located inside one repository, a user performs operations on that repository or that are not specific to any repository. In such use, local configuration is typically desired or at least acceptable, and mistaking it as coming from another scope is not typically harmful.

However, sometimes a user is in one repository and operates on another repository. A major case where this occurs is cloning one repository while located in another. This can be done in an ad-hoc fashion, including when cloning the repository outside of the one we are inside. It may also potentially be automated by an application for purposes such as submodule handling. Two kinds of problems are anticipated:

• A less secure configuration may be set for a specific repository where it is judged acceptable, even though it would not be wanted for other repositories, such as to enable a protocol or set up debugging.
• More likely, a configuration that supplies secrets for use in one repository's remote can be used to send those secrets to another repository's remote.

PoC

In this example, we send mock Authorization: Basic ... credentials meant for one repository's remote to another remote, by running gix while inside the first repository to clone the second repository.

These instructions are written for a Unix shell, but they will work in other shells, including in PowerShell on Windows if the method of setting environment…

gix-path is a crate of the gitoxide project dealing with git paths and their conversions. gix-path executes git to find the path of a configuration file that belongs to the git installation itself, but mistakenly treats the local repository's configuration as system-wide if no higher scoped configuration is found. In rare cases, this causes a less trusted repository to be treated as more trusted, or leaks sensitive information from one repository to another, such as sending credentials to another repository's remote. In gix_path::env, the underlying implementation of the installation_config and installation_config_prefix functions calls git config -l --show-origin and parses the first line of the output to extract the path to the configuration file holding the configuration variable of highest scope. It is believed to be very difficult to exploit this vulnerability deliberately, due to the need either to anticipate a situation in which higher-scoped configuration variables would be absent, or to arrange for this to happen. Although any operating system may be affected, users running Apple Git on macOS are much less likely to be affected. This issue has been addressed in release version 0.10.10. All users are advised to upgrade.

gix-path is a crate of the gitoxide project dealing with git paths and their conversions. gix-path executes git to find the path of a configuration file that belongs to the git installation itself, but mistakenly treats the local repository's configuration as system-wide if no higher scoped configuration is found. In rare cases, this causes a less trusted repository to be treated as more trusted, or leaks sensitive information from one repository to another, such as sending credentials to another repository's remote. In gix_path::env, the underlying implementation of the installation_config and installation_config_prefix functions calls git config -l --show-origin and parses the first line of the output to extract the path to the configuration file holding the configuration variable of highest scope. It is believed to be very difficult to exploit this vulnerability deliberately, due to the need either to anticipate a situation in which higher-scoped configuration variables would be absent, or to arrange for this to happen. Although any operating system may be affected, users running Apple Git on macOS are much less likely to be affected. This issue has been addressed in release version 0.10.10. All users are advised to upgrade.

gix-path is a crate of the gitoxide project dealing with git paths and their conversions. gix-path executes git to find the path of a configuration file that belongs to the git installation itself, but mistakenly treats the local repository's configuration as system-wide if no higher scoped configuration is found. In rare cases, this causes a less trusted repository to be treated as more trusted, or leaks sensitive information from one repository to another, such as sending credentials to another repository's remote. In gix_path::env, the underlying implementation of the installation_config and installation_config_prefix functions calls git config -l --show-origin and parses the first line of the output to extract the path to the configuration file holding the configuration variable of highest scope. It is believed to be very difficult to exploit this vulnerability deliberately, due to the need either to anticipate a situation in which higher-scoped configuration variables would be absent, or to arrange for this to happen. Although any operating system may be affected, users running Apple Git on macOS are much less likely to be affected. This issue has been addressed in release version 0.10.10. All users are advised to upgrade.

Summary

gix-path executes git to find the path of a configuration file that belongs to the git installation itself, but mistakenly treats the local repository's configuration as system-wide if no higher scoped configuration is found. In rare cases, this causes a less trusted repository to be treated as more trusted, or leaks sensitive information from one repository to another, such as sending credentials to another repository's remote.

Details

In gix_path::env, the underlying implementation of the installation_config and installation_config_prefix functions calls git config -l --show-origin and parses the first line of the output to extract the path to the configuration file holding the configuration variable of highest scope:

https://github.com/Byron/gitoxide/blob/12251eb052df30105538fa831e641eea557f13d8/gix-path/src/env/git/mod.rs#L91

https://github.com/Byron/gitoxide/blob/12251eb052df30105538fa831e641eea557f13d8/gix-path/src/env/git/mod.rs#L112

While the configuration variable of highest scope is not usually in the local scope, there are practical situations where this occurs:

• A configuration file truly associated with the installation is not present on all systems and can occasionally be empty. Likewise, there may be no variables in the global scope.
• Configuration files associated with those higher scopes may be deliberately skipped by setting the GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM and GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL environment variables to /dev/null (or to NUL on Windows). This prevents gix-path from finding the path of configuration files for those scopes, while not preventing downstream components such as the function in gix-config from reporting a local path as being associated with the installation.
• The GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM environment variable can be used to disable configuration associated with the installation. (GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM=1 is more powerful than GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM=/dev/null on systems where an additional "unknown" scope is associated with the installation, as occurs on macOS with Apple Git.) This will cause the local scope to be the highest nonempty scope under even more situations, though in practice it is less dangerous because most, though possibly not all, downstream components would disregard the value.

A user may use either or both of the latter two techniques to turn off an undesired configuration or to create a more replicable environment. Such a user would expect that this results in a more controlled configuration.

Often, when located inside one repository, a user performs operations on that repository or that are not specific to any repository. In such use, local configuration is typically desired or at least acceptable, and mistaking it as coming from another scope is not typically harmful.

However, sometimes a user is in one repository and operates on another repository. A major case where this occurs is cloning one repository while located in another. This can be done in an ad-hoc fashion, including when cloning the repository outside of the one we are inside. It may also potentially be automated by an application for purposes such as submodule handling. Two kinds of problems are anticipated:

• A less secure configuration may be set for a specific repository where it is judged acceptable, even though it would not be wanted for other repositories, such as to enable a protocol or set up debugging.
• More likely, a configuration that supplies secrets for use in one repository's remote can be used to send those secrets to another repository's remote.

PoC

In this example, we send mock Authorization: Basic ... credentials meant for one repository's remote to another remote, by running gix while inside the first repository to clone the second repository.

These instructions are written for a Unix shell, but they will work in other shells, including in PowerShell on Windows if the method of setting environment…

Summary

gix-path executes git to find the path of a configuration file that belongs to the git installation itself, but mistakenly treats the local repository's configuration as system-wide if no higher scoped configuration is found. In rare cases, this causes a less trusted repository to be treated as more trusted, or leaks sensitive information from one repository to another, such as sending credentials to another repository's remote.

Details

In gix_path::env, the underlying implementation of the installation_config and installation_config_prefix functions calls git config -l --show-origin and parses the first line of the output to extract the path to the configuration file holding the configuration variable of highest scope:

https://github.com/Byron/gitoxide/blob/12251eb052df30105538fa831e641eea557f13d8/gix-path/src/env/git/mod.rs#L91

https://github.com/Byron/gitoxide/blob/12251eb052df30105538fa831e641eea557f13d8/gix-path/src/env/git/mod.rs#L112

While the configuration variable of highest scope is not usually in the local scope, there are practical situations where this occurs:

• A configuration file truly associated with the installation is not present on all systems and can occasionally be empty. Likewise, there may be no variables in the global scope.
• Configuration files associated with those higher scopes may be deliberately skipped by setting the GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM and GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL environment variables to /dev/null (or to NUL on Windows). This prevents gix-path from finding the path of configuration files for those scopes, while not preventing downstream components such as the function in gix-config from reporting a local path as being associated with the installation.
• The GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM environment variable can be used to disable configuration associated with the installation. (GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM=1 is more powerful than GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM=/dev/null on systems where an additional "unknown" scope is associated with the installation, as occurs on macOS with Apple Git.) This will cause the local scope to be the highest nonempty scope under even more situations, though in practice it is less dangerous because most, though possibly not all, downstream components would disregard the value.

A user may use either or both of the latter two techniques to turn off an undesired configuration or to create a more replicable environment. Such a user would expect that this results in a more controlled configuration.

Often, when located inside one repository, a user performs operations on that repository or that are not specific to any repository. In such use, local configuration is typically desired or at least acceptable, and mistaking it as coming from another scope is not typically harmful.

However, sometimes a user is in one repository and operates on another repository. A major case where this occurs is cloning one repository while located in another. This can be done in an ad-hoc fashion, including when cloning the repository outside of the one we are inside. It may also potentially be automated by an application for purposes such as submodule handling. Two kinds of problems are anticipated:

• A less secure configuration may be set for a specific repository where it is judged acceptable, even though it would not be wanted for other repositories, such as to enable a protocol or set up debugging.
• More likely, a configuration that supplies secrets for use in one repository's remote can be used to send those secrets to another repository's remote.

PoC

In this example, we send mock Authorization: Basic ... credentials meant for one repository's remote to another remote, by running gix while inside the first repository to clone the second repository.

These instructions are written for a Unix shell, but they will work in other shells, including in PowerShell on Windows if the method of setting environment…

gix-path is a crate of the gitoxide project dealing with git paths and their conversions. gix-path executes git to find the path of a configuration file that belongs to the git installation itself, but mistakenly treats the local repository's configuration as system-wide if no higher scoped configuration is found. In rare cases, this causes a less trusted repository to be treated as more trusted, or leaks sensitive information from one repository to another, such as sending credentials to another repository's remote. In gix_path::env, the underlying implementation of the installation_config and installation_config_prefix functions calls git config -l --show-origin and parses the first line of the output to extract the path to the configuration file holding the configuration variable of highest scope. It is believed to be very difficult to exploit this vulnerability deliberately, due to the need either to anticipate a situation in which higher-scoped configuration variables would be absent, or to arrange for this to happen. Although any operating system may be affected, users running Apple Git on macOS are much less likely to be affected. This issue has been addressed in release version 0.10.10. All users are advised to upgrade.