Vulnerability · Published Apr 24, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

CVE-2026-29051melange has Path Traversal via .PKGINFO in --persist-lint-results

Medium 4.4

In plain English

A medium-severity path traversal in melange from chainguard-dev. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 7% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)4.4Medium
Exploit odds (30 days)0.2%top 93.3% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

melange allows users to build apk packages using declarative pipelines. Starting in version 0.32.0 and prior to version 0.43.4, `melange lint --persist-lint-results` (opt-in flag, also usable via `melange build --persist-lint-results`) constructs output file paths by joining `--out-dir` with the `arch` and `pkgname` values read from the `.PKGINFO` control file of the APK being linted. In affected versions these values were not validated for path separators or `..` sequences, so an attacker who can supply an APK to a melange-based lint/build pipeline (e.g. CI that lints third-party APKs, or build-as-a-service) could cause melange to write `lint-<pkgname>-<pkgver>-r<epoch>.json` to an arbitrary `.json` path reachable by the melange process. The written file is a JSON lint report whose content is partially attacker-influenced. There is no direct code-execution path, but the write can clobber other JSON artifacts on the filesystem. The issue only affects deployments that explicitly pass `--persist-lint-results`; the flag is off by default. The issue is fixed in melange v0.43.4 by validating `arch` and `pkgname` for `..`, `/`, and `filepath.Separator` before path construction in `pkg/linter/results.go` (commit 84f3b45). As a workaround, do not pass `--persist-lint-results` when linting or building APKs whose `.PKGINFO` contents are not fully trusted. Running melange as a low-privileged user and confining writes to an isolated directory also limits impact.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Gochainguard.dev/melange0.43.4GHSA-q2pw-xx38-p64j
Gochainguard.dev/melange0.43.4GO-2026-5562

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
chainguard-dev melange >= 0.32.0, < 0.43.4

Weakness: CWE-22 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L

References