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Critical · 9.0 CVE-2026-39860 EUVD-2026-20626

Nix sandbox escape: file write via symlink at FOD `.tmp` copy destination

Published Apr 8, 2026 · Updated Apr 9, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. A bug in the fix for CVE-2024-27297 allowed for arbitrary overwrites of files writable by the Nix process orchestrating the builds (typically the Nix daemon running as root in multi-user installations) by following symlinks during fixed-output derivation output registration. This affects sandboxed Linux builds - sandboxed macOS builds are unaffected. The location of the temporary output used for the output copy was located inside the build chroot. A symlink, pointing to an arbitrary location in the filesystem, could be created by the derivation builder at that path. During output registration, the Nix process (running in the host mount namespace) would follow that symlink and overwrite the destination with the derivation's output contents. In multi-user installations, this allows all users able to submit builds to the Nix daemon (allowed-users - defaulting to all users) to gain root privileges by modifying sensitive files. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.34.5, 2.33.4, 2.32.7, 2.31.4, 2.30.4, 2.29.3, and 2.28.6.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
NixOS nix >= 2.21, < 2.28.6, >= 2.29.0, < 2.29.3, >= 2.30.0, < 2.30.4, >= 2.31.0, < 2.31.4, >= 2.32.0, < 2.32.7, >= 2.33.0, < 2.33.4, >= 2.34.0, < 2.34.5, >= 2.20.5, <= 2.20.9, >= 2.19.4, <= 2.19.7, >= 2.18.2, <= 2.18.9 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 nix 2.34.6+dfsg-1 —
Debian 13 nix No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 26.10 nix No fix yet —
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS nix No fix yet —
Ubuntu 25.10 nix No fix yet —
Show 2 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS nix No fix yet —
Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS nix No fix yet —

References