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OpenAdvisories
High · 8.2 CVE-2026-48126 EUVD-2026-31881GHSA-jc3j-x6pg-4hmvGO-2026-5460

Algernon: Host header path traversal in --domain mode reads files and runs Lua from parent dir

Published May 26, 2026 · Updated May 26, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

Algernon is a small self-contained pure-Go web server. Prior to 1.17.8, when algernon is started with --domain (or --letsencrypt, which silently turns on --domain at engine/flags.go:372), the request handler resolves the served directory by joining the configured --dir with the value of the client-supplied Host header. The join is performed by filepath.Join with no validation, so a Host: .. header walks one level above the document root. Subsequent file resolution then exposes everything in that parent directory — arbitrary file read, full directory listing, and, if any .lua file is present, server-side Lua execution. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.17.8.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
xyproto algernon < 1.17.8 —

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
openSUSE Leap 16.0 govulncheck-vulndb 0.0.20260723T184607-160000.1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:21483-1

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
Go github.com/xyproto/algernon < 1.17.8 1.17.8 GHSA-jc3j-x6pg-4hmv

Advisories 1

References