passenger — security advisory
A race condition in the nginx module in Phusion Passenger 3.x through 5.x before 5.3.2 allows local escalation of privileges when a non-standard passenger_instance_registry_dir with insufficiently strict permissions is configured. Replacing a file with a symlink after the file was created, but before it was chowned, leads to the target of the link being chowned via the path. Targeting sensitive files such as root's crontab file allows privilege escalation.
- Products
- passenger
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- 5.0.30-1.1
- CVEs
- CVE-2018-12029
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 1 Nov 2026, 00:52 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
A race condition in the nginx module in Phusion Passenger 3.x through 5.x before 5.3.2 allows local escalation of privileges when a non-standard passenger_instance_registry_dir with insufficiently strict permissions is configured. Replacing a file with a symlink after the file was created, but before it was chowned, leads to the target of the link being chowned via the path. Targeting sensitive files such as root's crontab file allows privilege escalation.
osv:DEBIAN-CVE-2018-12029
passenger
Fixed versions: 5.0.30-1.1
passenger
Fixed versions: 5.0.30-1.1
passenger
Fixed versions: 5.0.30-1.1
Complete source record
{
"id": "8f4b6adc6463cfe1dc5038ab926bc4921620dd0d700db0fa90d6c0c02cbefd07",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/DEBIAN-CVE-2018-12029",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "DEBIAN-CVE-2018-12029",
"summary": "A race condition in the nginx module in Phusion Passenger 3.x through 5.x before 5.3.2 allows local escalation of privileges when a non-standard passenger_instance_registry_dir with insufficiently strict permissions is configured. Replacing a file with a symlink after the file was created, but before it was chowned, leads to the target of the link being chowned via the path. Targeting sensitive files such as root's crontab file allows privilege escalation.",
"evidence": "osv:DEBIAN-CVE-2018-12029",
"products": [
{
"name": {
"value": "passenger",
"evidence": "/affected/0/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "5.0.30-1.1",
"evidence": "/affected/0/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
"value": "passenger",
"evidence": "/affected/1/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "5.0.30-1.1",
"evidence": "/affected/1/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
"value": "passenger",
"evidence": "/affected/2/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "5.0.30-1.1",
"evidence": "/affected/2/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
}
],
"severity": "high",
"structured": {
"id": "DEBIAN-CVE-2018-12029",
"aliases": [
"DEBIAN-CVE-2018-12029"
],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V3",
"score": "CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H"
}
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
{
"type": "ECOSYSTEM",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "5.0.30-1.1"
}
]
}
],
"package": {
"name": "passenger",
"purl": "pkg:deb/debian/passenger?arch=source&distro=bookworm",
"ecosystem": "Debian:12"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2018-12029.json"
},
"ecosystem_specific": {
"urgency": "unimportant"
}
},
{
"ranges": [
{
"type": "ECOSYSTEM",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "5.0.30-1.1"
}
]
}
],
"package": {
"name": "passenger",
"purl": "pkg:deb/debian/passenger?arch=source&distro=trixie",
"ecosystem": "Debian:13"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2018-12029.json"
},
"ecosystem_specific": {
"urgency": "unimportant"
}
},
{
"ranges": [
{
"type": "ECOSYSTEM",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "5.0.30-1.1"
}
]
}
],
"package": {
"name": "passenger",
"purl": "pkg:deb/debian/passenger?arch=source&distro=forky",
"ecosystem": "Debian:14"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2018-12029.json"
},
"ecosystem_specific": {
"urgency": "unimportant"
}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-23T18:03:53.601766067Z",
"provider": "osv",
"upstream": [
"CVE-2018-12029"
],
"references": [
"https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-12029"
]
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2018-12029",
"evidence": "/upstream"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 422521,
"published_at": "2018-06-17T20:29:00.493+00:00"
}