A volume file opened with the credentials of the requesting user is
served by a file system that belongs to that user's session. Ejecting
the share or logging out while the volume is mounted can lose data, and
GVfs does not refuse to eject a share whose file is in use. Warn after
each such mount that the share must stay mounted and the session active
until the volume is unmounted. Append the English message to all
language files as a fallback.
The indicator reaches the UI with the mount result, through a new
MountVolumeRequestV2/ResponseV2 pair: a service that predates it rejects
the new request before mounting, and legacy requests keep their legacy
response, so that an older UI still works with a newer service. The
control file format is unchanged.
Look up NixOS helpers only when trusted system metadata identifies NixOS
and each path component passes ownership and permission checks. Keep the
existing helper search on other distributions.
Detect NoNewPrivs before prompting for administrator credentials, with a
clear error for restricted launchers. Add regression coverage to Linux CI
and append the English fallback message to all language files.
Refs #1911
Expose FFS as the native OpenBSD filesystem option for volume creation and accept FFS/UFS on the command line, mapping mounts to the OpenBSD ffs filesystem type.
Run newfs through the elevated core service on vnd raw devices, then temporarily mount the new filesystem to transfer root directory ownership back to the invoking user.
Keep the non-interactive creation default as FAT on OpenBSD so existing unattended scripts do not start requiring elevation.
Reuse the OpenBSD doas PTY prompt flow on FreeBSD so opendoas receives the password through its controlling terminal.
Apply the same foreground process group validation on FreeBSD as on OpenBSD when attaching the private doas authentication PTY.
Detect the incompatible FreeBSD security/doas package by pkg origin and fail with explicit guidance.
Move child pipe descriptors away from stdio slots before remapping them, avoiding collisions when 0/1/2 are closed.
On OpenBSD, wait for authentication-terminal output before writing the doas password, avoiding prompt text matching while keeping the startup timeout as the upper bound.
Keep OpenBSD doas stderr on the private authentication PTY because doas requires stderr to be a terminal while prompting.
Capture authentication-terminal diagnostics, strip prompts from user-facing errors, and fail promptly on explicit authentication denial.
Wait for actual prompt bytes before sending the password so OpenBSD PTY POLLIN|POLLHUP before slave open cannot race with readpassphrase terminal flushing.
Set close-on-exec on elevated-service startup pipes before fork and centralize duplication onto standard descriptors.
Clear FD_CLOEXEC on descriptors intentionally kept across exec, including dup2(fd, fd) no-op cases.
OpenBSD defines O_CLOEXEC, but rejects it in posix_openpt() with EINVAL. Retry with the POSIX pseudoterminal flags and then set FD_CLOEXEC explicitly so doas authentication can create its private PTY.
Prefer sudo when available and fall back to doas on Unix. Run doas authentication through a PTY while keeping service communication on stdin/stdout pipes, and use a no-fork service mode for the doas path.
Keep doas authentication terminal descriptors close-on-exec and close the slave descriptor after attaching it as the controlling terminal. Preserve startup diagnostics through stderr until service synchronization completes, then redirect no-fork service stderr away from the closed parent pipe.
Use noninteractive privilege-helper auth checks for both sudo and doas so cached, nopass, or persisted sessions do not need an unnecessary VeraCrypt password prompt. Keep the PTY password path for doas when authentication is required.
Use a shared Unix DOAS_USER helper for FUSE and mount ownership, backed by getpwnam_r and guarded so non-OpenBSD platforms only trust it for VeraCrypt's internal doas no-fork service path. Detach asynchronous child-reaper threads to avoid leaking joinable pthread handles.
Separate sudo authentication success from elevated request execution state by acknowledging when the elevated core service starts successfully.
Once that channel is available, propagate later failures instead of showing repeated administrator password dialogs. Initialize the sudo dummy-password flag consistently on macOS, avoiding an uninitialized read of UseDummySudoPassword.
Register admin-password cleanup before elevation attempts so plaintext sudo credentials are erased on early-return and post-sudo failure paths.
References #1788.
The privileged CoreService handler for SetFileOwnerRequest passed the
client-supplied path straight to chown() as root with no validation --
unlike the adjacent APFS formatter handler, which strictly validates its
device argument. Every legitimate macOS caller of the elevated
SetFileOwner targets a real disk device node (/dev/[r]diskN[sM]), so a
crafted IPC request, or a symlink planted at the target, could otherwise
make the root process change ownership of an arbitrary path.
Validate the target service-side: require the strict device-path form
already used by the formatter, and lstat() it to confirm a block or
character device (rejecting symlinks rather than following them) before
the chown.
Co-authored-by: Damian Rickard <damian@rickard.us>
APFS volume creation can still fail with Permission denied after preparing the raw and block device aliases because newfs_apfs performs privileged APFS container and volume operations beyond opening the device nodes.
Route APFS formatting through the elevated CoreService path for non-root macOS runs. Keep the elevated interface narrow by sending only the target device and invoking user UID/GID, validate the device path on the privileged side, rebuild the formatter arguments there, and execute /sbin/newfs_apfs by absolute path to avoid PATH shadowing.
Pass -U/-G so the created filesystem preserves the invoking user ownership. Apply the same path to GUI and text-mode creation.
When normal filesystem unmount fails, the Linux path could stop before cleaning VeraCrypt mapper, loop and FUSE objects. Add an explicit emergency dismount request that is only reached after interactive confirmation.
The recovery path lazy-detaches mounted filesystems, uses deferred dmsetup removal for VeraCrypt mapper devices, detaches loop devices, and keeps normal force/ignoreOpenFiles behavior unchanged.
The read loop that captures stderr from the sudo child process used
`vector<char> buffer(4096); buffer.clear();` followed by
`read(fd, &buffer[0], buffer.capacity())`. This has two instances of
undefined behavior:
1. `operator[](0)` on a vector with `size() == 0` violates the C++
standard precondition `n < size()`. libstdc++ built with
`-D_GLIBCXX_ASSERTIONS` aborts the process with:
stl_vector.h:1128: Assertion '__n < this->size()' failed.
2. `buffer.begin() + bytesRead` on the same empty vector constructs
an iterator past `end()`, also UB.
`-D_GLIBCXX_ASSERTIONS` is in the default build flags of Arch Linux,
Fedora, and several other distributions. On those systems, the
unprivileged helper process aborts as soon as sudo writes anything
to stderr (a password prompt, a 'user is not in the sudoers file'
error, etc.). The main process then sees EOF on the service output
pipe, and throws `InsufficientData`, which renders to the user as
'Not enough data available'. A second mount attempt fails at
`File::Write` because the helper is dead and the pipe is broken,
producing the bare message 'VeraCrypt::File::Write:395'.
Fix by replacing `buffer` with a plain `char[4096]` and using
`reserve(4096)` on `errOutput` to preserve the original
pre-allocation intent. No behavioral change on systems where the UB
happened to work; aborts are eliminated on systems where the
assertions fire.
Reported-by: multiple users, see veracrypt/VeraCrypt#1550,
veracrypt/VeraCrypt#1446, veracrypt/VeraCrypt#844
Co-authored-by: rabbit <rabbit@github>
When VeraCrypt is run as an AppImage, the veracrypt binary resides in a SquashFS mount under /tmp which is inaccessible to root. Using this path with sudo results in a "command not found" error.
This patch detects the AppImage environment by checking both APPIMAGE and APPDIR variables, ensuring the executable path starts with APPDIR and that APPDIR starts with the expected "/tmp/.mount_Veracr" prefix. In this scenario, the AppImage file itself (APPIMAGE) is used as the executable for sudo, resolving the elevation issue.
Added security checks to prevent mounting VeraCrypt volumes on system directories (like /usr/bin) or directories in the user's PATH, which could theoretically allow execution of malicious binaries instead of legitimate system binaries.
Key changes:
- Block mounting on protected system directories (/usr, /bin, /lib, etc.)
This restriction cannot be overridden
- Block mounting on directories present in user's PATH environment variable
This can be overridden with --allow-insecure-mount flag
- Add visual warnings (red border, "[INSECURE MODE]") when mounting on PATH directories is allowed
- Handle symlinks properly when checking paths
- Add new error messages for blocked mount points
To override PATH-based restrictions only (system directories remain protected):
veracrypt --allow-insecure-mount [options] volume mountpoint
Security Impact: Low to Medium
The attack requires either:
- User explicitly choosing a system directory as mount point instead of using VeraCrypt's default mount points
- Or attacker having both filesystem access to modify favorites configuration AND knowledge of the volume password
Default mount points are not affected by this vulnerability.
Security: CVE-2025-23021
This commit fixes a critical security vulnerability where VeraCrypt could be tricked into executing malicious binaries with elevated privileges. The vulnerability has two severe implications:
1. When sudo's secure_path option is disabled, attackers could execute malicious binaries with root privileges by placing them in user-writable PATH directories (e.g., making "sudo mount" execute a malicious mount binary)
2. By placing a malicious sudo binary in PATH, attackers could intercept and steal the user's password when VeraCrypt prompts for sudo authentication
The vulnerability allowed attackers to place malicious binaries in user-writable directories that appear in PATH before system directories, potentially leading to privilege escalation and credential theft.
Key changes:
- Implement FindSystemBinary() to locate executables in secure system paths
- Replace all relative binary paths with absolute paths for system commands
- Add security checks for executable permissions
- Update process execution to use absolute paths for:
* sudo
* mount
* fsck
* terminal emulators
* file managers
* system utilities (hdiutil, mdconfig, vnconfig, lofiadm)
The fix ensures all system binaries are called using their absolute paths from secure system directories, preventing both privilege escalation through PATH manipulation and password theft through sudo hijacking.
Security: CVE-2024-54187
This update simplifies the logic for detecting active sudo sessions by checking the exit code of the sudo -n -l command, which reliably returns 0 if a session is active.
Additionally, this approach is now applicable to recent macOS versions, as they no longer have the sudo bug that previously prevented us from using this method.
The behaviour of `wc -l` is different on FreeBSD, in which the stdout
result is padded by spaces in the beginning, which causes that the
result[0] is not actually the value we care about. This patch adds
a translate removing all whitespace from the output.
Currently if you fail the privilege escalation prompt, the second
one and consecutively every second will be ignored. This is because
if we do not --use-dummy-sudo-password and are on Linux/FreeBSD,
we will be prompted for password twice for one evaluation in the
while(!ElevatedServiceAvailable) loop.
For the fix, we make sure that we run the prompt only once for each
case.
Mounir IDRASSI
Mounir IDRASSI
JertzukkaandGitHub
Christopher BergqvistandGitHub
El Mostafa IdrassiandMounir IDRASSI
David Foerster