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Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2011-3631

HIGH · 8.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2019-11-26
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 0.1.2 or later.
See remediation →
95/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Hardlink before 0.1.2 has multiple integer overflows leading to heap-based buffer overflows because of the way string lengths concatenation is done in the calculation of the required memory space to be used. A remote attacker could provide a specially-crafted directory tree and trick the local user into consolidating it, leading to hardlink executable crash or potentially arbitrary code execution with user privileges.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

Hardlink before 0.1.2 contains integer overflow vulnerabilities in string length calculations used to determine memory allocation size for path concatenation. When merging directory trees, the calculated buffer size can wrap around, resulting in undersized heap allocations that lead to buffer overflows when longer strings are copied into them. A remote attacker can trick a user into consolidating a malicious directory tree to trigger code execution with user privileges.

MitigationUpgrade hardlink to version 0.1.2 or later which contains the fix for proper integer overflow checks in memory allocation calculations. Until then, avoid consolidating untrusted directory trees with hardlink.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 8.0= 9.0= 10.0
Enterprise LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 5.0= 6.0
HardlinkApplication
Affected:< 0.1.2

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Locate hardlink binary
    Run 'which hardlink' or 'find /usr -name hardlink -type f 2>/dev/null' to find the hardlink executable on the system
    Affected if hardlink binary is not found, then the software is not installed and this CVE does not apply
  2. Determine installed version
    Run 'hardlink --version' or check the package version using 'dpkg -l hardlink' (Debian) or 'rpm -qi hardlink' (RHEL)
    Affected if The reported version is less than 0.1.2, or the package version corresponds to the affected distribution versions (Debian 8/9/10, RHEL 5/6)
  3. Identify recent usage of directory consolidation
    Review shell history, cron jobs, or scripts that invoke hardlink with directory arguments, particularly commands like 'hardlink <source_dir> <target_dir>' or similar merge operations
    Affected if hardlink has been recently used to merge or consolidate directory trees from untrusted or external sources
  4. Check for active cron or systemd timers
    Examine /etc/cron.* and systemd timer units for automated hardlink operations: 'ls -la /etc/cron.d/*hardlink*' and 'systemctl list-timers --all | grep -i hardlink'
    Affected if Automated jobs exist that run hardlink against directory trees that could contain untrusted content

You are affected if hardlink version 0.1.2 or earlier is installed AND the tool has been used to consolidate directory trees, particularly from untrusted sources.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to 0.1.2 or later
Fixed in 0.1.2
Interim mitigation

Upgrade hardlink to version 0.1.2 or later which contains the fix for proper integer overflow checks in memory allocation calculations. Until then, avoid consolidating untrusted directory trees with hardlink.

Fix this in Debian Linux Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
8.0 hours of engineering $1,390
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2011-3631 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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