CVE-2011-4954
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 · uneditedcobbler has local privilege escalation via the use of insecure location for PYTHON_EGG_CACHE
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 confidenceCobbler uses Python's egg caching mechanism in an insecure, typically world-writable location (often /tmp). A local unprivileged user can exploit this via symlink attacks or time-of-check-time-of-use race conditions to inject malicious code into the egg cache, which then executes with elevated privileges when the cobbler service runs.
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 dataall versionsCVSS 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
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Check the PYTHON_EGG_CACHE environment variableRun 'echo $PYTHON_EGG_CACHE' or 'env | grep -i egg' to see if PYTHON_EGG_CACHE is setAffected if Variable is unset or points to a world-writable location like /tmp, /var/tmp, or a user-controlled directory
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Inspect the default egg cache locationCheck /tmp for directories matching 'egg_cache*' or similar patterns: 'ls -la /tmp | grep -i egg'Affected if Egg cache directories exist in /tmp with permissive permissions (drwxrwxrwx)
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Verify the cobbler service accountRun 'id cobbler' or check the cobbler service user: 'grep -i "^user" /etc/cobbler/settings' or 'ps aux | grep cobblerd' to see what user the service runs asAffected if Cobbler runs as root or a privileged user while using an insecure egg cache location
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Check egg cache directory permissionsIf PYTHON_EGG_CACHE is set, run 'ls -lad $PYTHON_EGG_CACHE'; if not set, check /tmp directories: 'ls -lad /tmp/egg*'Affected if The egg cache directory is owned by root with restrictive permissions OR is world-writable and not owned by root
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Look for symlinks in the egg cache pathCheck if any parent directories in the egg cache path are writable by unprivileged users: 'ls -la /tmp' and look for suspicious symlinks pointing to sensitive locationsAffected if World-writable directories in /tmp contain symlinks that could be exploited for TOCTOU attacks
A user is affected if the cobbler service runs with elevated privileges and PYTHON_EGG_CACHE points to or defaults to a world-writable location like /tmp that unprivileged users can modify.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataConfigure PYTHON_EGG_CACHE to a secure, root-owned directory with restrictive permissions (e.g., /var/lib/cobbler/eggs-cache) and ensure the cobbler service runs with appropriate file ownership.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2011-4954 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2011-4954 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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