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packfs/SECURITY.md
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retoorandClaude Sonnet 5 21bcb4640f
CI / build-and-test (push) Failing after 23s
Move CI to Gitea Actions; this project is hosted on Gitea, not GitHub
Per explicit direction: this repository is not going on GitHub. Moved
.github/workflows/ci.yml to .gitea/workflows/ci.yml (Gitea Actions'
convention) and updated every doc that referenced the old path or assumed
GitHub-specific features:

- .gitea/workflows/ci.yml: added a header comment on the two things that
  are genuinely Gitea-specific and instance-dependent, not just a renamed
  file -- `runs-on: ubuntu-latest` must match a label the actual
  registered Gitea runner advertises (there is no GitHub-hosted-runner
  equivalent, this is self-hosted), and `actions/checkout@v4` resolves
  against whatever action source that runner is configured with.
- CONTRIBUTING.md: corrected a claim that no longer holds -- it previously
  said CI "runs on a normal, unrestricted GitHub Actions VM where TSan is
  expected to work"; since this is actually a self-hosted Gitea runner
  whose environment isn't controlled by this repo, that assumption isn't
  something this repo can vouch for, so the text now says so rather than
  carrying the old (GitHub-shaped) assumption forward silently.
- SECURITY.md: removed a claim this project can't back up (that "private
  security advisories" are available once hosted -- that's a GitHub
  feature this repo never had access to); reporting is by direct email to
  the maintainer only.
- README.md: fixed a real gap while in here -- the "Security" section
  never actually linked to SECURITY.md despite it existing since the
  previous commit.
- CLAUDE.md, CHANGELOG.md: updated path references; CLAUDE.md's
  self-evaluation section (a historical record of an audit finding) keeps
  the old .github path where it describes what was literally true at that
  time, with a note explaining the rename, rather than rewriting history.

Verified: clean make all + make test, all 6 binaries pass.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01UqJpkdJ6Njnt1pw3CbghzB
2026-09-14 11:03:20 +00:00

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Markdown

# Security Policy
## Supported versions
No version has been tagged yet (see `CHANGELOG.md`); this project is
pre-1.0 (`README.md`'s "Status"). Only the latest commit on the default
branch is supported — there is no LTS branch and no backport policy while
the project is at `0.x`.
## What PackFS actually claims as a security boundary
Stated precisely, per this project's documentation standard (`CLAUDE.md`),
rather than a generic "we take security seriously":
- **Path containment for `dir` mounts is a hard requirement** (`concept.md`
Section 6, `CLAUDE.md`'s "Load-bearing constraints"). On Linux 5.6+,
every lookup beneath a `dir` mount uses `openat2(RESOLVE_BENEATH |
RESOLVE_NO_SYMLINKS)` to atomically block `..` escapes, symlink escapes,
and the canonicalize-then-open TOCTOU window in one kernel call.
`vfs_harden_process_with_landlock` (Section 6.2) is an additional,
**opt-in** kernel-level layer — not applied automatically, since
Landlock restrictions are cumulative, irreversible, and process-wide,
which would be a surprising side effect for an embeddable library to
trigger on its own.
- **On platforms or kernels without `openat2`, containment falls back to
per-component `O_NOFOLLOW` plus canonicalize-and-verify** (Section 6.3)
— an accepted, **explicitly weaker** residual-risk posture, not a claim
of equal strength. Code and documentation that describe this fallback as
equivalent to the `openat2` path would themselves be a bug worth
reporting.
- **The VFS core canonicalizes `.`/`..` in the virtual namespace itself**,
before any backend is reached, so a crafted path cannot escape a mount's
prefix even when no host directory is involved.
- **A pack file is treated as untrusted input unless it came from this
run's own compaction** (Section 7). Every index entry's offsets and
sizes are bounds-checked against the actual file/strings-region length
before being trusted; a failed check invalidates the whole pack load. An
externally-sourced pack additionally needs a checksum verified at load.
Loading an attacker-supplied `.img` file that PackFS accepts without
detecting corruption, or that causes an out-of-bounds read/write, is a
security bug.
- **Journal records are length/checksum self-describing** (Section 4.4),
so replay stops cleanly at the first torn or corrupted record rather
than reading past it.
## What PackFS explicitly does *not* claim
Reporting these as vulnerabilities is not necessary — they are documented,
known limitations, not silent gaps:
- **`mode` (permission bits, symlinks, hard links) is stored and restored
but not enforced.** Nothing in the VFS core interprets it as an access
control boundary in v0 (`concept.md` Section 10).
- **Cross-process concurrency is specified (an LMDB-style reader-table
design, Section 5.6) but not implemented.** Two uncoordinated processes
writing the same host directory through a `dir` mount are not
synchronized against each other.
- **`zip`/`tar` are permanently out of scope** (`CLAUDE.md`, "Project
decisions that supersede concept.md") — there is no archive-format
parsing code in this project to have a vulnerability in.
## Reporting a vulnerability
This project is hosted on Gitea, not GitHub (see `CONTRIBUTING.md`).
Please do not open a public issue on the issue tracker for a suspected
security vulnerability — report it privately, by email, to the
maintainer:
**retoor** — `retoor@molodetz.nl`
When reporting, include: the affected function(s) or file(s), a minimal
reproduction (ideally as a `tests/test_*.c`-style program using only the
public API in `include/packfs.h`), and which of the guarantees above (or
which `concept.md` section) you believe is violated — this project's own
verification discipline (`make test`, ASan/UBSan/TSan per `CONTRIBUTING.md`)
depends on being able to turn a report into a permanent regression test.
## Verification this project already does
Every change to `src/upper.c`, `src/overlay.c`, or `src/vfs.c` is required
to pass under `-fsanitize=address,undefined` and `-fsanitize=thread`
before being considered done (`CLAUDE.md`) — this process has already
caught and fixed a real heap-use-after-free in the snapshot-reclamation
logic during development (see the `reclaim_gate` note in `src/internal.h`).
`.gitea/workflows/ci.yml` (Gitea Actions) runs the full test suite plus
both sanitizer passes on every push.