CVE-2026-29051: melange has Path Traversal via .PKGINFO in --persist-lint-results

melange allows users to build apk packages using declarative pipelines. Starting in version 0.32.0 and prior to version 0.43.4, melange lint --persist-lint-results (opt-in flag, also usable via melange build --persist-lint-results) constructs output file paths by joining --out-dir with the arch and pkgname values read from the .PKGINFO control file of the APK being linted. In affected versions these values were not validated for path separators or .. sequences, so an attacker who can supply an APK to a melange-based lint/build pipeline (e.g. CI that lints third-party APKs, or build-as-a-service) could cause melange to write lint-<pkgname>-<pkgver>-r<epoch>.json to an arbitrary .json path reachable by the melange process. The written file is a JSON lint report whose content is partially attacker-influenced. There is no direct code-execution path, but the write can clobber other JSON artifacts on the filesystem. The issue only affects deployments that explicitly pass --persist-lint-results; the flag is off by default. The issue is fixed in melange v0.43.4 by validating arch and pkgname for .., /, and filepath.Separator before path construction in pkg/linter/results.go (commit 84f3b45). As a workaround, do not pass --persist-lint-results when linting or building APKs whose .PKGINFO contents are not fully trusted. Running melange as a low-privileged user and confining writes to an isolated directory also limits impact.

— MITRE