CVE-2026-116240

pgAdmin 4: File Manager and storage-path tools act on a different path from the one checked

State
Published
Severity
7.1 High
Published
Oct 30, 2026
Updated
Oct 30, 2026
Reserved
Oct 25, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

In server mode pgAdmin 4 validates a path into the user's storage directory with check_access_permission(), which builds the absolute path with get_abs_path(). Several callers then acted on a path they built differently, so the path checked and the path used could name different files:

- Opening a file in the Query Tool, the Google client secret and, on Windows, Import/Export Data, Backup, Restore and saving a file joined the path to the storage directory after stripping leading slashes and backslashes. On POSIX a path checked as a name inside storage could become an absolute path once stripped, so any file the pgAdmin account can read could be opened; on Windows a path naming a drive discarded the storage directory, so these could read, or write, outside it. - Listing a folder decoded the path a second time after the check, so a folder named like an encoded "..", which a user can create, listed any directory on the host. - Download, delete, rename and the file-exists check appended the path to the storage directory without a separator, so in a deployment where one user's storage directory name is a prefix of another's, another user's files could be read, deleted or moved; download also checked the path appended to itself. - Creating a folder could create one in another user's directory.

The fix makes check_access_permission() return the path it checked and every caller act on that path, decodes folder paths once, and opens, deletes and renames files relative to directories opened from the storage directory without following symbolic links. Desktop mode is not affected.

This issue affects pgAdmin 4: before 9.19.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
4.07.1 HighCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:NPostgreSQL
3.16.5 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:NPostgreSQL

Weaknesses

  • CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
  • CWE-367 Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition

Affected Products

ProductVersions
pgAdmin 4pgadmin.org
  • before 9.19Affected

References

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