Impact
Each Netdata Agent has an automatically generated MACHINE GUID. It is generated when the agent first starts and it is saved to disk, so that it will persist across restarts and reboots. Anyone who has access to a Netdata Agent has access to its MACHINE_GUID.
Streaming is a feature that allows a Netdata Agent to act as parent for other Netdata Agents (children), offloading children from various functions (increased data retention, ML, health monitoring, etc) that can now be handled by the parent Agent.
Configuration is done via stream.conf. On the parent side, users configure in stream.conf an API key (any random UUID can do) to provide common configuration for all children using this API key and per MACHINE GUID configuration to customize the configuration for each child.
The way this was implemented, allowed an attacker to use a valid MACHINE_GUID as an API key.
This affects all users who expose their Netdata Agents (children) to non-trusted users and they also expose to the same users Netdata Agent parents that aggregate data from all these children.
Patches
The problem has been fixed in:
- Netdata agent v1.37 (stable)
- Netdata agent v1.36.0-409 (nightly)
Workarounds
Streaming is not enabled by default. If you have previously enabled this, it can be disabled by modifying stream.conf:
Limiting access to the port on the recipient Agent to trusted child connections may mitigate the impact of this vulnerability.
References
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
stefan-schiller-sonarsource Analyst
Impact
Each Netdata Agent has an automatically generated MACHINE GUID. It is generated when the agent first starts and it is saved to disk, so that it will persist across restarts and reboots. Anyone who has access to a Netdata Agent has access to its MACHINE_GUID.
Streaming is a feature that allows a Netdata Agent to act as parent for other Netdata Agents (children), offloading children from various functions (increased data retention, ML, health monitoring, etc) that can now be handled by the parent Agent.
Configuration is done via
stream.conf. On the parent side, users configure instream.confan API key (any random UUID can do) to provide common configuration for all children using this API key and per MACHINE GUID configuration to customize the configuration for each child.The way this was implemented, allowed an attacker to use a valid MACHINE_GUID as an API key.
This affects all users who expose their Netdata Agents (children) to non-trusted users and they also expose to the same users Netdata Agent parents that aggregate data from all these children.
Patches
The problem has been fixed in:
Workarounds
Streaming is not enabled by default. If you have previously enabled this, it can be disabled by modifying
stream.conf:Limiting access to the port on the recipient Agent to trusted child connections may mitigate the impact of this vulnerability.
References
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory: