security/dropbear: update to 2026.94
PR: 297038
Changelog:
2026.94 - 23 July 2026
Note >> for compatibility/configuration changes
- Fix scp build failure regression from 2026.93
The new ascii_isdigit() etc wasn't linked.
- >> Print square brackets around ipv6 addresses with ports, eg
[2a00:f10:400:2:1c00:bcff:fe00:1c6]:22
This may affect log parsers such as fail2ban.
Patch from Seo Suchan
- Support longer paths in scp.
- Avoid some build warnings, add increase github action coverage of
config options.
2026.93 - 21 July 2026
Note >> for compatibility/configuration changes
- Security: Fix a use-after-free in X11 forwarding that could possibly lead
to memory corruption. This is vulnerable to authenticated users if X11
forwarding is enabled. By default X11 forwarding is not built.
In 2026.89 the server is running as the authenticated user for X11
forwarding, in earlier versions it runs as root.
This removes X11 "single connection" which has probably never been used.
Reported by @peter-pe
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/commit/882f83806d5e133037cd28e954a878984ef7b9c4
- >> "permitlisten" authorized_keys lines will now be ignored if
the port is invalid (>65535). From Basavaraj S Maneppagol.
- >> In 2026.92, the configure option --enable-plugin-deprecated
wasn't correctly renamed. This is now implemented.
Patch from Alexander Dahl
- Two factor auth "-t" is no longer deprecated, it will be kept.
The "DEPRECATED_TWO_FACTOR" option is ignored, and no longer required.
- Fix out of bounds read during utmp/wtmp log file handling, reported by
Basavaraj S Maneppagol.
- More robust handling of ascii inputs for some platforms.
From Basavaraj S Maneppagol
- Convert manpages to mdoc format, from shrub
2026.92 - 6 July 2026
Note >> for compatibility/configuration changes
- >> server auth plugins have been deprecated, the configure option
has been renamed to --enable-plugin-deprecated.
Planned to be removed in future.
- >> Two factor auth "-t" has been deprecated, it now requires
a configuration option DEPRECATED_TWO_FACTOR.
[Updated 16 July: This is no longer planned to be removed, future releases
will ignore DEPRECATED_TWO_FACTOR and always enable it, like previously]
- Security: server: Don't allow -B (accept blank password) with
-t (two factor auth). If run with -t and -B a user configured with a
blank password would be allowed to log in without pubkey auth.
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/commit/23ec78285639edf068d86bb96f91cba755039740
Reported by nvidia
- Security: server: Fix parsing of long authorized_keys lines.
The remainder of a long line would be handled as the start of a new line.
In the case where external programs add semi-trusted public keys to
authorized_keys, a crafted key might bypass restrictions such as "command=".
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/commit/8d8e1930b866eb44135ae393a793cbeb03b6b9d6
Reported by nvidia
- >> authorized_keys is now limited to 300 lines.
- server: Prevent unbounded memory use that could be triggered by an
authenticated peer. This would require waiting for the server to
trigger a rekey, so after 8 hours or transferring 1GB data.
Noticed while implementing Sunset SSH, also reported by nvidia
- >> all programs and scp: Disallow following symlinks when writing output
files. This could prevent symlink attacks. Writing keys to an untrusted
directory is not recommended regardless.
- server: "-o gatewayports=no" was treated as yes.
- server: Disallow -t multifactor with plugins.
Plugin interactions with -t are not well tested, plugins may
not correctly handle multiple successful authentications.
Reported by nvidia
- server: ensure that authorized_keys "permitopen" values are valid
ports. 0xffffffff (or signed equivalent) would be accepted as "any port".
- server: fix null pointer segfault when rejecting a stream forward.
Found by oss-fuzz
- dropbearconvert: Fix out of bounds read. dropbearconvert would exit
normally with an error, does not seem exploitable.
Reported by Yiyi Wang, Tsinghua University
- dbclient: Fixed a 1 byte out of bounds write in ssh-askpass handling
(not compiled by default)
- server: Increase pubkey query count. The limit added in
Dropbear 2026.90 was intended to be 15, but it was only 10.
Reported by Rui Salvaterra
- scp: escape terminal control codes from filenames printed by
progress (SCPPROGRESS=1, disabled by default).
Additional fix from Basavaraj S Maneppagol @basavaraj-sm05
- Fix sntrup/mlkem build on old platforms using debian/ directory
packaging. Note that this isn't well maintained, it is better
to use upstream Debian packaging if possible.
- Fix compile warning on 32 bit platforms in sntrup
- Suggest libcrypt-dev for crypt() in configure script if it's missing.
- Increase MAX_HOSTKEYS to 6, suggested by Darren Tucker.
- Allow DROPBEAR_ECC_256/384/521 to be specified in localoptions.h
Patch from Felipe Moura
- Fix typo in missing hostname message, from Robin Neatherway
2026.91 - 10 May 2026
- scp: Fix disallowing -r with existing target directory. The logic
introduced in 2026.90 was incorrect, could also disallow non-recursive
transfers.
- scp: Fix regression in 2026.90 building on older glibc or other libc.
reallocarray() was required, it is no longer needed.
- Compression is now disabled by default for dbclient. A new -o compression option
can enable it. DROPBEAR_CLI_COMPRESSION in localoptions.h can change the default.
Enabling compression can be a security weakness in some
circumstances, as the size of network traffic may leak information
about the encrypted data.
- Added '-Q' argument for dbclient and dropbear to query supported algorithms,
kex sig cipher mac compress
2026.90 - 3 May 2026
- Security: server: Fix ability to bypass an authorized_keys "forced_command"
option by an authenticated user, if Dropbear is running with "-t" option.
("-t" is require both password and public key).
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/commit/c60db6408178aaca0a8aacd017ac344a2cfb30c8
Reported by Jeremy Brown
- Security: server: Open authorized_keys non-blocking. This avoids getting stuck
with special files, could allow denial of service from local users.
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/commit/8b579571b5584847caf72345b9073b3b2a0467a7
Reported by Turistu
- Security: scp: Add missed patch to fix CVE-2019-6111 allowing a malicious server
to overwrite unexpected files.
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/commit/143291baca6ebb3407a0c25c85bd53bf041a6ab7
Patch from OpenSSH, reported missing by Asim Viladi Oglu Manizada @manizada
Note breaking change: "-r" is now disallowed when the target directory exists
(an additional change in Dropbear's version). If that's required an alternative
such as rsync could be used.
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/commit/61bd0e3e6573277de17359763aa5827a189c8d7f
- Security: scp: Clear setuid/setgid bits on received files.
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/commit/443ccc1fd1b9a4e3747f6b5cd644b7af49064308
Patch from OpenSSH, tracked as CVE-2026-35385
- Security: client/server: Fix close() of a file descriptor from an out-of-bounds
read. This seems difficult to exploit but may have unforeseen effects.
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/commit/067fd3846c425d1998c7c94d3feafe1f26b514eb
Reported by Ankit Singh and @j499261162
- server: Add unix stream forwarding listener support (-R from the client)
Patch from Brian Dentino @bdentino
- server: Add -M argument for maximum session duration.
Github PR #409 from Martin Schiller
- server: Add permitlisten authorized_keys option
This allows limiting to a specific port.
Github PR #384 from Mitar
- rsa: keys generated with dropbearkey 0.32 or earlier are no longer supported,
0.33 was released in 2003. RSA exponent blinding is implemented to reduce a
cache timing side channel. Side channel reported by Ciaran Mullan.
- server: Limit the number of public key queries to 15.
This is a mitigation against internet-wide scanning of hosts for public keys.
It doesn't provide much mitigation against targeted enumeration on a
server, in that case public keys should not be treated as private.
Reported by HD Moore, details are in the SSHamble presentation.
- server: Disallow client-sent signals when there is a forced command.
Some programs could have unexpected handling.
Reported by HD Moore in SSHamble presentation.
- client: Don't attempt PTY requests for non-TTYs.
Github issue #385
- server: Don't allow client-sent signals when Dropbear is built with
DROPBEAR_SVR_DROP_PRIVS = 0
- server: Fix closing TCP remote listeners. This has never worked properly.
Github PR #414
- server: Improve protocol correctness sending replies to tcpip forward
requests (-L from the client)
- Fix some timeouts being delayed. Github PR #318
- Improve manpage documentation for forced commands
- Fix distclean of config.h and libtom*/Makefile
- Add curve25519 checks required by rfc8032. These have no effect on SSH protocol
security.
- Fix "ssh-connection" check, reported by Turistu in Github #397.
Has no effect on program function.
security/dropbear: update to 2025.89
Changelog:
- Security: Avoid privilege escalation via unix stream forwarding in Dropbear
server. Other programs on a system may authenticate unix sockets via
SO_PEERCRED, which would be root user for Dropbear forwarded connections,
allowing root privilege escalation.
Reported by Turistu, and thanks for advice on the fix.
This is tracked as CVE-2025-14282, and affects 2024.84 to 2025.88.
It is fixed by dropping privileges of the dropbear process after
authentication. Unix stream sockets are now disallowed when a
forced command is used, either with authorized_key restrictions or
"dropbear -c command".
In previous affected releases running with "dropbear -j" (will also disable
TCP fowarding) or building with localoptions.h/distrooptions.h
"#define DROPBEAR_SVR_LOCALSTREAMFWD 0" is a mitigation.
- Security: Include scp fix for CVE-2019-6111. This allowed
a malicious server to overwrite arbitrary local files.
The missing fix was reported by Ashish Kunwar.
- Server dropping privileges post-auth is enabled by default. This requires
setresgid() support, so some platforms such as netbsd or macos will have to
disable DROPBEAR_SVR_DROP_PRIVS in localoptions.h. Unix stream forwarding is
not available if DROPBEAR_SVR_DROP_PRIVS is disabled.
Remote server TCP socket forwarding will now use OS privileged port
restrictions rather than having a fixed "allow >=1024 for non-root" rule.
A future release may implement privilege dropping for netbsd/macos.
- Fix a regression in 2025.87 when RSA and DSS are not built. This would lead
to a crash at startup with bad_bufptr().
Reported by Dani Schmitt and Sebastian Priebe.
- Don't limit channel window to 500MB. That is could cause stuck connections
if peers advise a large window and don't send an increment within 500MB.
Affects SSH.NET https://github.com/sshnet/SSH.NET/issues/1671
Reported by Rob Hague.
- Ignore -g -s when passwords arent enabled. Patch from Norbert Lange.
Ignore -m (disable MOTD), -j/-k (tcp forwarding) when not enabled.
- Report SIGBUS and SIGTRAP signals. Patch from Loïc Mangeonjean.
- Fix incorrect server auth delay. Was meant to be 250-350ms, it was actually
150-350ms or possibly negative (zero). Reported by pickaxprograms.
- Fix building without public key options. Thanks to Konstantin Demin
- Fix building with proxycmd but without netcat. Thanks to Konstantin Demin
- Fix incorrect path documentation for distrooptions, thanks to Todd Zullinger
- Fix SO_REUSEADDR for TCP tests, reported by vt-alt.
security/dropbear: update to 2025.88
Changelog:
- Security: Don't allow dbclient hostname arguments to be interpreted
by the shell.
dbclient hostname arguments with a comma (for multihop) would be
passed to the shell which could result in running arbitrary shell
commands locally. That could be a security issue in situations
where dbclient is passed untrusted hostname arguments.
Now the multihop command is executed directly, no shell is involved.
Thanks to Marcin Nowak for the report, tracked as CVE-2025-47203
- Fix compatibility for htole64 and htole32, regression in 2025.87
Patch from Peter Fichtner to work with old GCC versions, and
patch from Matt Robinson to check different header files.
- Fix building on older compilers or libc that don't support
static_assert(). Regression in 2025.87
- Support ~R in the client to force a key re-exchange.
- Improve strict KEX handling. Dropbear previously would allow other
packets at the end of key exchange prior to receiving the remote
peer's NEWKEYS message, which should be forbidden by strict KEX.
Reported by Fabian Bäumer.
security/dropbear: update to 2025.87
Changes:
Note >> for compatibility/configuration changes
- >> Disable SHA-1 algorithms by default. SHA-1 has known weakness and
most implementations support alternatives.
- Add post-quantum key exchange. These avoid the possibility of current
stored traffic being decrypted using a possible future quantum
computer.
sntrup761 added by Matt Johnston, using sntrup761 implementation from
Daniel J. Bernstein, Chitchanok Chuengsatiansup, Tanja Lange and
Christine van Vredendaal, with integration work from OpenSSH.
ML-KEM added by Loganaden Velvindron, Jaykishan Mutkawoa, Kavish Nadan,
using libcrux, also based on OpenSSH work.
These do increase code size, at least sntrup761 is recommended,
see default_options.h
- >> Decompression is disabled on the server, compression
is still supported.
This avoids attack surface for zlib and saves runtime memory.
- Add -D server flag to specify authorized_keys directory, from Darren Tucker.
- Include remote host in "Login attempt with wrong user" message for fail2ban,
patch from MichaIng.
- Workaround writing hostkeys on FUSE filesystem that don't
support hardlinks, reported by elijahr.
- Fix truncated error messages such as host key mismatch.
- >> Preference aes256 ahead of aes128 for the client. chacha20-poly1305
is still first preference.
- Fix ubsan failure in curve25519 code, reported by Steven Bytnar.
Has no effect on execution.
security/dropbear: Unbundle libtom* libs by default
Add option to use libtom* libraries from ports tree and set as default
PR: 274351
Reviewed by: pkubaj (maintainer)
security/dropbear: update to 2022.83
Features and Changes:
Note >> for compatibility/configuration changes
- >> Disable DROPBEAR_DSS by default
It is only 1024 bit and uses sha1, most distros disable it by default already.
- Added DROPBEAR_RSA_SHA1 option to allow disabling sha1 rsa signatures.
>> RSA with sha1 will be disabled in a future release (rsa keys will continue
to work OK, with sha256 signatures used instead).
- Add option for requiring both password and pubkey (-t)
Patch from Jackkal
- Add 'no-touch-required' and 'verify-required' options for sk keys
Patch from Egor Duda
- >> DROPBEAR_SK_KEYS config option now replaces separate DROPBEAR_SK_ECDSA
and DROPBEAR_SK_ED25519 options.
- Add 'permitopen' option for authorized_keys to restrict forwarded ports
Patch from Tuomas Haikarainen
- >> Added LTM_CFLAGS configure argument to set flags for building
bundled libtommath. This also restores the previous arguments used
in 2020.81 (-O3 -funroll-loops). That gives a big speedup for RSA
key generation, which regressed in 2022.82.
There is a tradeoff with code size, so -Os can be used if required.
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/issues/174
Reported by David Bernard
- Add '-z' flag to disable setting QoS traffic class. This may be necessary
to work with broken networks or network drivers, exposed after changes to use
AF21 in 2022.82
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/issues/193
Reported by yuhongwei380, patch from Petr Štetiar
- Allow overriding user shells with COMPAT_USER_SHELLS
Based on a patch from Matt Robinson
- Improve permission error message
Patch from k-kurematsu
- >> Remove HMAC_MD5 entirely
Regression fixes from 2022.82:
- Fix X11 build
- Fix build warning
- Fix compilation when disabling pubkey authentication
Patch from MaxMougg
- Fix MAX_UNAUTH_CLIENTS regression
Reported by ptpt52
- Avoid using slower prime testing in bundled libtomcrypt when DSS is disabled
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/issues/174
Suggested by Steffen Jaeckel
- Fix Dropbear plugin support
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/issues/194
Reported by Struan Bartlett
Other fixes:
- Fix long standing incorrect compression size check. Dropbear
(client or server) would erroneously exit with
"bad packet, oversized decompressed"
when receiving a compressed packet of exactly the maximum size.
- Fix missing setsid() removed in 2020.79
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/issues/180
Reported and debugged by m5jt and David Bernard
- Try keyboard-interactive auth before password, in dbclient.
This was unintentionally changed back in 2013
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/pull/190
Patch from Michele Giacomoli
- Drain the terminal when reading the fingerprint confirmation response
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/pull/191
Patch from Michele Giacomoli
- Fix utx wtmp variable typo. This has been wrong for a long time but
only recently became a problem when wtmp was detected.
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/pull/189
Patch from Michele Giacomoli
- Improve configure test for hardening options.
Fixes building on AIX
https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/issues/158
- Fix debian/dropbear.init newline
From wulei-student
Infrastructure:
- Test off-by-default compile options
- Set -Wundef to catch typos in #if statements
Remove WWW entries moved into port Makefiles
Commit b7f05445c00f has added WWW entries to port Makefiles based on
WWW: lines in pkg-descr files.
This commit removes the WWW: lines of moved-over URLs from these
pkg-descr files.
Approved by: portmgr (tcberner)
Add WWW entries to port Makefiles
It has been common practice to have one or more URLs at the end of the
ports' pkg-descr files, one per line and prefixed with "WWW:". These
URLs should point at a project website or other relevant resources.
Access to these URLs required processing of the pkg-descr files, and
they have often become stale over time. If more than one such URL was
present in a pkg-descr file, only the first one was tarnsfered into
the port INDEX, but for many ports only the last line did contain the
port specific URL to further information.
There have been several proposals to make a project URL available as
a macro in the ports' Makefiles, over time.
This commit implements such a proposal and moves one of the WWW: entries
of each pkg-descr file into the respective port's Makefile. A heuristic
attempts to identify the most relevant URL in case there is more than
one WWW: entry in some pkg-descr file. URLs that are not moved into the
Makefile are prefixed with "See also:" instead of "WWW:" in the pkg-descr
files in order to preserve them.
There are 1256 ports that had no WWW: entries in pkg-descr files. These
ports will not be touched in this commit.
The portlint port has been adjusted to expect a WWW entry in each port
Makefile, and to flag any remaining "WWW:" lines in pkg-descr files as
deprecated.
Approved by: portmgr (tcberner)
security/dropbear: update to 2020.81
Changelog:
- Fix regression in 2020.79 which prevented connecting with some SSH
implementations. Increase MAX_PROPOSED_ALGO to 50, and print a log
message if the limit is hit. This fixes interoperability with sshj
library (used by PyCharm), and GoAnywhere.
Reported by Pirmin Walthert and Piotr Jurkiewicz
- Fix building with non-GCC compilers, reported by Kazuo Kuroi
- Fix potential long delay in dbclient, found by OSS Fuzz
- Fix null pointer dereference crash, found by OSS Fuzz
- libtommath now uses the same random source as Dropbear (in 2020.79
and 2020.80 used getrandom() separately)
- Some fuzzing improvements, start of a dbclient fuzzer
security/dropbear: change in rc DSS to ed25519
dropbear no longer supports DSS keys, use ed25519 instead. rc file needs to be updated.
currently starting dropbear fails with error:
% service dropbear start
...
Unknown key type 'dss'
...
Submitted by: waitman@waitman.net
PR: 250192
MFH: 2020Q4 (runtime fix)
security/dropbear: add scp
Build and install the scp binary with the dropbear package. To avoid a name colision with openssh-portable, call binary dbscp.
PR: 242551
Submitted by: mm
security/dropbear: update to 2019.78, change maintainer
Update the port to 2019.78 and change maintainer to my FreeBSD address.
Approved by: mat (mentor)
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D20601
- Update to version 2016.74 - Add license information
Changelog:
- Security: Message printout was vulnerable to format string injection.
If specific usernames including "%" symbols can be created on a system
(validated by getpwnam()) then an attacker could run arbitrary code as root
when connecting to Dropbear server.
A dbclient user who can control username or host arguments could potentially
run arbitrary code as the dbclient user. This could be a problem if scripts
or webpages pass untrusted input to the dbclient program.
- Security: dropbearconvert import of OpenSSH keys could run arbitrary code as
the local dropbearconvert user when parsing malicious key files
- Security: dbclient could run arbitrary code as the local dbclient user if
particular -m or -c arguments are provided. This could be an issue where
dbclient is used in scripts.
- Security: dbclient or dropbear server could expose process memory to the
running user if compiled with DEBUG_TRACE and running with -v
PR: 211298
Submitted by: Piotr Kubaj (maintainer)
MFH: 2016Q3