Critical Sudo Vulnerabilities in Ansible AWX: How to Patch CVE-2025-32462 and CVE-2025-32463
In the world of IT automation, security is not just a feature—it’s the foundation. Recently, two significant vulnerabilities were discovered in the widely used sudo utility, and they have direct implications for anyone running Ansible AWX. These vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2025-32462 and CVE-2025-32463, could potentially allow for privilege escalation within the environments where your automation tasks run.
This guide will break down what these vulnerabilities are, how they affect your Ansible AWX setup, and provide clear, actionable steps to mitigate the risk and secure your infrastructure.
Understanding the Sudo Vulnerabilities
The sudo command is a powerful tool that allows a permitted user to execute a command as another user, most commonly the superuser or “root.” A flaw in this utility can have serious security consequences.
- CVE-2025-32462: This vulnerability relates to how
sudoprocesses certain user inputs, potentially allowing a user to bypass intended security policies and execute commands with elevated privileges they should not have. - CVE-2025-32463: This second flaw involves an issue in
sudo‘s handling of specific environment variables, which could be manipulated to execute arbitrary code with root permissions.
For Ansible AWX users, the danger lies within the Execution Environments (EEs). These are the container images where your playbooks are actually executed. If the base image of your EE contains a vulnerable version of sudo, any playbook that uses privilege escalation (become: true) could be a vector for an attack.
How to Secure Your Ansible AWX Execution Environments
The most effective way to protect your system is by updating the sudo package inside your Execution Environments. Since EEs are container-based, you cannot simply run yum update or apt upgrade on your host machine. Instead, you need to build a new, patched EE.
Here is a step-by-step guide to creating a secure, custom Execution Environment.
Step 1: Identify Your Current Execution Environment
First, determine which EE your job templates are using. You can find this in the AWX interface under Resources > Job Templates > [Your Template Name]. The Execution Environment field will show you which image is being used, for example, quay.io/ansible/awx-ee:latest.
Step 2: Create a Custom Containerfile
To build a patched version, you will need to create a definition file. This file, often named Containerfile or Dockerfile, specifies how to build your container image.
Create a file named Containerfile and add the following contents. This example uses the standard awx-ee as a base and then applies the necessary updates.
# Use the official AWX Execution Environment as the base
ARG EE_BASE_IMAGE=quay.io/ansible/awx-ee:latest
FROM ${EE_BASE_IMAGE}
# Switch to the root user to install packages
USER root
# Update the sudo package to the latest patched version
# This command works for RHEL-based systems like CentOS Stream
RUN dnf update -y sudo && dnf clean all
# For Debian/Ubuntu-based EEs, the command would be:
# RUN apt-get update && apt-get install --only-upgrade -y sudo && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
# Switch back to the default unprivileged user
USER 1000
Key Action: The most important line is RUN dnf update -y sudo. This command explicitly targets and updates the sudo package to the latest version available in the configured repositories, which will include the security patches for the CVEs.
Step 3: Build and Push Your New Execution Environment
With the Containerfile created, you can now build the image using a tool like ansible-builder or a standard container engine like Podman or Docker.
Using Podman or Docker:
# Build the new container image and tag it
podman build -t my-registry/awx-ee-patched:latest .
# Push the image to your container registry
podman push my-registry/awx-ee-patched:latest
Replace my-registry/awx-ee-patched:latest with the path to your own container registry (e.g., Quay.io, Docker Hub, or an internal private registry).
Step 4: Update Ansible AWX to Use the Patched EE
Now that your patched image is available in a registry, you need to configure AWX to use it.
- Log in to your Ansible AWX dashboard.
- Navigate to Administration > Execution Environments.
- Click Add to create a new EE.
- Give it a descriptive name, like “AWX EE – Patched Sudo”.
- In the Image field, enter the full path to the new image you just pushed (e.g.,
my-registry/awx-ee-patched:latest). - Configure the pull options as needed for your registry (e.g., credentials).
- Click Save.
- Finally, go to your Job Templates and update them to use your new, secure Execution Environment.
Security Best Practices for Long-Term Protection
Fixing this specific vulnerability is critical, but a proactive security posture is even better. Here are a few best practices to keep your automation platform secure:
- Regularly Rebuild Your EEs: Don’t treat your Execution Environments as a “set it and forget it” component. Incorporate the rebuilding and updating of your EEs into a regular maintenance schedule or a CI/CD pipeline. This ensures you always have the latest security patches.
- Scan Your Images: Use container vulnerability scanning tools like Trivy, Clair, or your registry’s built-in scanner to proactively identify known vulnerabilities in your EEs before they are deployed.
- Principle of Least Privilege: Whenever possible, avoid running playbooks with root privileges. If a task does not absolutely require
become: true, run it as a non-privileged user to minimize your attack surface.
By taking these steps, you not only resolve the immediate threat from CVE-2025-32462 and CVE-2025-32463 but also establish a more robust and resilient security foundation for your entire Ansible AWX environment.
Source: https://kifarunix.com/patch-sudo-cves-2025-32462-2025-32463-using-ansible/
