CVE-2026-16445

A flaw was found in dracut. A remote attacker on the adjacent network can exploit this vulnerability by providing specially crafted DHCP options, such as a malicious root-path, next-server, or bootfile name, to a system using dracut's NetworkManager-based initrd network module. These options are improperly handled and written into a temporary shell script without proper escaping, leading to command injection. This allows the attacker to achieve root code execution within the initramfs during system boot.

This is an Important vulnerability in dracut's NetworkManager-based initrd network module (nm-run.sh) that allows command injection via crafted DHCP options. An attacker on the adjacent network can exploit this by acting as a DHCP server and providing specially crafted DHCP options, leading to root code execution within the initramfs. This affects systems configured to boot using dracut's network-manager module with a DHCP-derived netroot (for example, NFS-root configurations).

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

Avoid using the root=dhcp/netroot=dhcp/root=dhcp6/netroot=dhcp6 kernel command-line options — these cause dracut to trust the DHCP server's root-path option to determine the boot target. Configuring the netroot target explicitly on the kernel/PXE command line instead (e.g. netroot=nfs:<server>:<path> or netroot=iscsi:... with a literal value).