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perl-5.42.2-RC1
⭐ Starred 2013 / Porting/test-dist-modules.pl
Security Advisories (3)
CVE-2026-13221 (2026-07-13)

Perl versions through 5.43.9 produce silently incorrect regular expression matches when an alternation of more than 65535 fixed string branches is compiled into a trie in Perl_study_chunk. When such branches are combined into a trie, the delta between the first branch and the shared tail is stored in a 16-bit field. A branch count above 65535 overflows the field, and the trie's match decision table is truncated with no warning or error. A pattern of this shape produces false positive matches (matching strings it should not) and false negative matches (failing to match strings it should). When such a pattern gates an access or filtering decision, the result is wrong.

CVE-2026-57432 (2026-07-13)

Perl versions through 5.43.10 have an integer overflow in S_measure_struct leading to an out-of-bounds heap read in pack and unpack. S_measure_struct adds each item's size times its repeat count to a running total with no overflow check, so a large repeat count in a pack or unpack template wraps the signed SSize_t total negative. The @, X, and x position codes then guard their moves with a signed length comparison that passes when the length is negative, advancing the buffer pointer out of bounds. A template derived from untrusted input can read heap memory past the buffer and return it to the caller.

CVE-2026-8376 (2026-05-25)

Perl versions through 5.43.10 have a heap buffer overflow when compiling regular expressions with a repeated fixed string on 32-bit builds. Perl_study_chunk in regcomp_study.c checked the size of the joined substring buffer in characters rather than bytes. For a quantified fixed substring with a large minimum count, the byte length mincount * l could overflow SSize_t, producing an undersized SvGROW allocation; the subsequent copy writes past the end of the buffer. A caller that compiles an attacker-controlled regular expression on a 32-bit perl build triggers a heap buffer overflow at compile time.

NAME

test-dist-modules.pl - test modules in dist/ against the perl invoked with

SYNOPSIS

# from a checked out clean perl source tree
# test all dist/ modules, abort on first failure
path/to/perl test-dist-modules.pl

# test all dist/ modules, continue on failure
path/to/perl test-dist-modules.pl -c

# test all dist/ modules, and install into path/to/perl's site_perl
path/to/perl test-dist-modules.pl -i

DESCRIPTION

Porting/test-dist-modules.pl is used by the Github workflow to test modules from dist/ against the perl it is invoked with, within a git clone of a development perl. This clone must be a clean clone, ie. as with git clean -dxf .

That perl should have any prerequisites needed by those modules installed, at this point this includes sufficiently recent versions of:

ExtUtils::MakeMaker
Perl::OSType
Scalar::Util
Socket
version

test-dist-modules.pl will always test Devel::PPPort first and then use that when testing the other modules, even if invoked with a distribution list.

INVOKING test-dist-modules.pl

By default test-dist-modules.pl will test each directory in dist/, but you can test specific distributions by supplying them on the command-line:

path/to/perl test-dist-modules.pl threads

which will test Devel-PPPort and threads.

Options:

  • -i

  • -install

    Install the modules to the invoking perl's site_perl. This may require privileges such as running as root.

  • -c

  • -continue

    Continue testing modules even if one fails.

  • -s

  • -separate

    Install to a temp tree instead of to the invoking perl's site_perl. This is now the default.

  • -h

  • -help

    Produce a help message.