php.net |  support |  documentation |  report a bug |  advanced search |  search howto |  statistics |  random bug |  login
Bug #5509 tempnam() is not safe
Submitted: 2000-07-11 11:27 UTC Modified: 2000-07-11 11:30 UTC
From: alban dot hertroys at ddnh dot nl Assigned:
Status: Closed Package: Misbehaving function
PHP Version: 4.0.1pl2 OS: Any
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
 [2000-07-11 11:27 UTC] alban dot hertroys at ddnh dot nl
$filename = tempnam("/tmp", "blah");

<do all kinds of stuff that takes more than 0 seconds>

$fd = fopen($filename, "w+");

This could result in another proces on the system creating a temp-file with the same name in the meantime, which then will be overwritten by PHP.

See man mkstemp on any UNIX for more details and the solution to the same problem (returning a file descriptor of a newly opened temp-file instead of a filename).

It could be that PHP found a way to magically circumvent the problem, but that is not documented anywhere I looked.

Patches

Pull Requests

History

AllCommentsChangesGit/SVN commitsRelated reports
 [2000-07-11 11:30 UTC] stas at cvs dot php dot net
This is not a bug. tempnam is not safe, everybody knows that, so don't use it if your stuff is security-sensitive. 
 
PHP Copyright © 2001-2025 The PHP Group
All rights reserved.
Last updated: Wed Jul 16 09:01:33 2025 UTC