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Update madnuttah/unbound Docker tag to v1.25.1#3302

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Update madnuttah/unbound Docker tag to v1.25.1#3302
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renovate/madnuttah-unbound-1.x

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@renovate renovate Bot commented May 30, 2026

This PR contains the following updates:

Package Update Change
madnuttah/unbound (source) minor 1.24.2-21.25.1-2

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Triage: YELLOW -- possible breakage, reviewer requested

Quick summary

The new image madnuttah/unbound:1.25.1-2 is a phantom release: the Docker artifact exists on Docker Hub with valid SLSA provenance attestations, but there is no corresponding git tag or GitHub release in the source repository. While the build appears legitimate (same publisher, legitimate upstream Unbound 1.25.1 with 11 CVE fixes), the absence of a release artifact in source control is anomalous and requires verification before merge. The deployment itself is immune to the 1.25.1-0 regression (custom config replaces stock) and will benefit from critical security fixes, but the provenance gap warrants human review.

Updates table

Package Old New Breaking Changelog Provenance
madnuttah/unbound 1.24.2-2 1.25.1-2 safe security fixes, config improvements suspicious

Required actions

  1. madnuttah/unbound — Verify the 1.25.1-2 release before merge. The image exists on Docker Hub with SLSA attestations, but no git tag or GitHub release exists in the source repository (unlike all prior versions). Contact the maintainer or check the releases page to confirm this is an intentional build and not a supply-chain anomaly. (See provenance report.)

  2. madnuttah/unbound — If release notes for 1.25.1-2 become available, review them to confirm no unexpected changes beyond the 1.25.1-1 fix. The tag was pushed 2026-05-30, approximately 53 minutes before this PR was created. (See breaking report.)

Update summary

madnuttah/unbound 1.24.2-2 → 1.25.1-2

  • Regression fix: The 1.25.1-0 image shipped a broken stock unbound.conf that bound only to 127.0.0.1:53 instead of the configured interface. This deployment is immune because it mounts a fully custom config that replaces the stock file. The 1.25.1-2 target includes the rollback fix from 1.25.1-1.
  • Security: Unbound 1.25.1 fixes 11 CVEs including CVE-2026-33278 (possible RCE during DNSSEC validation) and CVE-2026-42959 (crash during DNSSEC validation). This deployment runs DNSSEC validation enabled, so these fixes are directly applicable.
  • TTL behavior changes in 1.25.0: Cached records at TTL 0 are now expired rather than served; TTL 0 upstream answers no longer cached by cachedb. This deployment explicitly sets cache-min-ttl: 0 and serve-expired: no, so the new behavior is consistent with its configuration.
  • New tls-protocols option: Replaces the briefly-introduced (never-released) tls-use-system-versions. Default is "TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3". This deployment does not serve DNS-over-TLS or DNS-over-HTTPS, so no config change needed.
  • Architecture support: 1.25.1-2 includes amd64 and arm64 (confirmed via Docker Hub API), matching cluster requirements.

Provenance

The new image madnuttah/unbound:1.25.1-2 is a phantom release: the Docker artifact exists on Docker Hub with valid SLSA provenance attestations and was built from the legitimate source repository, but there is no corresponding git tag or GitHub release in the source repository. All previous versions (1.24.2-2, 1.25.1-1, etc.) have proper GitHub releases and git tags. The buildvars file was updated to 1.25.1-2 (commit d89b39ab, 2026-05-29), and the image was built and pushed to Docker Hub, but the release workflow did not create the expected tag/release artifact. This breaks the normal release chain and is a hallmark of supply-chain anomalies, though the presence of SLSA attestations and the legitimate upstream (Unbound 1.25.1 from NLnet Labs with 11 CVE fixes) suggest the build itself is not malicious. Human verification required before merge.

Sub-agent reports -- madnuttah/unbound

Breaking-change impact

I now have a complete picture. Let me compile the full analysis.

Key findings:

  1. PR targets 1.25.1-2 — this is a new tag (pushed 2026-05-30) that doesn't appear in the madnuttah/unbound-docker GitHub releases list yet (latest GitHub release is v1.25.1-1). The Docker Hub API confirms 1.25.1-2 exists and includes both amd64 and arm64.

  2. Issue Dependency Dashboard #144 context: 1.25.1-0 was broken (unbound.conf patching caused it to bind on 127.0.0.1:53 instead of 0.0.0.0:5335). 1.25.1-1 fixed it with a rollback. 1.25.1-2 is a further revision — the GitHub release notes for v1.25.1-1 say "Rollback of unbound.conf patching in Unbound and Unbound+QUIC builds fixing Dependency Dashboard #144". The 1.25.1-2 tag was pushed just hours before the PR was created (2026-05-30T01:22 vs PR created 2026-05-30T02:15).

  3. This deployment uses a fully custom unbound.conf mounted at /usr/local/unbound/unbound.conf — it completely replaces the image's bundled config. The bug in 1.25.1-0 (bad stock config) would not have affected this deployment because it never uses the stock config.

  4. Architecture: 1.25.1-2 includes arm64 ✅ and amd64 ✅ — confirmed from Docker Hub API.

  5. Unbound 1.25.0 TTL behavior changes: The deployment sets cache-min-ttl: 0 and serve-expired: no — the TTL changes in 1.25.0 (cached records at TTL 0 are expired, TTL 0 upstream answers no longer cached by cachedb) are consistent with this deployment's explicit config.

  6. 1.25.1-2 has no GitHub release notes — it's a very fresh tag. Need to check if there's a release for it.


Impact verdict: madnuttah/unbound 1.24.2-2 → 1.25.1-2 (PR #3302)

Verdict

safe_to_merge

This is a leaf DNS resolver (Unbound) used as the upstream for Blocky. The version jump crosses the 1.25.1-0 breakage (bad stock unbound.conf patching) and the 1.25.1-1 fix, but this deployment is immune to that breakage because it mounts a fully custom unbound.conf that completely replaces the image's bundled file. The 1.25.1-2 tag (pushed 2026-05-30T01:22 UTC, ~53 minutes before Renovate opened this PR) includes both amd64 and arm64 and carries the same rollback fix as 1.25.1-1. The Unbound 1.25.0 TTL behavior changes do not conflict with the deployment's explicit configuration. No blocking or action-required findings.


Blast radius

  • Scope: shared_service (DNS resolver for the cluster's DNS stack)
  • Direct usage: 1 manifest — rpi5/blocky/unbound/deployment.yaml
  • Transitive dependents: 1 app
    • blocky (rpi5/blocky/) — uses Unbound as its sole upstream DNS resolver (upstreams.groups.default: [10.43.0.11]) and as its bootstrap DNS resolver (bootstrapDns: [10.43.0.11]). If Unbound goes down, Blocky loses its upstream and all cluster DNS resolution fails.
  • User-facing exposure:
    • Public hostnames affected: none directly (Unbound is internal-only, no Ingress)
    • Internal (oauth-gated) hostnames affected: none directly, but Blocky serves DNS for the entire cluster — all internal hostnames depend on the DNS stack being healthy
    • Cron / scheduled jobs affected: none
  • Failure mode if upgrade goes wrong: hard_down — if Unbound fails to start or stops listening on port 5335, Blocky loses its upstream resolver; with upstreams.init.strategy: blocking and no fallback upstream configured, Blocky itself will fail to initialize or return SERVFAIL for all queries, taking down cluster-wide DNS resolution
  • Recovery: trivial_rollback — stateless Deployment; pin old image tag and redeploy; no persistent data

Required actions before merge

None.


Findings

F1: 1.25.1-0 stock unbound.conf breakage — not applicable to this deployment

  • Severity: informational
  • Category: config_schema / image_structure
  • What changed: madnuttah/unbound:1.25.1-0 shipped a modified stock unbound.conf that caused Unbound to bind on 127.0.0.1:53 / ::1:53 instead of 0.0.0.0:5335, breaking all DNS queries. 1.25.1-1 rolled back the patching. 1.25.1-2 is a further revision of the same fix line.
  • Why it does NOT affect this deployment: rpi5/blocky/unbound/deployment.yaml mounts a fully custom unbound.conf at /usr/local/unbound/unbound.conf (via configMapGenerator: unbound-main). The image's bundled stock config is completely replaced at container start. Even if the stock config were broken, this deployment would never read it. The custom config explicitly sets interface: 0.0.0.0@5335, port: 5335, chroot: "", username: "", directory: "/usr/local/unbound", and pidfile: "/var/run/unbound/unbound.pid" — all the fields that were problematic in the stock config are explicitly overridden.
  • Affected dependents: none
  • Required action: no action — informational
  • Source: upstream issue report and fix in the madnuttah/unbound-docker project
  • Confidence: documented
  • Render-limited: no

F2: 1.25.1-2 tag has no GitHub release notes at time of PR creation

  • Severity: monitor
  • Category: other
  • What changed: The 1.25.1-2 tag was pushed to Docker Hub at 2026-05-30T01:22 UTC, approximately 53 minutes before Renovate opened this PR. The madnuttah/unbound-docker GitHub releases page only lists up to v1.25.1-1 at the time of this analysis. The content of 1.25.1-2 beyond the 1.25.1-1 fix is not yet documented.
  • Why it affects this deployment: Unknown changes in 1.25.1-2 relative to 1.25.1-1 cannot be cross-referenced against the deployment fingerprint. The risk is low given the project's release cadence (patch revisions are typically OpenSSL bumps or minor fixes), but cannot be confirmed.
  • Affected dependents: unbound deployment, and transitively blocky
  • Required action: Before merging, check the madnuttah/unbound-docker GitHub releases page for a v1.25.1-2 entry, or compare the buildvars file between v1.25.1-1 and the new tag to confirm the change is limited to a dependency bump (e.g., OpenSSL). If no release notes appear within a day, the PR is still low-risk given the deployment's custom config.
  • Source: madnuttah/unbound-docker releases page
  • Confidence: inferred
  • Render-limited: no

F3: Unbound 1.25.0 TTL behavior changes

  • Severity: informational
  • Category: config_schema
  • What changed: Unbound 1.25.0 introduced several TTL behavior changes: (a) cached records that reach TTL 0 are now expired rather than served; (b) TTL 0 upstream answers are no longer cached by cachedb; (c) serve-expired-reply-ttl is now capped by the original TTL value; (d) TTL decoding updated to adhere to RFC 8767 §4.
  • Why it does NOT affect this deployment: The deployment's performance.conf explicitly sets cache-min-ttl: 0 and serve-expired: no. Change (a) is consistent with cache-min-ttl: 0 (no floor on TTL, so records expiring at TTL 0 is expected behavior). Change (b) does not apply — cachedb is not configured. Change (c) does not apply — serve-expired: no. Change (d) is a correctness fix with no config surface.
  • Affected dependents: none
  • Required action: no action — informational
  • Source: upstream Unbound release notes
  • Confidence: documented
  • Render-limited: no

F4: Unbound 1.25.0 tls-protocols option replaces tls-use-system-versions

  • Severity: informational
  • Category: config_schema
  • What changed: Unbound 1.25.0 introduced a new tls-protocols config option and reverted the briefly-introduced (unreleased) tls-use-system-versions option.
  • Why it does NOT affect this deployment: Neither tls-use-system-versions nor any DoT/DoH server-side TLS configuration appears in the deployment's conf.d/ shards. The deployment does not serve DNS-over-TLS or DNS-over-HTTPS.
  • Affected dependents: none
  • Required action: no action — informational
  • Source: upstream Unbound release notes
  • Confidence: documented
  • Render-limited: no

F5: Unbound 1.25.1 security fixes (multiple CVEs)

  • Severity: informational (positive — this is the reason to merge)
  • Category: other
  • What changed: Unbound 1.25.1 fixes 11 CVEs including CVE-2026-33278 (CRITICAL — possible remote code execution during DNSSEC validation), CVE-2026-42944 (heap overflow with multiple NSID), CVE-2026-42959 (crash during DNSSEC validation), CVE-2026-32792 (DNSCrypt packet of death), and others.
  • Why it affects this deployment: This deployment runs Unbound with DNSSEC validation enabled (auto-trust-anchor-file is set, harden-dnssec-stripped: yes, aggressive-nsec: yes). CVE-2026-33278 (RCE during DNSSEC validation) and CVE-2026-42959 (crash during DNSSEC validation) are directly exercised by this deployment's configuration. Merging this PR remediates these vulnerabilities.
  • Affected dependents: unbound deployment; transitively blocky and all cluster DNS
  • Required action: no action required to merge — this is the motivation for the upgrade
  • Source: upstream Unbound release announcement
  • Confidence: documented
  • Render-limited: no

F6: kubefledged image cache references stale madnuttah/unbound:1.23.1-2

  • Severity: informational
  • Category: other
  • What changed: Not a change in this PR, but rpi5/coredns/fledged.yaml pre-caches madnuttah/unbound:1.23.1-2 — two major versions behind the image this PR deploys (1.25.1-2). The fledged cache entry is not updated by this PR.
  • Why it affects this deployment: The fledged cache will continue to pre-pull the old 1.23.1-2 image, which is harmless for the running deployment (the Deployment uses a pinned digest, not the fledged cache). However, the fledged cache entry is now stale and provides no warm-cache benefit for the new image. This is a maintenance note, not a blocker.
  • Affected dependents: none (no functional impact)
  • Required action: no action required to merge; consider updating rpi5/coredns/fledged.yaml to reference madnuttah/unbound:1.25.1-2 in a follow-up PR
  • Source: rpi5/coredns/fledged.yaml
  • Confidence: documented
  • Render-limited: no

Deployment fingerprint (summary)

Surface Value
Image madnuttah/unbound:1.24.2-2@sha256:9600512...1.25.1-2@sha256:05312ebc...
Kind Deployment (2 replicas, RollingUpdate, maxUnavailable: 0)
Namespace rpi5/blocky/ (inferred; no explicit namespace in manifests)
Run-as user UID 1000 / GID 1000 / fsGroup 1000 (explicit in pod securityContext)
Security context readOnlyRootFilesystem: true, allowPrivilegeEscalation: false, capabilities: drop ALL, seccompProfile: RuntimeDefault
Env vars DISABLE_SET_PERMS=true (skips entrypoint chown/setperms)
Listen port 5335 (TCP + UDP); Service remaps 53 → 5335
Service ClusterIP 10.43.0.11 (static)
Config mounts /usr/local/unbound/unbound.conf (custom, replaces stock), /usr/local/unbound/conf.d/ (6 shards), /usr/local/unbound/zones.d/ (local-data)
Writable mounts /usr/local/unbound/iana.d (emptyDir), /var/run/unbound (emptyDir for pidfile), /tmp (emptyDir)
Probes exec: /usr/local/unbound/sbin/healthcheck.sh (both liveness and readiness)
Resources requests: 50m CPU / 64Mi RAM; limits: 250m CPU / 128Mi RAM
Key config settings interface: 0.0.0.0@5335, port: 5335, chroot: "", username: "", pidfile: /var/run/unbound/unbound.pid, cache-min-ttl: 0, serve-expired: no, aggressive-nsec: yes, harden-dnssec-stripped: yes, auto-trust-anchor-file: /usr/local/unbound/iana.d/root.key
Transitive consumer blocky (upstreams.groups.default: [10.43.0.11], bootstrapDns: [10.43.0.11])

Cluster fit

Check Result
Architectures required by cluster amd64 (GKE/k3s nodes), arm64 (rpi5 nodes)
Architectures in 1.25.1-2 amd64 ✅, arm64 ✅, arm/v6 ✅, arm/v7 ✅, 386 ✅, ppc64le, s390x, riscv64 — confirmed via Docker Hub API
Kubernetes API versions in manifest apps/v1 (Deployment), v1 (Service) — both GA and stable
Minimum K8s version stated by dep Not stated
Peer dependency check No Helm chart, no CRDs, no operator dependencies. Image is self-contained.
Service mesh No mesh injection annotations visible on the unbound Deployment
PSA readOnlyRootFilesystem: true, runAsNonRoot: true, allowPrivilegeEscalation: false, capabilities: drop ALL — compliant with restricted PSA level

Gaps

  1. 1.25.1-2 release notes not yet published on GitHub — The tag was pushed to Docker Hub ~53 minutes before Renovate opened this PR. No GitHub release entry exists for v1.25.1-2 at time of analysis. The change content is inferred to be a minor patch (consistent with the project's -N revision cadence for non-Unbound-version changes), but cannot be confirmed without release notes. Risk is low given the deployment's custom config insulates it from stock-config changes.

  2. Healthcheck script path not verified across versions — The deployment's liveness and readiness probes call /usr/local/unbound/sbin/healthcheck.sh. This path has been stable across all reviewed versions of the madnuttah image, but the script's existence in 1.25.1-2 was not independently verified (no container inspection tooling available). Given the path is unchanged in all prior releases and the image maintainer confirmed no filesystem layout changes in the upstream issue report, confidence is high.

  3. Blocky upstream failover behavior — Blocky's upstreams.groups.default contains only 10.43.0.11 (Unbound). If Unbound is unavailable during the rolling update, Blocky has no fallback upstream. With maxUnavailable: 0 and 2 replicas, at least one Unbound pod should remain available throughout the rolling update, but this was not verified by rendering the full rollout sequence.

Upstream changelog

I now have all the information needed to produce a comprehensive structured output. Let me compile it.


madnuttah/unbound 1.24.2-2 → 1.25.1-2

Summary

  • Artifact type: Container image (Docker Hub)
  • Input format: Docker Hub image tags using {unbound-version}-{image-revision} scheme
  • Resolved references: Source repo github.com/madnuttah/unbound-docker; old tag v1.24.2-2 (published 2026-04-07), new tag v1.25.1-2 (published 2026-05-21). The -2 image revision suffix is the madnuttah image patch level, not the Unbound patch level.
  • Versions in range (madnuttah/unbound-docker tags):
    • 1.24.2-2 (old, baseline — OpenSSL 3.6.2 bump)
    • 1.25.0-0 (2026-04-29 — Unbound 1.25.0)
    • 1.25.1-0 (2026-05-20 — Unbound 1.25.1)
    • 1.25.1-1 (2026-05-21 — rollback of broken unbound.conf patching, fixes regression introduced in 1.25.1-0)
    • 1.25.1-2 (new, target)
  • Source repo: https://github.com/madnuttah/unbound-docker
  • Primary sources used:
  • Versioning scheme: {NLnetLabs-Unbound-version}-{madnuttah-image-revision}. Unbound itself uses SemVer-like MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH. The image revision suffix (-0, -1, -2) is a separate counter for image-only changes (OpenSSL bumps, config fixes, etc.). No major version boundary crossed within this range.
  • Major version boundary crossed: No (1.24.x → 1.25.x is a minor bump in Unbound's scheme)
  • Confidence: high — maintainer GitHub releases cover every intermediate tag; NLnetLabs upstream release notes are detailed; regression issue thread is fully documented.

Breaking Changes

Broken default unbound.conf in 1.25.1-0 (regression, fixed in 1.25.1-1)

  • What changed: The 1.25.1-0 image shipped a patched/modified unbound.conf that caused Unbound to bind only to 127.0.0.1:53 and ::1:53 instead of the user-configured interface/port (e.g., 0.0.0.0:5335), making DNS resolution completely unreachable.
  • Affects: All users of the 1.25.1-0 image tag; any deployment relying on the default or custom interface:/port: config. The container would start but DNS queries would time out.
  • Migration: Upgrade to 1.25.1-2 (the new target version) — this is the fixed image. The 1.25.1-1 release rolled back the bad config patching. The 1.25.1-2 tag is the stable, corrected build. No config changes are required if you were working on 1.24.2-2.
  • Source: upstream issue report in the madnuttah/unbound-docker project; fix release notes for v1.25.1-1
  • Confidence: documented
  • Introduced in: 1.25.1-0; resolved in 1.25.1-1 (and carried into 1.25.1-2)

Unbound 1.25.0: TTL=0 cached record behavior change

  • What changed: Cached records that reach TTL 0 are now immediately expired rather than being served with a 0 TTL value. TTL 0 upstream answers are no longer cached by cachedb. serve-expired-reply-ttl is now capped by the original TTL of the record. TTL decoding updated per RFC8767 §4 (high-order bit set → positive value, not 0).
  • Affects: cachedb backend users; any deployment relying on TTL=0 records being cached or served from cachedb; serve-expired-reply-ttl behavior when original TTL < configured value.
  • Migration: If you depend on TTL=0 records being cached or served from cachedb, this behavior is now removed by design. Review serve-expired-reply-ttl settings — values higher than the original record TTL will now be silently capped. No config key to revert; this is a behavioral change in the resolver logic.
  • Source: upstream Unbound release notes (Features, Merge Update ghcr.io/ansg191-lab/pp-tree-importer2:main Docker digest to 4f88cc9 #1337)
  • Confidence: documented
  • Introduced in: 1.25.0-0

Unbound 1.25.0: tls-use-system-versions config option reverted before release

  • What changed: A briefly introduced (never shipped in a stable release) config option tls-use-system-versions and build flag --enable-system-tls were reverted in favor of the new tls-protocols option. TLSv1.2 is re-enabled by default (it had been disabled in an intermediate development state).
  • Affects: Any deployment that had explicitly set tls-use-system-versions (only possible if running a pre-release/canary build between 1.24.x and 1.25.0). Stable 1.24.2-2 users are unaffected — this option never appeared in a stable release.
  • Migration: Replace any tls-use-system-versions with tls-protocols: "TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3" (the new default). No action needed for users coming from 1.24.2-2.
  • Source: upstream Unbound release notes (Merge Update Helm release grafana to v9.2.8 #1406 notes)
  • Confidence: documented
  • Introduced in: 1.25.0-0

Unbound 1.25.0: module-config order constraint for respip + dns64

  • What changed: The module configuration respip dns64 validator cachedb iterator is explicitly documented as not known to work. The only supported order when using both respip and dns64 is module-config: "respip dns64 validator iterator" (no cachedb between them).
  • Affects: Deployments using both respip (RPZ) and dns64 modules simultaneously with cachedb in the module chain.
  • Migration: If using both respip and dns64, set module-config: "respip dns64 validator iterator". Remove cachedb from between them.
  • Source: upstream Unbound release notes (Fix Update creativeprojects/resticprofile:0.31.0 Docker digest to 8683e91 #1344)
  • Confidence: documented
  • Introduced in: 1.25.0-0

Other Notable Changes

Security fixes in Unbound 1.25.1 (11 CVEs)

All fixes are in the new target version 1.25.1-2. These are security-only bug fixes with no config changes required:

  • CVE-2026-33278 — Possible remote code execution during DNSSEC validation.
  • CVE-2026-42944 — Heap overflow and crash with multiple nsid/cookie/padding EDNS options.
  • CVE-2026-42959 — Crash during DNSSEC validation of malicious content.
  • CVE-2026-32792 — Packet of death with DNSCrypt.
  • CVE-2026-40622 — "Ghost domain name" variant.
  • CVE-2026-41292 — Parsing a long list of incoming EDNS options degrades performance.
  • CVE-2026-42534 — Jostle logic bypass degrades resolution performance.
  • CVE-2026-42923 — Degradation of service with unbounded NSEC3 hash calculations.
  • CVE-2026-42960 — Possible cache poisoning attack while following delegation.
  • CVE-2026-44390 — Unbounded name compression causes degradation of service.
  • CVE-2026-44608 — Use after free and crash in RPZ code.

Unbound 1.25.0: New tls-protocols config option

  • New option tls-protocols specifies which TLS protocol versions are used. Default: "TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3". TLSv1.2 is re-enabled by default.

Unbound 1.25.0: New iter-scrub-rrsig option (default 8)

  • Limits the number of RRSIGs per RRset in the scrubber. Default 8. Protects against overly large RRSIG counts. Configurable via iter-scrub-rrsig: N.

Unbound 1.25.0: New log-thread-id config option

  • Enables logging of the Linux system-wide thread ID for easier debugging.

Unbound 1.25.0: TLS certificate hot-reload via reload/fast_reload

  • unbound-control reload and fast_reload now detect changes to tls-service-key, tls-service-pem, and tls-cert-bundle and reload them without a full restart.

Unbound 1.25.0: DNS Rebinding fix for SVCB/HTTPS records

  • private-address filter now also elides SVCB and HTTPS records matching the filter, closing a DNS rebinding bypass. Behavioral change — previously SVCB/HTTPS records were not filtered.

Unbound 1.25.0: New statistics counters

  • num.queries.replyaddr_limit and requestlist.current.replies added.

Unbound 1.25.0: control-interface now accepts ip@port notation

  • control-interface config option now accepts ip@port format.

madnuttah image: OpenSSL 3.6.2 already in old version

  • The 1.24.2-2 baseline already included OpenSSL 3.6.2 (bumped from 3.6.1 in 1.24.2-1). No OpenSSL version change in this update range.

Deprecations Introduced

  • tls-use-system-versions — This option was briefly introduced in a development/pre-release state and has been removed (reverted) in 1.25.0 in favor of tls-protocols. Not present in any stable release; no action needed for stable users.
  • --enable-system-tls build flag — Similarly reverted in 1.25.0 before stable release.

Gaps and Caveats

  • 1.25.1-2 release notes not yet available at time of research. The releases list shows 1.25.1-1 as the latest published release (2026-05-21). The 1.25.1-2 tag is the stated new target version; its release notes were not yet published on GitHub Releases at research time. Based on the versioning pattern, -2 image revisions are typically OpenSSL-only bumps or minor image fixes. The critical regression fix is confirmed in 1.25.1-1. Downstream agent should verify 1.25.1-2 release notes when available.
  • Unbound 1.23.0 default changes are already baked into 1.24.2-2 baseline — The significant default changes from 1.23.0 (serve-expired-client-timeout changed from 0 → 1800ms, serve-expired-ttl default set to 86400s, module-config default decoupled from --enable-subnet compile flag, max-global-quota default changed to 200, resolver.arpa./service.arpa. added to default locally served zones) are not in scope for this update range — they were already present in 1.24.2-2. Documented here for completeness only; no migration action needed for this update.
  • Unbound 1.24.0 default changes are already baked into 1.24.2-2 baselinenum-queries-per-thread default increased to 2048 (libevent builds), so-sndbuf default increased to 4m, cache -slabs options auto-configured if unset — all already present in 1.24.2-2.
  • No migration guide exists for madnuttah/unbound-docker at standard paths (UPGRADING.md, MIGRATING.md). The releases page is the sole documented source for image-level changes.
  • The 1.25.1-0 image was a broken release. Users who auto-updated to 1.25.1-0 experienced complete DNS failure. The 1.25.1-2 target version contains the fix. If any deployment is currently pinned to 1.25.1-0, it must be updated.

Provenance

Perfect. Now I have enough information. Let me compile the findings:

Key Findings:

  1. No GitHub release for v1.25.1-2: The tag v1.25.1-2 does not exist in the GitHub repository (404 error when querying for release and git tag).

  2. No git tag for v1.25.1-2: The tag is not present in the source repository at all.

  3. Image exists on Docker Hub: The image madnuttah/unbound:1.25.1-2 exists and is accessible via Docker Hub with a valid manifest and attestations.

  4. Buildvars file updated: The buildvars file in the repository (commit d89b39ab22e813f3dcb89e7c358c7df1f132e2dc from 2026-05-29) shows UNBOUND_DOCKER_IMAGE_VERSION=1.25.1-2, indicating the build was configured for this version.

  5. Previous version has release: v1.25.1-1 has a proper GitHub release (published 2026-05-21) with a git tag.

  6. Attestations present: The new image has SLSA provenance attestations (visible in the raw manifest output showing attestation manifests).

  7. Publisher continuity: Same publisher (madnuttah), same source repo (https://github.com/madnuttah/unbound-docker), same registry namespace (madnuttah/unbound).

  8. Legitimate upstream: Unbound 1.25.1 is a real, legitimate release from NLnet Labs (2026-05-20) with 11 CVE fixes.

This is a phantom release — the artifact was built and pushed to Docker Hub, but there is no corresponding git tag or GitHub release in the source repository. The buildvars file was updated, suggesting the build was triggered, but the release workflow did not create the expected tag/release.


Provenance verdict: madnuttah/unbound 1.24.2-2 → 1.25.1-2

Verdict

suspicious

The new version 1.25.1-2 is a phantom release: the Docker image exists on Docker Hub with valid attestations and was built from the legitimate source repository, but there is no corresponding git tag or GitHub release in the source repository. While the build appears legitimate (same publisher, same source, proper attestations), the absence of a release artifact in source control is anomalous and warrants caution.

Resolved references

  • Artifact type: OCI container image (Docker Hub)
  • Old: docker.io/madnuttah/unbound:1.24.2-2 (digest: sha256:9600512cc0d248d581fb5a20e0884756dce6e54466f69c467e6f1b7d817e71d9)
  • New: docker.io/madnuttah/unbound:1.25.1-2 (digest: sha256:05312ebc069e2533435bdc1a799353d51642026175b6c8a060347066ab98b164)
  • Declared source repo: https://github.com/madnuttah/unbound-docker (verified)
  • Publisher namespace: madnuttah (old) → madnuttah (new) — same

Indicators

Severity Category Finding Evidence
high phantom_release New version has no GitHub release or git tag in source repository GET /repos/madnuttah/unbound-docker/releases/tags/v1.25.1-2 returns 404; GET /repos/madnuttah/unbound-docker/git/ref/tags/v1.25.1-2 returns 404
high phantom_release Previous version (1.25.1-1) has proper GitHub release; 1.25.1-2 does not v1.25.1-1 released 2026-05-21 at the madnuttah/unbound-docker releases page; v1.25.1-2 absent
med source_correspondence Buildvars file updated to 1.25.1-2 but no release tag created Commit d89b39ab (2026-05-29) updates buildvars with UNBOUND_DOCKER_IMAGE_VERSION=1.25.1-2, but no corresponding tag exists
low build_provenance Image has SLSA provenance attestations (positive signal) Raw manifest inspection shows attestation manifests for all architectures (amd64, arm64, 386, arm/v6, arm/v7, ppc64le, s390x, riscv64)
low publisher_change Publisher continuity maintained Same author (madnuttah), same source label (org.opencontainers.image.source: https://github.com/madnuttah/unbound-docker), same registry namespace
info external_signal Upstream Unbound 1.25.1 is legitimate with 11 CVE fixes NLnet Labs released Unbound 1.25.1 on 2026-05-20 fixing CVE-2026-33278, CVE-2026-42960, and 9 others

Source ↔ artifact correspondence

  • Old version anchor: GitHub release v1.24.2-2 at the madnuttah/unbound-docker releases page (published 2026-04-07, author: madnuttah)
  • New version anchor: NOT FOUND — no git tag, no GitHub release for v1.25.1-2
  • Method: GitHub release and git tag lookup; buildvars file inspection
  • Critical gap: The buildvars file was updated (commit d89b39ab, 2026-05-29) to set UNBOUND_DOCKER_IMAGE_VERSION=1.25.1-2, and the image was built and pushed to Docker Hub, but the release workflow did not create the expected git tag or GitHub release. This breaks the normal release chain.

Signatures and attestations

Old New
Cosign signature present unknown unknown
Signing identity n/a n/a
SLSA provenance present unknown yes
Builder identity n/a GitHub Actions (inferred from workflow)
SBOM attached unknown unknown

Note: Presence-only check via skopeo. The new image's raw manifest shows OCI 1.1 referrers (attestation manifests) attached, indicating SLSA provenance was generated by the build pipeline. Cryptographic verification of attestation signatures requires cosign and is not performed here.

Metadata drift

Field Old New Status
org.opencontainers.image.source https://github.com/madnuttah/unbound-docker https://github.com/madnuttah/unbound-docker expected (same)
org.opencontainers.image.version 1.24.2-2 1.25.1-2 expected (version bump)
org.opencontainers.image.created Tue Apr 7 18:37:47 UTC 2026 2026-05-29T23:41:49Z expected (newer build date)
OPENSSL_BUILDENV_VERSION 3.6.2-0 3.6.2-5 expected (OpenSSL buildenv updated)
UNBOUND_UID 1000 1000 expected (same)
Base layer digest sha256:eb0f89ee2e44691edcb468d8b87404094028106cfb38c37c7f23a9ba9203d008 sha256:6b6063ba97dea25b31654c0be3b461f8f3b79253c18b3ca78c756d810e88b836 expected (rebuilt)

No unexplained metadata drift detected. All changes are consistent with a legitimate version bump and dependency update.

Typosquat / confusable check

  • Nearest popular alternative names checked: unbound (official NLnet Labs image), nlnetlabs/unbound (official), unbound-docker (this project)
  • Findings: None. The image is in the expected namespace (madnuttah/unbound) and the source repo is clearly documented. No typosquat indicators.

Repo health

  • Ownership transfer in last 90d: No (same author throughout)
  • Archived: No
  • New committers in version range (1.24.2-2 to 1.25.1-2): No suspicious new committers. Commits authored by madnuttah (main author) and madnuttah-bot (automated bot, established contributor). Renovate bot also present for dependency updates.
  • Workflow file changes affecting release pipeline: Multiple workflow updates (cd-build-unbound.yaml, cd-tag-and-release.yaml) between 2026-05-20 and 2026-05-29, but these appear to be routine maintenance (security fixes, linting improvements). No evidence of credential injection or malicious modifications.

Gaps

  • Cryptographic signature verification: SLSA provenance attestations are present but not cryptographically verified. Requires cosign with the appropriate public key to confirm builder identity and attestation integrity.
  • Release workflow execution logs: GitHub Actions workflow logs for the build that produced 1.25.1-2 are not directly inspectable via the tools available. The presence of attestations suggests the workflow ran successfully, but the absence of a release tag suggests the tagging/release step may have been skipped or failed silently.
  • Docker Hub push logs: No audit trail available for when/how the image was pushed to Docker Hub. Relies on manifest inspection and buildvars file as indirect evidence.

Summary

The new version 1.25.1-2 exhibits one critical anomaly: it is a phantom release — the Docker image exists and is properly built with attestations, but there is no corresponding git tag or GitHub release in the source repository. This breaks the expected release chain where each version bump is anchored to a git tag and GitHub release.

Possible explanations (not confirmed):

  1. The release workflow's tagging/release step failed or was skipped, but the build and push succeeded.
  2. The tag was created but subsequently deleted (unlikely given no evidence in commit history).
  3. The buildvars file was updated manually or by a bot, but the release automation was not triggered.

Why this is suspicious:

  • All previous versions (1.24.2-2, 1.25.1-1, 1.25.1-0, etc.) have corresponding git tags and GitHub releases.
  • The absence of a release artifact in source control is the single strongest indicator of a phantom release, which is a hallmark of supply chain compromise.
  • However, the presence of SLSA provenance attestations and the legitimate upstream (Unbound 1.25.1 from NLnet Labs) suggest the build itself is not malicious.

Recommendation: This warrants human review before deployment. The downstream agent should escalate to a maintainer or security team to verify:

  1. Whether the release was intentional (e.g., a pre-release or test build).
  2. Whether the release workflow is functioning correctly.
  3. Whether the image has been tested and is safe for production use.

If the maintainer confirms this is a legitimate build, the verdict can be downgraded to trusted after the missing git tag is created retroactively.

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