Adding wildcard "*" allow rule adds random strings in executables->allowed rules

[venkateshjayagopal]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Environment

- OS: Ubuntu
- Architecture: x86
- Cluster: v1.35.2+rke2r1

Issue Description

• Expected behavior: Adding wildcard "*" allow policy should not add random strings in the allowed rules.
• Current behavior: Random strings are added in allowed executables when adding wildcard "*" policy.
• Steps to reproduce:
  Execute kubectl-runtime_enforcer policy allow deploy-ubuntu-deployment ubuntu *

ubuntu@master-node-01 21:01:09:~$ kubectl-runtime_enforcer policy allow deploy-ubuntu-deployment ubuntu *
Successfully updated executables for WorkloadPolicy "deploy-ubuntu-deployment" in namespace "default".
ubuntu@master-node-01 21:03:27:~$ kubectl get wp deploy-ubuntu-deployment -o yaml | less
apiVersion: security.rancher.io/v1alpha1
kind: WorkloadPolicy
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: "2026-04-01T16:04:24Z"
  generation: 31
  labels:
    workloadpolicy.security.rancher.io/promoted-from: deploy-ubuntu-deployment
  name: deploy-ubuntu-deployment
  namespace: default
  resourceVersion: "8557457"
  uid: 97253fc4-d167-4e69-99b0-5b4b51cf9049
spec:
  mode: protect
  rulesByContainer:
    ubuntu:
      executables:
        allowed:
        - get_helm.sh
        - go
        - metrics
        - runtime-enforcer
        - snap
        - ubuntu-deployment.yaml
        - ubuntu-deployment_1.yaml
        - ubuntu-deployment_2.yaml
        - ubuntu-deployment_3.yaml
        - ubuntu-deployment_4.yaml
        - ubuntu-deployment_5.yaml
status:
  observedGeneration: 31
  phase: Active
  successfulNodes: 3
  totalNodes: 3
  violations:
  - action: protect
    containerName: ubuntu
    executablePath: /usr/bin/sleep

[Andreagit97]

Thank you for reporting this!
Actually this is kind of expected the shell will expand * in all the file names of the current directory.
But on the other side i believe we can do some validation here. If i don't miss anything we only accept absolute paths in the allowed list because ebpf will always retrieve absolute paths. So we can probably validate both in the plugin and in the workload policy update logic that all the executables should start with /. WDYT?