convert:not authorized `aaaa` @ error/constitute.c/ReadImage/453

Note: the solution in this and other answers involves disabling safety measures that are there to fix arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities. See for instance this ghostscript-related and this ubuntu-related announcement. Only go forward with these solutions if the input to convert comes from a trusted source.

I use ImageMagick in php (v.7.1) to slice PDF file to images.

First I got errors like:

Exception type: ImagickException

Exception message: not authorized ..... @ error/constitute.c/ReadImage/412

After some changes in /etc/ImageMagick-6/policy.xml I start getting erroes like:

Exception type: ImagickException

Exception message: unable to create temporary file ..... Permission denied @ error/pdf.c/ReadPDFImage/465

My fix:

In file /etc/ImageMagick-6/policy.xml (or /etc/ImageMagick/policy.xml)

1. comment line

   <!-- <policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="MVG" /> -->
   

2. change line

   <policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="PDF" />
   

   to

   <policy domain="coder" rights="read|write" pattern="PDF" />
   

3. add line

   <policy domain="coder" rights="read|write" pattern="LABEL" />
   

Then restart your web server (nginx, apache).

I use many times the ImageMagic convert command to convert *.tif files to *.pdf files.

I don't know why but today I began to receive the following error:

convert: not authorized `a.pdf' @ error/constitute.c/WriteImage/1028.

After issuing the command:

convert a.tif a.pdf

After reading the above answers I edited the file /etc/ImageMagick-6/policy.xml

and changed the line:

policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="PDF" 

to

policy domain="coder" rights="read|write" pattern="PDF"

and now everything works fine.

I have "ImageMagick 6.8.9-9 Q16 x86_64 2018-09-28" on "Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS".

Note: this solution and any other "edit the policy.xml" solution disables safety measures against arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities in ImageMagick. If you need to process input that you do not control 100%, you should use a different program (not ImageMagick).

If you're still here, you are trying to edit images that you have complete control over, know are safe, and cannot be edited by users.

There is an /etc/ImageMagick/policy.xml file that is installed by yum. It disallows almost everything (for security and to protect your system from getting overloaded with ImageMagick calls).

If you're getting a ReadImage error as above, you can change the line to:

<policy domain="coder" rights="read" pattern="LABEL" />

which should fix the issue.

The file has a bunch of documentation in it, so you should read that. For example, if you need more permissions, you can combine them like:

<policy domain="coder" rights="read|write" pattern="LABEL" />

...which is preferable to removing all permissions checks (i.e., deleting or commenting out the line).

If someone need to do it with one command after install, run this !

sed -i 's/<policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="PDF" \/>/<policy domain="coder" rights="read|write" pattern="PDF" \/>/g' /etc/ImageMagick-6/policy.xml

The answer with highest votes (I have not enough reputation to add comment there) suggests to comment out the MVG line, but have in mind this:

CVE-2016-3714

ImageMagick supports ".svg/.mvg" files which means that attackers can craft code in a scripting language, e.g. MSL (Magick Scripting Language) and MVG (Magick Vector Graphics), upload it to a server disguised as an image file and force the software to run malicious commands on the server side as described above. For example adding the following commands in a file and uploading it to a webserver that uses a vulnerable ImageMagick version will result in running the command "ls -la" on the server.

exploit.jpg:

push graphic-context viewbox 0 0 640 480 fill 'url(https://website.com/image.png"|ls "-la)' pop graphic-context

And

Any version below 7.0.1-2 or 6.9.4-0 is potentially vulnerable and affected parties should as soon as possible upgrade to the latest ImageMagick version.

Source