FlawAtlas
Search the atlas
CVE-2021-29509 High

Puma's Keepalive Connections Causing Denial Of Service

This vulnerability is related to [CVE-2019-16770](https://github.com/puma/puma/security/advisories/GHSA-7xx3-m584-x994). ### Impact The fix for CVE-2019-16770 was incomplete. The original fix only protected existing connections that had already been accepted from having their requests starved by greedy persistent-connections saturating all threads in the same process. However, new connections may still be starved by greedy persistent-connections saturating all threads in all processes in the cluster. A `puma` server which received more concurrent `keep-alive` connections than the server had threads in its threadpool would service only a subset of connections, denying service to the unserved connections. ### Patches This problem has been fixed in `puma` 4.3.8 and 5.3.1. ### Workarounds Setting `queue_requests false` also fixes the issue. This is not advised when using `puma` without a reverse proxy, such as `nginx` or `apache`, because you will open yourself to slow client attacks (e.g. [slowloris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowloris_(computer_security))). The fix is very small. [A git patch is available here](https://gist.github.com/nateberkopec/4b3ea5676c0d70cbb37c82d54be25837) for those using [unsupported versions](https://github.com/puma/puma/security/policy#supported-versions) of Puma. ### For more information If you have any questions or comments about this advisory: * Open an issue in [Puma](https://github.com/puma/puma). * To report problems with this fix or to report another vulnerability, see [our security policy.](https://github.com/puma/puma/security/policy) ### Acknowledgements Thank you to @MSP-Greg, @wjordan and @evanphx for their review on this issue. Thank you to @ioquatix for providing a modified fork of `wrk` which made debugging this issue much easier.

Exploit probability 1.6%
Published May 18, 2021
Required by Not available
Last source change July 8, 2026

02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE

Affected packages

RubyGems puma

133 explicit affected versions

Unknown Unknown

104 explicit affected versions

03 / CONNECTIONS

Connected vulnerabilities

04 / EVIDENCE

Source records

Open Source Vulnerabilities GHSA-q28m-8xjw-8vr5

This vulnerability is related to [CVE-2019-16770](https://github.com/puma/puma/security/advisories/GHSA-7xx3-m584-x994). ### Impact The fix for CVE-2019-16770 was incomplete. The original fix only protected existing connections that had already been accepted from having their requests starved by greedy persistent-connections saturating all threads in the same process. However, new connections may still be starved by greedy persistent-connections saturating all threads in all processes in the cluster. A `puma` server which received more concurrent `keep-alive` connections than the server had threads in its threadpool would service only a subset of connections, denying service to the unserved connections. ### Patches This problem has been fixed in `puma` 4.3.8 and 5.3.1. ### Workarounds Setting `queue_requests false` also fixes the issue. This is not advised when using `puma` without a reverse proxy, such as `nginx` or `apache`, because you will open yourself to slow client attacks (e.g. [slowloris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowloris_(computer_security))). The fix is very small. [A git patch is available here](https://gist.github.com/nateberkopec/4b3ea5676c0d70cbb37c82d54be25837) for those using [unsupported versions](https://github.com/puma/puma/security/policy#supported-versions) of Puma. ### For more information If you have any questions or comments about this advisory: * Open an issue in [Puma](https://github.com/puma/puma). * To report problems with this fix or to report another vulnerability, see [our security policy.](https://github.com/puma/puma/security/policy) ### Acknowledgements Thank you to @MSP-Greg, @wjordan and @evanphx for their review on this issue. Thank you to @ioquatix for providing a modified fork of `wrk` which made debugging this issue much easier.

View original source
Open Source Vulnerabilities CVE-2021-29509

Puma is a concurrent HTTP 1.1 server for Ruby/Rack applications. The fix for CVE-2019-16770 was incomplete. The original fix only protected existing connections that had already been accepted from having their requests starved by greedy persistent-connections saturating all threads in the same process. However, new connections may still be starved by greedy persistent-connections saturating all threads in all processes in the cluster. A `puma` server which received more concurrent `keep-alive` connections than the server had threads in its threadpool would service only a subset of connections, denying service to the unserved connections. This problem has been fixed in `puma` 4.3.8 and 5.3.1. Setting `queue_requests false` also fixes the issue. This is not advised when using `puma` without a reverse proxy, such as `nginx` or `apache`, because you will open yourself to slow client attacks (e.g. slowloris). The fix is very small and a git patch is available for those using unsupported versions of Puma.

View original source

05 / REFERENCES

Further evidence