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.
02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE
Affected packages
133 explicit affected versions
104 explicit affected versions
03 / CONNECTIONS
Connected vulnerabilities
04 / EVIDENCE
Source records
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.
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.
05 / REFERENCES
Further evidence
- https://gist.github.com/nateberkopec/4b3ea5676c0d70cbb37c82d54be25837
- https://github.com/puma/puma
- https://github.com/puma/puma/security/advisories/GHSA-q28m-8xjw-8vr5
- https://github.com/puma/puma/security/policy
- https://github.com/rubysec/ruby-advisory-db/blob/master/gems/puma/CVE-2021-29509.yml
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2022/08/msg00015.html
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-29509
- https://rubygems.org/gems/puma
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202208-28