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rack 2.2.19

2 security vulnerabilities found in version 2.2.19

Rack is vulnerable to a memory-exhaustion DoS through unbounded URL-encoded body parsing

high severity CVE-2025-61919
high severity CVE-2025-61919
Patched versions: ~> 2.2.20, ~> 3.1.18, >= 3.2.3

Summary

Rack::Request#POST reads the entire request body into memory for Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded, calling rack.input.read(nil) without enforcing a length or cap. Large request bodies can therefore be buffered completely into process memory before parsing, leading to denial of service (DoS) through memory exhaustion.

Details

When handling non-multipart form submissions, Rack’s request parser performs:

form_vars = get_header(RACK_INPUT).read

Since read is called with no argument, the entire request body is loaded into a Ruby String. This occurs before query parameter parsing or enforcement of any params_limit. As a result, Rack applications without an upstream body-size limit can experience unbounded memory allocation proportional to request size.

Impact

Attackers can send large application/x-www-form-urlencoded bodies to consume process memory, causing slowdowns or termination by the operating system (OOM). The effect scales linearly with request size and concurrency. Even with parsing limits configured, the issue occurs before those limits are enforced.

Mitigation

  • Update to a patched version of Rack that enforces form parameter limits using query_parser.bytesize_limit, preventing unbounded reads of application/x-www-form-urlencoded bodies.
  • Enforce strict maximum body size at the proxy or web server layer (e.g., Nginx client_max_body_size, Apache LimitRequestBody).

Rack has a Possible Information Disclosure Vulnerability

medium severity CVE-2025-61780
medium severity CVE-2025-61780
Patched versions: ~> 2.2.20, ~> 3.1.18, >= 3.2.3

Summary

A possible information disclosure vulnerability existed in Rack::Sendfile when running behind a proxy that supports x-sendfile headers (such as Nginx). Specially crafted headers could cause Rack::Sendfile to miscommunicate with the proxy and trigger unintended internal requests, potentially bypassing proxy-level access restrictions.

Details

When Rack::Sendfile received untrusted x-sendfile-type or x-accel-mapping headers from a client, it would interpret them as proxy configuration directives. This could cause the middleware to send a "redirect" response to the proxy, prompting it to reissue a new internal request that was not subject to the proxy's access controls.

An attacker could exploit this by:

  1. Setting a crafted x-sendfile-type: x-accel-redirect header.
  2. Setting a crafted x-accel-mapping header.
  3. Requesting a path that qualifies for proxy-based acceleration.

Impact

Attackers could bypass proxy-enforced restrictions and access internal endpoints intended to be protected (such as administrative pages). The vulnerability did not allow arbitrary file reads but could expose sensitive application routes.

This issue only affected systems meeting all of the following conditions:

  • The application used Rack::Sendfile with a proxy that supports x-accel-redirect (e.g., Nginx).
  • The proxy did not always set or remove the x-sendfile-type and x-accel-mapping headers.
  • The application exposed an endpoint that returned a body responding to .to_path.

Mitigation

  • Upgrade to a fixed version of Rack which requires explicit configuration to enable x-accel-redirect:

    use Rack::Sendfile, "x-accel-redirect"

  • Alternatively, configure the proxy to always set or strip the headers (you should be doing this!):

    proxy_set_header x-sendfile-type x-accel-redirect;
proxy_set_header x-accel-mapping /var/www/=/files/;

  • Or in Rails applications, disable sendfile completely:

    config.action_dispatch.x_sendfile_header = nil

No officially reported memory leakage issues detected.

This gem version does not have any officially reported memory leaked issues.

No license issues detected.

This gem version has a license in the gemspec.

This gem version is available.

This gem version has not been yanked and is still available for usage.