GHSA-2wpx-qpw2-g5h5

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    GHSA-2wpx-qpw2-g5h5

    Published: 28 Apr 2026Last Modified: 10 Sept 2026

    Summary: CoreDNS' DoQ worker pool does not bound stream backlog

    Details: ### Summary CoreDNS' DNS-over-QUIC (DoQ) server can be driven into large goroutine and memory growth by a remote client that opens many QUIC streams and stalls after sending only 1 byte. Even with a small configured quic { worker_pool_size ... }, CoreDNS still spawns a goroutine per accepted stream (workers + waiters) and active workers can block indefinitely in io.ReadFull() with no per-stream read deadline, enabling unauthenticated remote DoS via memory exhaustion/OOM-kill. ### Details CoreDNS' DoQ server uses a global worker pool (streamProcessPool) to limit concurrent stream processing, but when the pool is full it still spawns a goroutine per accepted stream that waits to acquire a worker token: select { case s.streamProcessPool <- ...: go ...; default: go ... wait for token ... } (core/dnsserver/server_quic.go) Additionally, the DoQ message framing reads are blocking io.ReadFull() calls with no per-stream read deadline: readDOQMessage() reads the 2-byte length prefix and message body via io.ReadFull() (core/dnsserver/server_quic.go) This allows an attacker to pin all workers by sending 1 byte (so io.ReadFull() blocks waiting for the second byte of the DoQ length prefix), while also creating an unbounded backlog of goroutines waiting for a worker token. Note: this appears to be a result of an incomplete fix/regression for CVE-2025-47950 (GHSA-cvx7-x8pj-x2gw). ### PoC 1. Adjust COREDNS_BIN in the PoC to point at right path (see the top-level const definitions for tunables as well) 2. Run python3 ./doq-dos-repro.py 3. Expected sample output: *** Start CoreDNS *** Corefile: /tmp/vh-f003-doq-mem-regression/Corefile Log: /tmp/vh-f003-doq-mem-regression/coredns.log *** Baseline sample (idle) *** rss_kib=49380 go_goroutines=17 *** Build + run partial-stream flooder *** go: downloading golang.org/x/net v0.43.0 go: downloading golang.org/x/crypto v0.41.0 go: downloading go.uber.org/mock v0.5.2 go: downloading github.com/stretchr/testify v1.11.1 go: downloading golang.org/x/sys v0.35.0 go: downloading github.com/pmezard/go-difflib v1.0.0 go: downloading github.com/davecgh/go-spew v1.1.1 go: downloading gopkg.in/yaml.v3 v3.0.1 *** Candidate sample (during attack) *** rss_kib=137968 go_goroutines=15557 *** Flooder output *** opened conns=60 streams_per_conn=256 total_streams=15360 *** Wrote results *** /tmp/vh-f003-doq-mem-regression/results.json *** OK *** DoQ flood caused goroutine/RSS growth despite worker_pool_size. ### Impact Unauthenticated remote DoS on an encrypted DNS transport via goroutine/RSS growth leading to OOM-kill/crash and service outage.

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: github.com/coredns/coredns

    Purl: pkg:golang/github.com/coredns/coredns

    Affected ranges

    Type: SEMVER

    Events:

    Introduced- 0
    Fixed -1.14.3

    Affected versions

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High
    GHSA-2wpx-qpw2-g5h5 | CVE-DB