CVE-2026-42788

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in mtrudel bandit allows unauthenticated memory exhaustion via oversized HTTP/2 frames.

'Elixir.Bandit.HTTP2.Frame':deserialize/2 in lib/bandit/http2/frame.ex checks the SETTINGS_MAX_FRAME_SIZE limit only after pattern-matching payload::binary-size(length), which requires the entire frame body to be present in memory before either the accept or reject clause can fire. A peer that announces a frame length up to the 24-bit maximum (~16 MiB) causes the server to buffer that entire body before the size guard is evaluated, regardless of the max_frame_size negotiated during the HTTP/2 handshake (default 16 KiB per RFC 9113).

An unauthenticated attacker holding many concurrent connections can force the server to buffer far more memory than the negotiated frame size limit should permit, leading to memory pressure and potential denial of service.

This issue affects bandit: from 0.3.6 before 1.11.0.

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in mtrudel bandit allows unauthenticated memory exhaustion via oversized HTTP/2 frames.

'Elixir.Bandit.HTTP2.Frame':deserialize/2 in lib/bandit/http2/frame.ex checks the SETTINGS_MAX_FRAME_SIZE limit only after pattern-matching payload::binary-size(length), which requires the entire frame body to be present in memory before either the accept or reject clause can fire. A peer that announces a frame length up to the 24-bit maximum (~16 MiB) causes the server to buffer that entire body before the size guard is evaluated, regardless of the max_frame_size negotiated during the HTTP/2 handshake (default 16 KiB per RFC 9113).

An unauthenticated attacker holding many concurrent connections can force the server to buffer far more memory than the negotiated frame size limit should permit, leading to memory pressure and potential denial of service.

This issue affects bandit: from 0.3.6 before 1.11.0.

Summary

Bandit's HTTP/2 parser checks frame size after it has already buffered the full body, instead of when it sees the 9-byte header. A peer can announce a 16 MiB frame on a connection that agreed to 16 KiB frames and the server will silently buffer up to 1024× the agreed budget per connection. Across many connections this becomes a memory-pressure DoS. Severity: medium.

Details

In lib/bandit/http2/frame.ex:23-65, every clause that could detect an oversized frame requires payload::binary-size(length) to match — meaning the body has to be fully in memory before the size guard runs. Until then the parser returns {:more, msg} and the connection layer keeps reading. So the cap fires only after the violation is complete.

The frame type and stream id don't matter; the parser never gets that far.

PoC

The script is at the end. It:

1. Opens an h2c connection to a Bandit server it starts itself.
2. Sends a 9-byte frame header announcing length = 0xFFFFFF (~16 MiB).
3. Polls for GOAWAY(FRAME_SIZE_ERROR). If silent, drips body bytes in 64 KiB chunks.

A patched server sends GOAWAY on the header alone. A vulnerable server stays silent and keeps accepting bytes.

Suggested fix

Add a header-only clause that rejects on the length field alone, e.g. def deserialize(<<length::24, _::binary>> = msg, max_frame_size) when length > max_frame_size, do: {{:error, frame_size_error(), "..."}, drop_frame_or_close(msg)}, placed before the body-bearing clauses so the size check runs as soon as the 9-byte header is in hand rather than after the body has been buffered.

Impact

Any Bandit server speaking HTTP/2 (h2 or h2c). No authentication or specific route needed — the bug is in the framing layer, before any Plug runs. An attacker holding a few thousand concurrent connections can pin tens of GiB of buffer memory, far beyond what the negotiated max_frame_size should allow. No code execution, no data disclosure — pure resource exhaustion.

Fix: add a header-only clause that rejects on length > max_frame_size as soon as the 9 header bytes arrive, before the body-bearing clauses.

# Bandit HTTP/2 oversized-frame late-check PoC.
#
# RFC 9113 §6.5.2 sets the default SETTINGS_MAX_FRAME_SIZE to 16384.
# Bandit's frame deserializer (lib/bandit/http2/frame.ex) checks this
# limit *after* matching `payload::binary-size(length)` in the frame
# pattern. When the announced length exceeds what the buffer holds,
# none of the body-bearing clauses match and `deserialize/2` returns
# `{:more, msg}`, telling the caller to keep buffering. The oversize
# error in the "valid shape, length > max_frame_size" clause therefore
# fires only *after* the entire announced body has been received —
# letting a peer trickle up to ~16 MiB per frame (the 24-bit length
# field maximum) into the server before the cap engages, well past
# the 16 KiB the server agreed to.
#
# This PoC announces a frame with length = 0xFFFFFF (~16 MiB), drips
# body bytes in 64 KiB chunks, and after each chunk does a brief
# non-blocking recv to see if the server has reacted. A patched server
# should send GOAWAY(FRAME_SIZE_ERROR) within the first chunk (header
# alone is enough). A vulnerable server keeps silently accepting up
# to the full 16 MiB.
#
# We use a SETTINGS frame (type=0x4, stream_id=0) for the abusive
# header — the parser never reaches dispatch (it's stuck buffering
# body), so the type and stream id are immaterial to the bug.
#
# Run: elixir scripts/bandit/http2_frame_size_late_check.exs

Mix.install([
  {:bandit, "~> 1.10"},
  {:plug, "~> 1.19"}
])

defmodule NoopApp do
  @behaviour Plug
  def init(opts), do: opts
  def call(conn, _opts), do: Plug.Conn.send_resp(conn, 200, "ok\n")
end

defmodule FrameSizeLateCheck do
  @port 4321
  @connection_preface "PRI * HTTP/2.0\r\n\r\nSM\r\n\r\n"

  @type_settings 0x4
  @type_goaway 0x7
  @flag_settings_ack 0x1

  @max_24_bit 0xFFFFFF
  @drip_chunk_size 64 * 1024
  @max_total_drip 4…

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in mtrudel bandit allows unauthenticated memory exhaustion via oversized HTTP/2 frames.

'Elixir.Bandit.HTTP2.Frame':deserialize/2 in lib/bandit/http2/frame.ex checks the SETTINGS_MAX_FRAME_SIZE limit only after pattern-matching payload::binary-size(length), which requires the entire frame body to be present in memory before either the accept or reject clause can fire. A peer that announces a frame length up to the 24-bit maximum (~16 MiB) causes the server to buffer that entire body before the size guard is evaluated, regardless of the max_frame_size negotiated during the HTTP/2 handshake (default 16 KiB per RFC 9113).

An unauthenticated attacker holding many concurrent connections can force the server to buffer far more memory than the negotiated frame size limit should permit, leading to memory pressure and potential denial of service.

This issue affects bandit: from 0.3.6 before 1.11.0.

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in mtrudel bandit allows unauthenticated memory exhaustion via oversized HTTP/2 frames.

'Elixir.Bandit.HTTP2.Frame':deserialize/2 in lib/bandit/http2/frame.ex checks the SETTINGS_MAX_FRAME_SIZE limit only after pattern-matching payload::binary-size(length), which requires the entire frame body to be present in memory before either the accept or reject clause can fire. A peer that announces a frame length up to the 24-bit maximum (~16 MiB) causes the server to buffer that entire body before the size guard is evaluated, regardless of the max_frame_size negotiated during the HTTP/2 handshake (default 16 KiB per RFC 9113).

An unauthenticated attacker holding many concurrent connections can force the server to buffer far more memory than the negotiated frame size limit should permit, leading to memory pressure and potential denial of service.

This issue affects bandit: from 0.3.6 before 1.11.0.

Summary

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in mtrudel bandit allows unauthenticated memory exhaustion via oversized HTTP/2 frames.

'Elixir.Bandit.HTTP2.Frame':deserialize/2 in lib/bandit/http2/frame.ex checks the SETTINGS_MAX_FRAME_SIZE limit only after pattern-matching payload::binary-size(length), which requires the entire frame body to be present in memory before either the accept or reject clause can fire. A peer that announces a frame length up to the 24-bit maximum (~16 MiB) causes the server to buffer that entire body before the size guard is evaluated, regardless of the max_frame_size negotiated during the HTTP/2 handshake (default 16 KiB per RFC 9113).

An unauthenticated attacker holding many concurrent connections can force the server to buffer far more memory than the negotiated frame size limit should permit, leading to memory pressure and potential denial of service.

This issue affects bandit: from 0.3.6 before 1.11.0.

Summary

Bandit's HTTP/2 parser checks frame size after it has already buffered the full body, instead of when it sees the 9-byte header. A peer can announce a 16 MiB frame on a connection that agreed to 16 KiB frames and the server will silently buffer up to 1024× the agreed budget per connection. Across many connections this becomes a memory-pressure DoS. Severity: medium.

Details

In lib/bandit/http2/frame.ex:23-65, every clause that could detect an oversized frame requires payload::binary-size(length) to match — meaning the body has to be fully in memory before the size guard runs. Until then the parser returns {:more, msg} and the connection layer keeps reading. So the cap fires only after the violation is complete.

The frame type and stream id don't matter; the parser never gets that far.

PoC

The script is at the end. It:

1. Opens an h2c connection to a Bandit server it starts itself.
2. Sends a 9-byte frame header announcing length = 0xFFFFFF (~16 MiB).
3. Polls for GOAWAY(FRAME_SIZE_ERROR). If silent, drips body bytes in 64 KiB chunks.

A patched server sends GOAWAY on the header alone. A vulnerable server stays silent and keeps accepting bytes.

Suggested fix

Add a header-only clause that rejects on the length field alone, e.g. def deserialize(<<length::24, _::binary>> = msg, max_frame_size) when length > max_frame_size, do: {{:error, frame_size_error(), "..."}, drop_frame_or_close(msg)}, placed before the body-bearing clauses so the size check runs as soon as the 9-byte header is in hand rather than after the body has been buffered.

Impact

Any Bandit server speaking HTTP/2 (h2 or h2c). No authentication or specific route needed — the bug is in the framing layer, before any Plug runs. An attacker holding a few thousand concurrent connections can pin tens of GiB of buffer memory, far beyond what the negotiated max_frame_size should allow. No code execution, no data disclosure — pure resource exhaustion.

Fix: add a header-only clause that rejects on length > max_frame_size as soon as the 9 header bytes arrive, before the body-bearing clauses.

# Bandit HTTP/2 oversized-frame late-check PoC.
#
# RFC 9113 §6.5.2 sets the default SETTINGS_MAX_FRAME_SIZE to 16384.
# Bandit's frame deserializer (lib/bandit/http2/frame.ex) checks this
# limit *after* matching `payload::binary-size(length)` in the frame
# pattern. When the announced length exceeds what the buffer holds,
# none of the body-bearing clauses match and `deserialize/2` returns
# `{:more, msg}`, telling the caller to keep buffering. The oversize
# error in the "valid shape, length > max_frame_size" clause therefore
# fires only *after* the entire announced body has been received —
# letting a peer trickle up to ~16 MiB per frame (the 24-bit length
# field maximum) into the server before the cap engages, well past
# the 16 KiB the server agreed to.
#
# This PoC announces a frame with length = 0xFFFFFF (~16 MiB), drips
# body bytes in 64 KiB chunks, and after each chunk does a brief
# non-blocking recv to see if the server has reacted. A patched server
# should send GOAWAY(FRAME_SIZE_ERROR) within the first chunk (header
# alone is enough). A vulnerable server keeps silently accepting up
# to the full 16 MiB.
#
# We use a SETTINGS frame (type=0x4, stream_id=0) for the abusive
# header — the parser never reaches dispatch (it's stuck buffering
# body), so the type and stream id are immaterial to the bug.
#
# Run: elixir scripts/bandit/http2_frame_size_late_check.exs

Mix.install([
  {:bandit, "~> 1.10"},
  {:plug, "~> 1.19"}
])

defmodule NoopApp do
  @behaviour Plug
  def init(opts), do: opts
  def call(conn, _opts), do: Plug.Conn.send_resp(conn, 200, "ok\n")
end

defmodule FrameSizeLateCheck do
  @port 4321
  @connection_preface "PRI * HTTP/2.0\r\n\r\nSM\r\n\r\n"

  @type_settings 0x4
  @type_goaway 0x7
  @flag_settings_ack 0x1

  @max_24_bit 0xFFFFFF
  @drip_chunk_size 64 * 1024
  @max_total_drip 4…