GHSA-28pq-6qxg-wg5r Mailpit: Sibling-endpoint memory-exhaustion DoS via unbounded JSON body on /api/v1/messages, /api/v1/tags, and /api/v1/message/{id}/release (incomplete fix of GHSA-fpxj-m5q8-fphw)
SummaryThe fix for GHSA-fpxj-m5q8-fphw (CVE-2026-45710, "Mailpit: Set a default 50MB p/m limit to prevent DoS via unlimited SMTP DATA and /api/v1/send body sizes") wrapped only `POST /api/v1/send` with `http.MaxBytesReader`. The four other Mailpit JSON-body API endpoints  `PUT /api/v1/messages` (SetReadStatus), `DELETE /api/v1/messages` (DeleteMessages), `PUT /api/v1/tags` (SetMessageTags), and `POST /api/v1/message/{id}/release` (ReleaseMessage)  still call `json.NewDecoder(r.Body)` directly with no body-size cap and remain reachable unauthenticated in the default `docker run axllent/mailpit:latest` deploy. An unauthenticated remote attacker can post a multi-million-element `IDs` slice and drive RSS from ~25 MiB baseline to ~450 MiB per 16 MB request body. Repeating across multiple connections accumulates the same per-request amplification per process.Affected versionsMailpit at HEAD `67a7ca83ff759082d2b86dda07eb5bb3dad404e0` (v1.30.0, 2026-05-14).All versions `<= v1.30.0` (the release that shipped the GHSA-fpxj fix). Versions `< v1.30.0` are vulnerable to the original GHSA-fpxj on `/api/v1/send`; version `v1.30.0` carries the sibling-endpoint gap described here.Privilege requiredNone in default deploy (no `--ui-auth`, no `--smtp-auth`). The four endpoints share the same `middleWareFunc` wrapper as the original GHSA-fpxj target, so the same default-no-auth threat model applies. With `--ui-auth=user:pass` configured, the same primitive is post-auth — still useful since UI-auth Mailpit deployments commonly run on internal ops subnets where one stolen UI credential pivots into an RSS-exhaustion vector against the same host.The incomplete fixCommit `136bdde` ("Security: Set a default 50MB p/m limit to prevent DoS via unlimited SMTP DATA and /api/v1/send body sizes (GHSA-fpxj-m5q8-fphw)", 2026-05-12) added the `MaxBytesReader` wrap in exactly one place:The sibling JSON-body handlers were not updated. Side-by-side at HEAD `67a7ca8`:| File | Function | `MaxBytesReader`? | Unauth in default deploy? |
|---|---|---|---|
| `server/apiv1/send.go:45-48` (`SendMessageHandler`) | POST `/api/v1/send` | YES (50 MB) | YES (via `sendAPIAuthMiddleware` falling back to `middleWareFunc`) |
| `server/apiv1/messages.go:107` (`SetReadStatus`) | PUT `/api/v1/messages` | NO | YES |
| `server/apiv1/messages.go:187` (`DeleteMessages`) | DELETE `/api/v1/messages` | NO | YES |
| `server/apiv1/tags.go:54` (`SetMessageTags`) | PUT `/api/v1/tags` | NO | YES |
| `server/apiv1/release.go:55` (`ReleaseMessage`) | POST `/api/v1/message/{id}/release` | NO | YES |The four sibling handlers all share the shape:No `MaxBytesReader`, no body-size cap, no `r.Header.Get("Content-Length")` check. The `json.NewDecoder` streams the body but each `"x"` element materialises as a separate Go `string` plus slice-header overhead, so the unmarshalled `[]string` slice for `IDs` grows roughly linearly with attacker payload size.Vulnerable code`server/apiv1/messages.go:107`:Three other handlers (`DeleteMessages`, `SetMessageTags`, `ReleaseMessage`) match the same shape.Reachability chain (default deploy)`config/config.go`'s `MaxMessageSize` field (added by 136bdde) exists and is parsed from `--max-message-size` (default 50 MB), but it is checked only in `server/apiv1/send.go`. The four sibling handlers never consult it.Reproduction (E2E against `axllent/mailpit:latest` v1.30.0)Observed: a single 16 MB JSON body drove Mailpit RSS from 8.473 MiB to 455.8 MiB (+447 MiB, ~28× amplification). Memory is not freed between requests; repeating the PoC over multiple TCP connections sums per-process until the operator restarts the container or the host memory pressure regime terminates it.The same primitive reproduces on `DELETE /api/v1/messages`, `PUT /api/v1/tags`, and `POST /api/v1/message/{any-id}/release` with identical body shapes; each of the four endpoints individually reproduces the same amplification.Impact**Pre-auth remote memory-exhaustion DoS.** Default-deploy Mailpit (the deployment shape the README documents for dev/CI use) is reachable unauthenticated on `[::]:8025`. A single TCP connection sending one ~100 MB JSON `IDs` body drives RSS to ~2.8 GB. Multiple concurrent connections compound the per-process RSS growth. Class-and-severity match the parent CVE-2026-45710.**Disk amplification (secondary).** The `IDs` slice itself is not persisted to SQLite (unlike the parent GHSA-fpxj message-body path), so disk pressure is limited to whatever the handler does downstream. For `SetReadStatus`, the slice is iterated and an UPDATE is issued for each id; with 4M entries the per-call work is also linear in `len(ids)`.**Same threat model as the parent.** The maintainer chose 50 MB as the default cap for `/api/v1/send` to bound the worst case there. Without the same cap on these sibling endpoints, the per-process worst-case is unbounded.Suggested fixApply the same `MaxBytesReader` pattern already proven on `send.go` to every JSON-body handler. Concretely, wrap each of the four sibling sites:A cleaner shape is to factor the cap into the existing `middleWareFunc` wrapper in `server/server.go`, so every API handler that is not an upload-style endpoint inherits the cap by default.CreditReported by tonghuaroot.
CVSS v3.1 score: 5.3