Fluentd is Vulnerable to Denial of Service (DoS) via Gzip Decompression Bomb in `in_http` and `in_forward`

Overview

Fluentd's in_http and in_forward plugins support receiving gzip-compressed data. While Fluentd correctly enforces size limits on the incoming compressed payloads (e.g., via body_size_limit or chunk_size_limit), it was discovered that there is no limit enforced on the size of the decompressed data.

If a Fluentd instance is exposed to untrusted networks, an attacker can send a maliciously crafted, highly compressed payload. When Fluentd attempts to decompress this payload in memory, it will expand to an excessive size, completely bypassing the intended payload size limits.

Impact

This vulnerability allows for a Denial of Service (DoS) attack via memory exhaustion. The rapid memory consumption during decompression can easily lead to an Out-of-Memory kill of the Fluentd process by the operating system. This results in the disruption of all log collection and forwarding capabilities on the affected node.

Patches

v1.19.3

Workarounds

If an immediate upgrade is not possible, users are strongly advised to apply the following mitigations:

1. Restrict Network Access
   • Ensure that Fluentd input ports (such as 9880 for in_http and 24224 for in_forward) are deployed within a closed, trusted network. Use firewall rules (e.g., iptables, AWS Security Groups) to block access from untrusted networks or instances.
2. Use a Reverse Proxy
   • If developers must expose HTTP ingestion to external sources, place a robust reverse proxy (such as Nginx) in front of Fluentd. Configure the proxy to handle the gzip decompression and enforce strict limits on both compressed and uncompressed body sizes before passing the traffic to Fluentd.

Affected packages

• fluentd <= 1.19.2

Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release:

• fluentd 1.19.3