OpenStack Compute (nova)

  1. Bug #1253980
  2. Comment #20

Comment 20 for bug 1253980

Revision history for this message
Thierry Carrez (ttx) wrote : Re: DoS attack via setting os_type in snapshots.

New proposed impact desc:

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Title: Nova compute DoS through ephemeral disk backing files
Reporter: Phil Day (HP)
Products: Nova
Affects: All supported versions

Description:
Phil Day from HP reported a vulnerability in the handling of ephemeral disk backing files on Nova compute nodes. By repeatedly creating snapshots, changing the os_type to a new random value, and spawning new instances from the snapshot (and quickly deleting those instances), an authenticated user could generate lots of different ephemeral disk backing files and fill up compute node disks, potentially resulting in a Denial of Service against a Nova setup.
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@Phil: agreed... waiting for confirmation from other VMT members to go ahead. Would the ephemeral backing files all land on the same server (reaching a state of partial DoS quickly) or be spread across all compute nodes (reaching a state of total DoS but slowly) ?