Avahi is a system which facilitates service discovery on a local network via the mDNS/DNS-SD protocol suite. In 0.9-rc2 and earlier, an unprivileged local users can crash avahi-daemon (with wide-area disabled) by creating record browsers with the AVAHI_LOOKUP_USE_WIDE_AREA flag set via D-Bus. This can be done by either calling the RecordBrowserNew method directly or creating hostname/address/service resolvers/browsers that create those browsers internally themselves.
The product contains an assert() or similar statement that can be triggered by an attacker, which leads to an application exit or other behavior that is more severe than necessary.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avahi | Avahi | * | 0.9 (excluding) |
| Avahi | Avahi | 0.9-rc1 (including) | 0.9-rc1 (including) |
| Avahi | Ubuntu | esm-infra-legacy/trusty | * |
| Avahi | Ubuntu | esm-infra/bionic | * |
| Avahi | Ubuntu | esm-infra/focal | * |
| Avahi | Ubuntu | esm-infra/xenial | * |
| Avahi | Ubuntu | jammy | * |
| Avahi | Ubuntu | noble | * |
| Avahi | Ubuntu | plucky | * |
| Avahi | Ubuntu | questing | * |
While assertion is good for catching logic errors and reducing the chances of reaching more serious vulnerability conditions, it can still lead to a denial of service. For example, if a server handles multiple simultaneous connections, and an assert() occurs in one single connection that causes all other connections to be dropped, this is a reachable assertion that leads to a denial of service.