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MEDIUM5.3

GHSA-g94r-2vxg-569j

OpenTelemetry dotnet: Excessive memory allocation when parsing OpenTelemetry propagation headers

Quick fix

GHSA-g94r-2vxg-569j — OpenTelemetry.Api: upgrade to the fixed version with the command below.

dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Api --version 1.15.3

Details

### Summary

The implementation details of the baggage, B3 and Jaeger processing code in the `OpenTelemetry.Api` and `OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Propagators` NuGet packages can allocate excessive memory when parsing which could create a potential denial of service (DoS) in the consuming application.

### Details

#### Exceeding Limits

[`BaggagePropagator.Inject<T>()`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet/blob/fc1a2864d1665bda857089e11fe9247e3c75637a/src/OpenTelemetry.Api/Context/Propagation/BaggagePropagator.cs#L93-L112) does not enforce the length limit of `8192` characters if the injected baggage contains only one item.

This change was introduced by #1048.

#### Excessive allocation

The following methods eagerly allocate intermediate arrays before applying size limits.

- [`BaggagePropagator.Extract<T>()`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet/blob/888d1bf2489fb7408d3c5e8758a5bbffa89a8fb2/src/OpenTelemetry.Api/Context/Propagation/BaggagePropagator.cs#L52-L55) - this change was introduced by #1048. - [`BaggagePropagator.Inject<T>()`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet/blob/888d1bf2489fb7408d3c5e8758a5bbffa89a8fb2/src/OpenTelemetry.Api/Context/Propagation/BaggagePropagator.cs#L138-L157) - this change was introduced by #1048. - [`B3Propagator.Extract<T>()`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet/blob/888d1bf2489fb7408d3c5e8758a5bbffa89a8fb2/src/OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Propagators/B3Propagator.cs#L203-L207) - this change was introduced by #533. - [`B3Propagator.Extract<T>()`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet/blob/888d1bf2489fb7408d3c5e8758a5bbffa89a8fb2/src/OpenTelemetry.Api/Context/Propagation/B3Propagator.cs#L204-L214) - this change was introduced by #3244. - [`JaegerPropagator.Extract<T>()`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet/blob/888d1bf2489fb7408d3c5e8758a5bbffa89a8fb2/src/OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Propagators/JaegerPropagator.cs#L150-L154) - this change was introduced by #3309.

### Impact

Excessively large propagation headers, particularly in degenerate/malformed cases that consist or large numbers of delimiter characters, can allocate excessive amounts of memory for intermediate storage of parsed content relative to the size of the original input.

### Mitigation

HTTP servers often set maximum limits on the length of HTTP request headers, such as [Internet Information Services (IIS)](https://learn.microsoft.com/iis/configuration/system.webserver/security/requestfiltering/requestlimits/headerlimits/) which sets a default limit of 16KB and [nginx](https://nginx.org/docs/http/ngx_http_core_module.html#large_client_header_buffers) which sets a default limit of 8KB.

### Workarounds

Possible workarounds include:

- Configuring appropriate HTTP request header limits. - Disabling baggage and/or trace propagation.

### Remediation

[#7061](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet/pull/7061) refactors the handling of baggage, B3 and Jaeger propagation headers to stop parsing eagerly when limits are exceeded and avoid allocating intermediate arrays.

Are you affected?

Enter the version of the package you're using.

Affected packages

NuGet/OpenTelemetry.Api
Introduced in: 0.5.0-beta.2Fixed in: 1.15.3
Fixdotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Api --version 1.15.3
NuGet/OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Propagators
Introduced in: 1.3.1Fixed in: 1.15.3
Fixdotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Propagators --version 1.15.3

References