Medium severity · published Dec 18, 2025
CVE-2025-59529
Avahi: simple protocol server ignores accepts unlimited connections and logs failures without limit
5.5
CVSS
0.2%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Avahi is a system which facilitates service discovery on a local network via the mDNS/DNS-SD protocol suite. In versions up to and including 0.9-rc5, the simple protocol server ignores the documented client limit and accepts unlimited connections, allowing for easy local DoS. Although `CLIENTS_MAX` is defined, `server_work()` unconditionally `accept()`s and `client_new()` always appends the new client and increments `n_clients`. There is no check against the limit. When client cannot be accepted as a result of maximal socket number of avahi-daemon, it logs unconditionally error per each connection. Unprivileged local users can exhaust daemon memory and file descriptors, causing a denial of service system-wide for mDNS/DNS-SD. Exhausting local file descriptors causes increased system load caused by logging errors of each of request. Overloading prevents glibc calls using nss-mdns plugins to resolve `*.local.` names and link-local addresses. As of time of publication, no known patched versions are available, but a candidate fix is available in pull request 808, and some workarounds are available. Simple clients are offered for nss-mdns package functionality. It is not possible to disable the unix socket `/run/avahi-daemon/socket`, but resolution requests received via DBus are not affected directly. Tools avahi-resolve, avahi-resolve-address and avahi-resolve-host-name are not affected, they use DBus interface. It is possible to change permissions of unix socket after avahi-daemon is started. But avahi-daemon does not provide any configuration for it. Additional access restrictions like SELinux can also prevent unwanted tools to access the socket and keep resolution working for trusted users.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.2% · higher than 13% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
AV
avahi · avahi
<= 0.9-rc5 · source: vendor, NVD
Affected product
AV
avahi
avahi
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