Netty HAProxy: Unbalanced Reference Count in Nested PP2_TYPE_SSL TLV Parsing Leads to Memory Exhaustion
- When
- Where
- Global (internet)
- Category
- cyber_advisory · maven
### Impact The HAProxy PROXY protocol v2 codec in netty leaks native or heap memory on every connection when a client sends a syntactically valid header containing nested `PP2_TYPE_SSL` TLVs (type-length-value records) at depth two or greater. The leak occurs on the successful parse path — no exception is thrown, the message fires downstream, the decoder removes itself, and the application releases the `HAProxyMessage` normally. Yet the underlying cumulation buffer (a pooled, potentially direct `ByteBuf` allocated by the channel) remains permanently pinned.
Sources
- GitHub Advisory Database ↗ · first seen 2026-06-11 20:19 UTC
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