brew-livereload-cve-2026-82397
Vulnerability from osv_homebrew
Summary
Tornado parses application/x-www-form-urlencoded bodies with urllib.parse.parse_qs and does not pass max_num_fields. A body made almost entirely of separators produces tens of millions of fields, and the parse happens on the event loop before the handler runs, so a single request stalls the whole server.
Where it is
tornado/escape.py, at HEAD e530031405e2154654dedc4c84d5656b557ea310:
result = urllib.parse.parse_qs(
qs, keep_blank_values, strict_parsing, encoding="latin1", errors="strict"
)
max_num_fields is the parameter CPython added for exactly this, and it is absent.
The path to it is entirely server-side and pre-dispatch. RequestHandler._execute parses the body at tornado/web.py:1821, which reaches HTTPServerRequest._parse_body at tornado/httputil.py:636, and the urlencoded branch of parse_body_arguments calls parse_qs_bytes at tornado/httputil.py:1030.
The size that reaches it is bounded only by the body cap, which defaults to the stream's max_buffer_size of 104857600 at tornado/iostream.py:239, applied as the request body default at tornado/http1connection.py:136-140. A 100 MB body of separators is around fifty million fields.
Impact
Denial of service against the whole process, not one request. Tornado is single-threaded and the parse is synchronous on the event loop, so every other connection waits. No authentication is needed if any route accepts a form post, which is the normal case.
Suggested fix
Pass a bound:
result = urllib.parse.parse_qs(
qs, keep_blank_values, strict_parsing, encoding="latin1", errors="strict",
max_num_fields=max_num_fields,
)
with a conservative default and a way for applications to raise it. CPython raises ValueError when the limit is exceeded, which maps cleanly onto a 400.
Lowering the default body cap for urlencoded specifically would help too, since 100 MB of form fields is not a shape any real client sends.
Why I do not think this is a duplicate
The published tornado advisories cover out-of-bounds access in the C extension, unbounded accumulation of decompressed chunks in AsyncHTTPClient, the Authorization header surviving cross-origin redirects, credential leakage on curl handle reuse, and cookie attribute validation. The decompression one is the nearest in spirit and is on the client side; this is the server parsing a request body. The call is unchanged at HEAD.
{
"affected": [
{
"ecosystem_specific": {
"fix": "bump",
"range_state": "fixed",
"resource": "tornado",
"resource_purl": "pkg:pypi/tornado@6.5.8",
"upstream_fixed_in": "6.5.8"
},
"package": {
"ecosystem": "Homebrew",
"name": "livereload",
"purl": "pkg:brew/livereload"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.7.1_3"
}
],
"type": "ECOSYSTEM"
}
]
}
],
"database_specific": {
"confidence": "high",
"source": "matched",
"strategy": "registry",
"upstream_evidence": [
{
"ecosystem": "PyPI",
"key": "pkg:pypi/tornado@6.5.8",
"name": "tornado",
"resource": "tornado",
"strategy": "registry",
"subject_version": "6.5.8"
}
]
},
"details": "## Summary\n\nTornado parses `application/x-www-form-urlencoded` bodies with `urllib.parse.parse_qs` and does not pass `max_num_fields`. A body made almost entirely of separators produces tens of millions of fields, and the parse happens on the event loop before the handler runs, so a single request stalls the whole server.\n\n## Where it is\n\n`tornado/escape.py`, at HEAD `e530031405e2154654dedc4c84d5656b557ea310`:\n\n```python\nresult = urllib.parse.parse_qs(\n qs, keep_blank_values, strict_parsing, encoding=\"latin1\", errors=\"strict\"\n)\n```\n\n`max_num_fields` is the parameter CPython added for exactly this, and it is absent.\n\nThe path to it is entirely server-side and pre-dispatch. `RequestHandler._execute` parses the body at `tornado/web.py:1821`, which reaches `HTTPServerRequest._parse_body` at `tornado/httputil.py:636`, and the urlencoded branch of `parse_body_arguments` calls `parse_qs_bytes` at `tornado/httputil.py:1030`.\n\nThe size that reaches it is bounded only by the body cap, which defaults to the stream\u0027s `max_buffer_size` of 104857600 at `tornado/iostream.py:239`, applied as the request body default at `tornado/http1connection.py:136-140`. A 100 MB body of separators is around fifty million fields.\n\n## Impact\n\nDenial of service against the whole process, not one request. Tornado is single-threaded and the parse is synchronous on the event loop, so every other connection waits. No authentication is needed if any route accepts a form post, which is the normal case.\n\n## Suggested fix\n\nPass a bound:\n\n```python\nresult = urllib.parse.parse_qs(\n qs, keep_blank_values, strict_parsing, encoding=\"latin1\", errors=\"strict\",\n max_num_fields=max_num_fields,\n)\n```\n\nwith a conservative default and a way for applications to raise it. CPython raises `ValueError` when the limit is exceeded, which maps cleanly onto a 400.\n\nLowering the default body cap for urlencoded specifically would help too, since 100 MB of form fields is not a shape any real client sends.\n\n## Why I do not think this is a duplicate\n\nThe published tornado advisories cover out-of-bounds access in the C extension, unbounded accumulation of decompressed chunks in `AsyncHTTPClient`, the Authorization header surviving cross-origin redirects, credential leakage on curl handle reuse, and cookie attribute validation. The decompression one is the nearest in spirit and is on the client side; this is the server parsing a request body. The call is unchanged at HEAD.",
"id": "BREW-livereload-CVE-2026-82397",
"modified": "2026-09-10T19:42:54Z",
"published": "2026-09-03T09:21:24Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/tornadoweb/tornado/security/advisories/GHSA-mpf4-983q-p7j4"
},
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-82397"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/tornadoweb/tornado/pull/3704"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/tornadoweb/tornado/commit/8d6363ed7b69d5f0da806efe34d256627a2191de"
},
{
"type": "PACKAGE",
"url": "https://github.com/tornadoweb/tornado"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/tornadoweb/tornado/releases/tag/v6.5.8"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.7.3",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
}
],
"summary": " Tornado: Urlencoded body parsing omits max_num_fields, so one request can stall the event loop",
"upstream": [
"GHSA-mpf4-983q-p7j4",
"CVE-2026-82397",
"PYSEC-2026-3928"
]
}
Sightings
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|---|
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