DOSing PostgreSQL :-(

During my PostgreSQL coding last weekend I found a fairly horrible DOS in a library that PostgreSQL can be compiled with. It's totally exploitable to a DOS (double-free) in a PostgreSQL environment, and the user doesn't need to be authenticated to do it. The crashed backend will cause the postmaster to kick out all other backends and restart then - not good!

The good news is that it's not compiled-in by default, and even if you compile it in, you also have to explicitly enable it to become vulnerable.

Also, the guys with the library responded really fast (hours) and I expect a complete advisory along with a patched version to be out sometime the end of this week or beginning of next. At which times full details will be available...

In summary, there is nothing wrong with PostgreSQL here - it's just a vector to exploit the vulnerability in the library. So there will be no PostgreSQL security patch...


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