CVE-2005-4888
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedNWFTPD.nlm before 5.06.04 in the FTP server in Novell NetWare allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (excessive stale connections) by establishing many FTP sessions, which persist in the Not-Logged-In state after each session is completed.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceNWFTPD.nlm in Novell NetWare FTP server versions before 5.06.04 fails to properly terminate FTP sessions after completion, leaving connections in a 'Not-Logged-In' state. Remote attackers can exploit this by rapidly establishing many FTP sessions that persist as stale connections, exhausting server resources and causing denial of service.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE dataall versionsall versionsCVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Verify NWFTPD.nlm is loadedAt the NetWare server console, type 'modules' or 'nlm' to list loaded NLMs. Look for NWFTPD.nlm in the list of active modules.Affected if NWFTPD.nlm is not loaded means the FTP server is not running and this specific CVE does not apply.
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Check NWFTPD.nlm versionAt the NetWare console, type 'version nwftpd.nlm' or check the module information to retrieve the exact version number.Affected if The version is before 5.06.04 (or if the version command fails and the module is loaded but unpatched).
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Monitor for stale Not-Logged-In connectionsUse the NetWare console command 'nlist ftp' or FTP server management tools to view active FTP connections. Look for connections remaining in a 'Not-Logged-In' state after session completion.Affected if Multiple connections are observed stuck in 'Not-Logged-In' state, indicating the resource leak is occurring.
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Check server resource consumptionMonitor available connections and memory using 'nlist connections' or console monitoring tools. Compare current connection counts against baseline levels.Affected if Connection counts are abnormally high or memory is being consumed by lingering FTP sessions.
You are affected if NWFTPD.nlm is loaded and its version is before 5.06.04, or if you observe persistent stale Not-Logged-In connections accumulating on the server.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpdate NWFTPD.nlm to version 5.06.04 or later to patch the connection cleanup flaw. Consider implementing connection rate limiting or firewall rules to restrict rapid session establishment from untrusted sources as an interim measure.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2005-4888 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2005-4888 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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