CVE-2009-5111
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 · uneditedGoAhead WebServer allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon outage) via partial HTTP requests, as demonstrated by Slowloris.
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 confidenceGoAhead WebServer is vulnerable to a denial of service attack via partial HTTP requests that keep connections open without completing the HTTP handshake. The Slowloris-style attack exhausts server connection limits by sending headers slowly or incompletely, causing the daemon to become unavailable to legitimate users.
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 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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Identify if GoAhead WebServer is runningCheck for GoAhead processes using 'ps aux | grep goahead' or 'tasklist | findstr goahead' on WindowsAffected if The GoAhead WebServer process is running and responds to HTTP requests
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Determine the installed GoAhead WebServer versionRun 'goahead -v' or check the binary version with 'goahead --version', or inspect the executable file propertiesAffected if Any version of GoAhead WebServer is installed (all versions are affected)
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Locate the GoAhead WebServer configuration fileCommon paths include /etc/goahead/goahead.conf, /usr/local/goahead/config.goahead, or check the process command line for a -c configfile optionAffected if A configuration file exists and is being used by the server
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Check for header-receive timeout settingsInspect the configuration file for directives such as 'Timeout', 'HeaderTimeout', 'MaxRequestTime', or similar timeout-related settingsAffected if No timeout directives are configured, or timeout values are set excessively high (e.g., above 30 seconds)
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Check for connection limit settingsSearch the configuration for 'MaxConnections', 'Limit', 'MaxClients', or connection pool settingsAffected if No connection limits are defined or configured
A user is affected if GoAhead WebServer is running with default or missing timeout and connection limit configurations, allowing incomplete HTTP connections to exhaust server resources.
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 dataConfigure appropriate connection and header-receive timeouts in GoAhead WebServer to drop incomplete connections faster, implement rate limiting on incoming connections, and consider updating to a patched version of the software if available.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing1.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,744.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2009-5111 — 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-2009-5111 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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A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- 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
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data