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GlanceApplication · Openstack

CVE-2016-8611

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.0 Published 2018-07-31
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
71/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable Zero-click

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 · unedited
A vulnerability was found in Openstack Glance. No limits are enforced within the Glance image service for both v1 and v2 `/images` API POST method for authenticated users, resulting in possible denial of service attacks through database table saturation.

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 confidence

The OpenStack Glance image service lacks rate limiting on the v1 and v2 `/images` POST API endpoints. Authenticated users can repeatedly POST image metadata without restriction, potentially saturating the database with image records and causing denial of service through database table exhaustion.

MitigationImplement rate limiting on the Glance `/images` POST API methods to restrict the number of image creation requests per user within a configurable time window.

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 data
GlanceApplication
Affected:all versions

CVSS 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
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify Glance service presence and API version
    Check if OpenStack Glance is deployed in your environment by querying the service catalog or checking for running glance-api processes
    Affected if Glance service is running and exposed without any rate limiting mechanism in place
  2. Determine if rate limiting is configured on POST /images endpoints
    Examine the Glance API configuration files (typically glance-api.conf) for rate_limit related settings under the [keystone_authtoken] or [ratelimit] sections, or check the API policy configuration
    Affected if No rate limit parameters are defined for the POST /images API methods in the Glance configuration
  3. Verify API endpoint exposure
    List the registered Glance API endpoints from the OpenStack Keystone service catalog or inspect the web server/proxy configuration that fronts Glance
    Affected if The /images POST endpoints (both v1 and v2) are accessible without any upstream rate limiting enforced at the load balancer or web server level
  4. Check for database image record accumulation
    Query the Glance database for unusually high numbers of image records, or monitor for rapid growth in the images table over a short time period
    Affected if The database contains an excessive number of image metadata records relative to expected usage patterns, indicating potential abuse of the unbounded POST endpoint
  5. Review API request logging and metrics
    Inspect Glance API access logs or monitoring metrics for patterns of repeated POST requests to /images from the same authenticated user
    Affected if Logging or metrics show high-frequency POST requests to /images from individual users without throttling

Your environment is affected if Glance v1 or v2 /images POST endpoints are accessible and no rate limiting is configured at the Glance API, Keystone, or upstream proxy level to restrict request frequency per user.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Implement rate limiting on the Glance `/images` POST API methods to restrict the number of image creation requests per user within a configurable time window.

Fix this in Glance Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
13.0 hours of engineering $2,290
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2016-8611 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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