Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian
CVE-2017-17432
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 · uneditedOpenAFS 1.x before 1.6.22 does not properly validate Rx ack packets, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (system crash or application crash) via crafted fields, as demonstrated by an integer underflow and assertion failure for a small MTU value.
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 confidenceOpenAFS before 1.6.22 fails to properly validate Rx ack packets, allowing remote attackers to send crafted packets with malicious fields that trigger an integer underflow when processing small MTU values, leading to assertion failures and system crash.
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
Debian LinuxOperating system
= 8.0= 9.0>= 1.0, < 1.6.22CVSS 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
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Check if OpenAFS is installedRun 'dpkg -l | grep openafs' on Debian, or 'rpm -qa | grep openafs' on RHEL-based systems, or check for /usr/vice/etc/ directory which contains OpenAFS configuration filesAffected if OpenAFS packages are found on the system
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Identify the installed OpenAFS versionRun 'dpkg -l openafs-client openafs-server 2>/dev/null' or 'rpm -q openafs-client openafs-server' to see the exact version numbers, or check '/usr/vice/etc/ThisCell' for cell configurationAffected if Version is found to be less than 1.6.22 (e.g., 1.6.21, 1.6.0, 1.5.x, etc.)
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Verify the Rx service is listening and exposedRun 'netstat -anp | grep 7000' or 'ss -anp | grep 7000' to check if the Rx service (port 7000-7002 typically) is listening on network interfaces, examine /etc/openafs/ThisCell and /etc/openafs/server/CellServDB for cell configurationAffected if Rx ports (7000-7002) are listening on non-loopback interfaces and OpenAFS version is below 1.6.22
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Confirm the vulnerability trigger conditionReview network exposure: check if OpenAFS servers are reachable from untrusted networks by examining firewall rules 'iptables -L -n' or 'firewall-cmd --list-all', and verify if 'rxbind' or IPsec is configured in /etc/openafs/afs.confAffected if OpenAFS is reachable from untrusted networks and version is below 1.6.22
The system is affected if OpenAFS is installed with version below 1.6.22 AND the Rx service is accessible from network positions where untrusted attackers could send malicious packets.
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 data1.6.22
Upgrade OpenAFS to version 1.6.22 or later to obtain the packet validation fix. If immediate upgrade is not possible, consider network-level filtering to limit exposure of the Rx service to untrusted networks.
Fix this in Debian Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing4.0 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 $2,464.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-17432 — 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-2017-17432 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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