Enterprise LinuxOperating system · Redhat
CVE-2020-1722
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 · uneditedA flaw was found in all ipa versions 4.x.x through 4.8.0. When sending a very long password (>= 1,000,000 characters) to the server, the password hashing process could exhaust memory and CPU leading to a denial of service and the website becoming unresponsive. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.
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 confidenceA denial-of-service vulnerability exists in IPA (Identity Management) versions 4.8.0 and earlier where submitting an excessively long password (1,000,000+ characters) to the server causes the password hashing process to consume all available memory and CPU, rendering the system unresponsive.
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
Enterprise LinuxOperating system
= 6.0= 7.0= 8.0>= 4.0.0, <= 4.8.0CVSS 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
- High
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/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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Verify FreeIPA packages are installedRun 'rpm -qa | grep -i freeipa' or 'dpkg -l | grep -i freeipa' to list installed FreeIPA packagesAffected if No FreeIPA packages are found, the system is not affected by this vulnerability
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Determine installed FreeIPA versionRun 'rpm -qi freeipa-server' or check the version from package list output to get the exact version numberAffected if The installed version is 4.8.0 or earlier (specifically >= 4.0.0 and <= 4.8.0), indicating the vulnerable version is present
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Confirm IPA server component is activeRun 'systemctl status ipa' or check if 'httpd' service with IPA configuration is running; also verify 'ipa' command is available and the system is enrolled as an IPA serverAffected if The system is running as an IPA server (not just a client), as the vulnerability affects server-side password hashing processing
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Verify IPA password authentication interface is exposedCheck that the IPA web UI or LDAP directory server (port 389/636) is accepting password-based authentication requests; inspect httpd configuration in /etc/httpd/conf.d/ for IPA-related entriesAffected if Password authentication is enabled and accessible, meaning the attack surface for submitting long passwords to the hashing process exists
The system is affected if FreeIPA server version 4.0.0 through 4.8.0 is installed and the IPA password authentication interface is exposed and active.
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 dataImplement input validation to reject passwords exceeding a reasonable maximum length (e.g., 128-256 characters) at the authentication layer, and update IPA to version 4.8.1 or later where the fix was applied.
Fix this in Enterprise Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,224.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-1722 — 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-2020-1722 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
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