Description
Varnish Cache 9 before 9.0.1 allows a "workspace overflow" denial of service (daemon panic) after timeout_linger. A malicious client could send an HTTP/1 request, wait long enough until the session releases its worker thread (timeout_linger) and resume traffic before the session is closed (timeout_idle) sending more than one request at once to trigger a pipelining operation between requests. This vulnerability affecting Varnish Cache 9.0.0 emerged from a port of the Varnish Enterprise non-blocking architecture for HTTP/2. New code was needed to adapt to a more recent workspace API that formalizes the pipelining operation. In addition to the workspace change on the Varnish Cache side, other differences created merge conflicts, like partial support for trailers in Varnish Enterprise. The conflict resolution missed one code path configuring pipelining to perform a complete workspace rollback, losing the guarantee that prefetched data would fit inside workspace_client during the transition from one request to the next. This can result in a workspace overflow, triggering a panic and crashing the Varnish server.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| varnish-software | Varnish Cache | 9.0.0 – < 9.0.1 | 9.0.1 |
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 26.10 | varnish | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 26.04 LTS | varnish | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 25.10 | varnish | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 24.04 LTS | varnish | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 14.04 LTS | varnish | No fix yet | — |
Show 4 more (older releases, extended support, other products)Fewer releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS | varnish | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS | varnish | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS | varnish | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS | varnish | No fix yet | — |
Advisories 1
- WID-SEC-2026-1061 Varnish HTTP Cache: Mehrere Schwachstellen ermöglichen Denial of Service BSI CERT-Bund (WID) · Apr 12, 2026