Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions vulnerability in Erlang OTP erts (epmd) allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to permanently terminate the Erlang Port Mapper Daemon (epmd) via connection slot exhaustion.
The do_accept function in erts/epmd/src/epmd_srv.c calls epmd_cleanup_exit() when accept(2) returns EMFILE (per-process file descriptor limit reached) or ENFILE (system-wide file descriptor limit reached), rather than treating these as recoverable conditions. An attacker can exhaust epmd's file descriptor slots by holding many TCP connections open while periodically sending a single byte to reset the idle timeout, then causing accept(2) to return EMFILE, which kills the daemon. epmd has no per-source-IP connection cap, making the attack feasible from a single source.
On Debian/Ubuntu default packaging the impact is amplified: the systemd unit inherits a low file descriptor soft limit, and repeated daemon deaths trigger systemd's start-rate-limit, permanently failing both epmd.service and epmd.socket and requiring manual operator intervention to recover.
This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 29.0.4, OTP 28.5.0.4 and OTP 27.3.4.15.
Metrics
Affected Vendors & Products
References
History
Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:15:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
|---|---|---|
| Description | Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions vulnerability in Erlang OTP erts (epmd) allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to permanently terminate the Erlang Port Mapper Daemon (epmd) via connection slot exhaustion. The do_accept function in erts/epmd/src/epmd_srv.c calls epmd_cleanup_exit() when accept(2) returns EMFILE (per-process file descriptor limit reached) or ENFILE (system-wide file descriptor limit reached), rather than treating these as recoverable conditions. An attacker can exhaust epmd's file descriptor slots by holding many TCP connections open while periodically sending a single byte to reset the idle timeout, then causing accept(2) to return EMFILE, which kills the daemon. epmd has no per-source-IP connection cap, making the attack feasible from a single source. On Debian/Ubuntu default packaging the impact is amplified: the systemd unit inherits a low file descriptor soft limit, and repeated daemon deaths trigger systemd's start-rate-limit, permanently failing both epmd.service and epmd.socket and requiring manual operator intervention to recover. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 27.3.4.15, 28.5.0.4, and 29.0.4. | Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions vulnerability in Erlang OTP erts (epmd) allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to permanently terminate the Erlang Port Mapper Daemon (epmd) via connection slot exhaustion. The do_accept function in erts/epmd/src/epmd_srv.c calls epmd_cleanup_exit() when accept(2) returns EMFILE (per-process file descriptor limit reached) or ENFILE (system-wide file descriptor limit reached), rather than treating these as recoverable conditions. An attacker can exhaust epmd's file descriptor slots by holding many TCP connections open while periodically sending a single byte to reset the idle timeout, then causing accept(2) to return EMFILE, which kills the daemon. epmd has no per-source-IP connection cap, making the attack feasible from a single source. On Debian/Ubuntu default packaging the impact is amplified: the systemd unit inherits a low file descriptor soft limit, and repeated daemon deaths trigger systemd's start-rate-limit, permanently failing both epmd.service and epmd.socket and requiring manual operator intervention to recover. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 29.0.4, OTP 28.5.0.4 and OTP 27.3.4.15. |
Mon, 27 Jul 2026 15:30:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
|---|---|---|
| Description | Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions vulnerability in Erlang OTP erts (epmd) allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to permanently terminate the Erlang Port Mapper Daemon (epmd) via connection slot exhaustion. The do_accept function in erts/epmd/src/epmd_srv.c calls epmd_cleanup_exit() when accept(2) returns EMFILE (per-process file descriptor limit reached) or ENFILE (system-wide file descriptor limit reached), rather than treating these as recoverable conditions. An attacker can exhaust epmd's file descriptor slots by holding many TCP connections open while periodically sending a single byte to reset the idle timeout, then causing accept(2) to return EMFILE, which kills the daemon. epmd has no per-source-IP connection cap, making the attack feasible from a single source. On Debian/Ubuntu default packaging the impact is amplified: the systemd unit inherits a low file descriptor soft limit, and repeated daemon deaths trigger systemd's start-rate-limit, permanently failing both epmd.service and epmd.socket and requiring manual operator intervention to recover. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 27.3.4.15, 28.5.0.4, and 29.0.4. | |
| Title | epmd permanent DoS via EMFILE on accept(2) in erts | |
| First Time appeared |
Erlang
Erlang erlang\/otp |
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| Weaknesses | CWE-755 CWE-770 |
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| CPEs | cpe:2.3:a:erlang:erlang\/otp:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | |
| Vendors & Products |
Erlang
Erlang erlang\/otp |
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| References |
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| Metrics |
cvssV4_0
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Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: EEF
Published:
Updated: 2026-07-27T17:26:08.579Z
Reserved: 2026-04-29T18:06:33.251Z
Link: CVE-2026-42792
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OpenCVE Enrichment
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